lørdag 19. februar 2022

Gordon Chang: Deterring China, Mission Possible

On February 15, embarrassed Taiwan military officials publicly admitted that a Chinese Harbin Y-12 utility plane had flown close to Dongyin, an outlying island about 30 miles from China's coast, but maintained the aircraft had not entered sovereign Taiwanese airspace. They said China appeared to have been testing Taiwan's air defenses.Ten days earlier, Dongyin residents reported that they had seen the plane fly at a low altitude directly over their island.

The residents' accounts of the incident appear credible. If they're accurate, the incursion represented a significant escalation, the first time in more than four decades that China flew into Taiwan's territorial airspace without permission. Deterrence of China in any event is breaking down. Beijing is not honoring, among other things, its heavily promoted "Olympic Truce."

How can America maintain stability in Asia with China's increasingly provocative behavior? Obviously conventional strategies are not working, and ideas once considered extreme look increasingly attractive. After three decades of deeply misguided policies, Washington now has no risk-free options.