The United States Factor in Taiwan’s Security Reliance on the United States has been the constant element of Taiwan’s security strategy. The Taiwan Relations Act provided Taipei confidence in the United States even after the termination of the U.S.-ROC mutual defense treaty. On the American side of the coin, concern for Taiwan’s security has lasted through several administrations due to the political support Taiwan enjoys in the United States and the knowledge that Asian allies and partners treat Taiwan as a larger litmus test of U.S. resolve. Finally, Beijing was long discouraged from attacking Taiwan because of the risk that capable U.S. armed forces would intervene to protect Taiwan. Washington does not, however, explicitly commit itself to Taiwan’s defense. To do so would only unnecessarily complicate relations with China. Instead U.S. officials cite the Taiwan Relations Act, speak in general terms about Washington’s “abiding interest” in peace and stability in the Taiwan Strait, and reiterate opposition to either side’s unilaterally changing the status quo—without saying how the United States would respond to such an attempt. Despite the ambiguity of public American rhetoric, the capabilities that the PRC has acquired to complicate any U.S. intervention suggest that it assumes the United States will in fact act to defend Taiwan. Beijing looks at both American words and deeds to assess its intentions. The other significant element of the post-1979 U.S.-Taiwan security partnership was sales of advanced military equipment, which continued even after Washington established diplomatic relations with Beijing and ended the defense treaty with Taiwan. The level of arms sales has been relatively high over the last two decades. In the first term of the Obama administration, for example, the United States transferred over $12 billion in weaponry to Taiwan. For many years, however, U.S. arms sales to Taiwan had as much a political purpose as military one. Both in Beijing and Taipei, these transfers were regarded as a signal of U.S. commitment to Taiwan’s security. To be sure, advanced platforms like the F-16s that the George H.W. Bush administration announced in 1992 certainly improved Taiwan’s capabilities. But aside from U.S. support, the main reason that Taiwan remained militarily secure was the PLA’s relative backwardness, not Taiwan’s strength. That quality gap began to shrink in the late 1990s. The one area of U.S.-Taiwan security relations that was dormant until the mid-1990s was interaction between the two militaries on everything except arms sales. As China-Taiwan relations deteriorated in that period, the Clinton administration took steps to restore interaction between the two military establishments. If the United States might actually have to come to Taiwan’s defense, it would need contacts within the Taiwan military to de-conflict responses. Reportedly, those contacts have “nearly doubled in recent years.”5
. On the American side of the coin, concern for Taiwan’s security has lasted through several administrations due to the political support Taiwan enjoys in the United States and the knowledge that Asian allies and partners treat Taiwan as a larger litmus test of U.S. resolve. Beijing was long discouraged from attacking Taiwan because of the risk that capable U.S. armed forces would intervene to protect Taiwan U.S. officials cite the Taiwan Relations Act, speak in general terms about Washington’s “abiding interest” in peace and stability in the Taiwan Strait, and reiterate opposition to either side’s unilaterally changing the status quo—without saying how the United States would respond to such an attempt. United States will in fact act to defend Taiwan. U.S. arms sales to Taiwan had as much a political purpose as military one The one area of U.S.-Taiwan security relations that was dormant until the mid-1990s was interaction between the two militaries on everything except arms sales. As China-Taiwan relations deteriorated in that period, the Clinton administration took steps to restore interaction between the two military establishments. If the United States might actually have to come to Taiwan’s defense, it would need contacts within the Taiwan military to de-conflict responses. Reportedly, those contacts have “nearly doubled in recent years.”