Taiwan warns 2024 will be a ‘year of uncertainty’ before Xi meets Biden
In rare comments, President Tsai’s top national security adviser says America is using ‘all possible ways’ to help Taiwan defend itself.
Taipei’s top national security official has warned 2024 will be a “year of uncertainty” but said the US was using “all possible ways” to help the island defend itself from Beijing, in rare comments before Xi Jinping meets Joe Biden in San Francisco.
Taiwan’s future is set to be the most contentious on the agenda of a highly-anticipated four-hour meeting between the American and Chinese presidents on Thursday (AEST).
Ahead of that encounter, Wellington Koo, secretary-general of President Tsai Ing-wen’s National Security Council, spoke with unprecedented frankness about Washington’s efforts to strengthen Taiwan’s self-defences in his first briefing with foreign journalists.
“They are not just discussing it with us but taking action …. [Our] relationship on these security issues is so close, but we must keep a low profile,” Mr Koo said on Tuesday from the Presidential Office Building in Taipei.
“I can only say, they are using all possible ways to help us, no matter if it’s in training or the build-up of asymmetric fighting capabilities.”
At their meeting last November in Bali, Mr Xi warned Mr Biden not to “play with fire” over Taiwan. Beijing has long been infuriated by America’s security ties to Taipei, which have continued even after Washington ended official relations in 1979. Mr Biden has repeatedly said the US would defend Taiwan in the event of an attack by China.
Ahead of their second in-person meeting during the Biden presidency, both Washington and Beijing have signalled they will not compromise on Taiwan.
“The Chinese side will of course not make any concessions [on Taiwan],” Mr Koo said. “But the US cannot make any concessions to China on it either because it is a core interest to the US.”
However, he welcomed the meeting as an opportunity for Washington to “manage risks” with Beijing, during a period of unprecedented military activity around the island.
Taiwan’s 24 million people will vote in a presidential election in January, raising fears about how Beijing will respond if current Vice-President William Lai wins a third term for the ruling Democratic Progressive Party. “Next year is a year of uncertainty,” Mr Koo told a select group of international media, including The Australian.
Mr Xi’s government severed all high-level political contact with Taipei since Ms Tsai was elected in 2016.
In the lead up to the coming election, Beijing has denounced Mr Lai as a “separatist and “troublemaker”.
Mr Koo said he did not think China had decided to “take military action” after the January 13 election.
“We have not seen that they are making preparations or have the capability for that yet,” he said.
He also dismissed the 2027 deadline that some American defence officials have cited as a deadline Mr Xi has set for having the capability to launch an invasion on Taiwan.
“I don’t think it will happen in the near future or at least within one to two years,” Mr Koo said.
“If China needs to carry out amphibious landing operations to take Taiwan, I don’t think it will have such capabilities by 2027.”
But he forecast an escalation of “grey zone operations”, including threatening military drills and economic coercion of Taiwanese businesses.
Mr Koo said even a victory by Beijing’s preferred political partner in Taiwan, the opposition Kuomintang (KMT), would only “slightly ease” the tension.
“Maybe the level of China’s grey zone operations will slightly ease,” Mr Koo said.
However, he said Taiwanese public opinion would not allow the KMT to agree to Beijing’s insistence that Taiwan be united under the “one country, two systems” formula used for Hong Kong.
China’s propaganda machine has been trying to create a “positive atmosphere” ahead of the leaders’ meeting in San Francisco, including promoting the 50th anniversary of a tour of the PRC by the Philadelphia Orchestra.
But Chinese international relations scholars have low expectations about the prospects for a bilateral relationship laden with structural issues.
Professor Shi Yinhong at Renmin University said the “positive rhetoric” had little cost, but said neither Beijing or Washington were in a mood to make concessions on “secondary, even insignificant disputes”.
He noted the high tempo of military operations by America and its allies, including Australia, Japan, Canada and The Philippines in East and South China Seas, and the People’s Liberation Army around Taiwan, in the lead up to the meeting.
“It is only needed to refer to the military events of the past 12 days to see the essential tension,” he told The Australian.
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