BACKGROUNDER
No. 3725 | SEPTEMBER 23, 2022
ASIAN STUDIES CENTER
This paper, in its entirety, can be found at http://report.heritage.org/bg3725
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Why Taiwan Matters to Beijing
Dean Cheng
Nowhere else do U.S. interests and the
Chinese Communist Party’s malevolent
ambitions come to a clearer flashpoint
than in the Taiwan Strait.
KEY TAKEAWAYS
Seizing Taiwan would cement CCP control
of the Western Pacific, threaten critical
U.S. interests, and give the CCP unprece-
dented leverage over the global economy.
To deter China, the U.S. must expand
its own military capabilities in the Indo-
Pacific and provide robust political,
diplomatic, and military aid to Taiwan.
A
merican national security demands that
even as attention is concentrated on
Europe and Russia’s invasion of Ukraine,
sucient attention must be paid to the People’s
Republic of China (PRC), and especially the
Taiwan Strait, to ensure that Beijing does not “bur-
glarize during the house fire [chen huo da jie; 乘火
打劫].” Geopolitical, economic, and technological
considerations all militate in favor of sustaining
American deterrence against any Chinese eort to
seize the island.
With the Russian invasion of Ukraine, there has
been growing concern about the potential for conflict
in the Taiwan Strait. Some fear that the West’s atten-
tion will be so focused on the war between Russia
and Ukraine that China will be emboldened to strike
opportunistically.
