WASHINGTON, D.C.— In light of conditions created by the Afghan debacle and the Chinese Communist Party’s increasingly aggressive response to them with respect to Taiwan, the Committee on the Present Danger: China (CPDC) sent President Biden today an updated plan for discouraging PRC aggression against the freedom-loving Taiwanese people. It lays out six practical, near-term measures that would enhance the deterrent capabilities by bringing additional U.S. forces to bear in the region and quickly augment Taiwan’s capacity to provide for its own defense.
The need for the CPDC’s recommended actions has grown inexorably as the People’s Liberation Army has mounted ever larger and more threatening naval and air maneuvers in immediate proximity to Taiwan. Such operations not only pose an intensifying danger in their own right. They can also be used to obscure indicators and warnings of imminent hostilities.
First and foremost, the Committee recommends that the United States “retire the policy of ‘strategic ambiguity’ that invites miscalculation by China. Washington should clearly declare unambiguously that, in accordance with the Taiwan Relations Act (TRA), Taiwan will be defended, if necessary, with overwhelming U.S. and allied nation military action, against any aggression or coercion from China.”
In a letter transmitting the latest CPDC recommendations to the President, his senior national security subordinates and key legislators, Committee Chairman Brian T. Kennedy wrote: “We call upon you to take such practical, visible and necessary steps at once, both to signal to America’s allies and to her enemies in China and elsewhere that America can be counted upon to impose unacceptable costs for acts of aggression against the freedom-loving people of Taiwan.”
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