TAIPEI (Taiwan News) — The US should ramp up naval passages in the Taiwan Strait, Joseph Bosco, former China director for the US Secretary of Defense, said in an opinion article published in The Hill on Tuesday (Aug. 13).
To counter China’s expanding military activities in the strait, the US should “incrementally increase the number and size of ships in the transits until they reach the full complement of a naval battle group,” Bosco said. The US Navy conducts freedom of navigation operations using smaller ships.
The former official suggested that US President Joe Biden may be changing tack on America’s strategic ambiguity towards intervening in a cross-strait conflict. However, this has not dissuaded Beijing from escalating regional tensions, Bosco said, adding, Biden has a few months left to remove any ambiguity in the US’ policy on Taiwan.
China implemented an anti-access/area denial strategy by building an arsenal of anti-ship ballistic missiles and fleet of attack submarines, Bosco said. “Xi Jinping must be made to understand the consequences of fresh aggression in the Indo-Pacific,” he said.
In Biden’s phone call with Xi in April, the US president reiterated the importance of maintaining peace and stability in the Taiwan Strait and emphasized the rule of law and freedom of navigation in the South China Sea. In an interview with Time Magazine in May, Biden said he was “not ruling out using US military force” in the event of a Taiwan conflict.
