POLICY BRIEF | JULY 2022
AN AMERICAN PERSPECTIVE
ON THE ROLE OF TAIWAN IN
US-CHINA RELATIONS
RYAN HASS
1FOREIGN POLICY AT BROOKINGS
Executive summary
Tensions in the Taiwan Strait are spiraling and have
been since before Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
Communication channels for managing tensions
have collapsed. Each of the main players — China,
Taiwan, and the United States — believe it is acting
prudently to protect its interests in the face of
escalatory actions from the other side of the Strait.
Ofcials and analysts increasingly are competing to
forecast when conict could break out, not whether
it will occur.
Taiwan is one of a small number of issues that has
the potential to spark conict between the United
States and China. Given the stakes, it is essential for
American policymakers to return to rst principles
for evaluating events, understanding America’s vital
interests, and identifying the center of gravity for
developments in the Taiwan Strait.
One should expect Beijing to remain bloody-minded
in its determination to unify Taiwan with the main-
land. The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) has
sought to achieve unication since its establishment
of the People’s Republic of China (PRC) in 1949.
There are no signs that Beijing will waver from this
goal in the foreseeable future. Cross-Strait tensions
likely will intensify in the coming years. This will
reduce the margin of error for U.S. policy actions on
Taiwan.
This paper argues that the future of Taiwan will
turn on whether the people of Taiwan can maintain
condence in their future. Condence is the essen-
tial ingredient to gird the Taiwan people to resist
fatalistic conclusions that resistance is futile and
instead protect their autonomy and democratic
way of life until such time as peaceful, uncoerced
solutions emerge to resolve cross-Strait differences.
Since 2016, the PRC has intensied its campaign of
coercion to undermine the Taiwan people’s con-
dence in Taiwan’s future autonomy and democratic
way of life. For the United States to preserve its
abiding interest in upholding peace and stability
in the Taiwan Strait, it will need to visibly support
efforts to enable Taiwan to enjoy dignity, security,
and prosperity, even as it also maintains a credible
military presence around Taiwan.
