TAIPEI (Taiwan News) — Trump's pick for Secretary of State Senator Marco Rubio Wednesday said the US must show China the cost of invading Taiwan is too high.
During his Senate confirmation hearing, Senator Jeff Merkley, who visited Taiwan late last year, asked Rubio whether he supports the porcupine strategy. Merkley then cited the Taiwan Relations Act when asking if this would include the US supplying “defense articles and defense services in such quantity as may be necessary to enable Taiwan to maintain a sufficient self-defense capability.”
Rubio began by saying the US seeks to deter China by making “the cost of invading Taiwan higher than the benefit.” He emphasized that this approach is vital not just to defending Taiwan but also to "preventing a cataclysmic military intervention in the Indo-Pacific.”
Rubio cautioned against relying solely on official English translations of Chinese leader Xi Jinping’s (習近平) statements, as these translations are often imprecise. “You have to read the real translation on what they actually said in their native tongue,” Rubio said.
Rubio said the essence of Xi's pronouncements is that Taiwan is a “foundational and definitional issue for Xi Jinping personally.” He warned that unless a dramatic shift occurs, such as a change in equilibrium in which Beijing perceives the price of invading Taiwan as too high, "we're going to have to deal with this before the end of this decade."
Following the confirmation hearing, the Senate Foreign Relations Committee will vote on Rubio's nomination. If approved, the nomination will proceed to the full Senate for deliberation and voting, requiring a majority to pass.
In contrast to some of Trump’s more controversial cabinet picks, Rubio's path to confirmation is expected to be smooth as he drew bipartisan support from Senate Foreign Relations Committee members on Wednesday, per NPR. Committee Chair Jim Risch expressed confidence in Rubio's qualifications for the post, while Senator Jeanne Shaheen, the top foreign relations Democrat said, “I believe you have the skills and are well qualified to serve as secretary of state,” per Reuters.
If officially confirmed, Rubio would become the first US secretary of state sanctioned by China and the first Latino to take the post.
In 2017, former Chief of the General Staff Lee Hsi-ming (李喜明) began implementing an asymmetric strategy for Taiwan's defense dubbed the porcupine strategy, per Business Insider. This includes the use of multiple layers of large numbers of lighter weapons such as mines, anti-ship missiles, portable air defense systems, and missile corvettes to inflict a prohibitively high cost on invading PLA forces.
