Commentary
Melanie W. Sisson of the Talbott Center for Security, Strategy, and Technology on Feb. 7 told the House Armed Services Committee, “Under the rule of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), the People’s Republic of China (PRC) is seeking to expand its influence culturally, economically, politically, and militarily,”
In President Joe Biden’s Feb. 7 State of the Union address, he identified the opioid crisis as a national security threat, calling for greater border security. What the president was referring to was the fact that China is providing precursor chemicals to the Mexican drug cartels, which manufacture the drugs and bring them up through the southern border. Its support for the synthetic drug crisis, laundering money for drug cartels, and state-sponsored hacking, are just some of the ways the CCP poses a threat to the United States. The U.S. intelligence community—the FBI, DEA, and Homeland Security—are all aware of these problems, and are taking steps to counter them. The more visible threat to the United States is the expansion of the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) and a possible invasion of Taiwan.
In the face of all of these threats, Biden confirmed that the United States would continue to stand firm against the CCP, modernizing our military and spending what we need to for defense. So far, the U.S. defense budget for this year is already the largest in history. He also alluded to the chip ban and the push for U.S. innovation, saying that the United States was investing in its allies and preventing advanced technologies from being “used against us.” He concluded by saying that the United States was now in a better position than it had been for decades to compete with China or any other nation.
On the same day as the State of the Union, the House Armed Services Committee heard a presentation by a representative of the Brookings Institute regarding the latest assessment of the China threat. Brookings confirmed that while there has been increased aggression on the part of the CCP directed at Taiwan, Washington has not altered its stance on the issue, maintaining the same strategic ambiguity it has for decades. This means that the United States does not have an opinion on whether or not Taiwan belongs to China, but that the matter must be settled peacefully, between the two sides. To this end, the United States sells weapons and provides protection for Taiwan to defend itself. According to Brookings, however, the PLA has developed to such a level that the United States can no longer be certain that it could win in all scenarios of war for Taiwan.
Taiwan's Air Force's Mirage 2000-5 aircraft at Hsinchu Air Base in Hsinchu, Taiwan, on Jan. 11, 2023. Ann Wang/Reuters
The 2022 U.S. Department of Defense (DOD) Report on Military and Security Developments Involving the People’s Republic of China identified the CCP as “the most consequential and systemic challenge to U.S. national security and the free and open international system.” The DOD found that the PLA had achieved its 2020 modernization goals. In 2021, the CCP increasingly utilized the PLA to carry out overseas objectives. And now that the first stage of modernization has been completed, the PLA has set its sights on its next goal “to accelerate the integrated development of mechanization, informatization, and intelligentization of the armed forces” by 2027. This includes the PLA’s nuclear, space, counterspace, electronic warfare (EW), and cyberspace operations.
Any attempt by the United States to present overwhelming force in the Taiwan Strait would cause such a redirection of resources as to hamper the U.S. ability to operate elsewhere as a global power. Instead, the United States encourages Taiwan to adopt defense plans that force the PLA into suboptimal strategies, which would result in the greatest losses for Beijing. At the same time, the overwhelming superiority of the United States in other parts of the world, particularly the Middle East, means that if the Chinese regime were to invade Taiwan, or if a conflict broke out between the United States and China somewhere else, the United States would be able to cut off the CCP’s access to oil and energy.
The ability to deprive Beijing of energy and to impose crippling economic sanctions are weapons that the United States retains in its arsenal and that the CCP has no answer for. Additionally, these are weapons that can be deployed, without the United States committing itself to participation in a war. CCP leader Xi Jinping knows that he needs money to complete the proposed modernization of the PLA. If he invades Taiwan, he would want his country to continue to thrive and develop economically. So surely, the sanctions that have been imposed on Russia, combined with the U.S. ability to halt China’s trade and manufacturing, must serve as a deterrent.
Furthermore, the PLA is not the only army that is modernizing and improving its capabilities. The U.S. defense budget of $750 billion dwarfs that of China, which stands at $237 billion. And despite all of Xi’s military rhetoric, the United States could just cut off the financial taps and leave Xi’s expensive army and his population high and dry.
Views expressed in this article are opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Epoch Times.
