"Use South Korea-U.S.-Japan Cooperation to Defend Taiwan... THAAD Crisis Offers a Cautionary Tale"

Expert: "U.S. Stance on Taiwan Has Not Changed"

It has been argued that The Trump Administration should make active use of trilateral cooperation with South Korea and Japan to counter the threat of a Chinese invasion of Taiwan.

Alexander Gray, former White House National Security Council (NSC) chief of staff and deputy assistant to the president, said at a seminar hosted by the Stimson Center think tank in Washington, D.C., on Oct. 19 (local time) that the United States "should find ways to use trilateral cooperation with Japan and South Korea to defend Taiwan." Gray served in the first Trump Administration.

He cited China's economic retaliation against South Korea over its deployment of the THAAD missile defense system as an example of why cooperation among South Korea, the United States and Japan is necessary.

Stimson Center website.

Gray said, "Imagine if such a framework had existed in 2017 or 2018. If Japan had joined the United States in helping ease some of South Korea's economic burden when China retaliated against major South Korean companies, including Lotte, over the THAAD deployment, it would have sent a very strong signal to China."

He stressed that "it is very important to extend regional cooperation frameworks, which exist mainly in the defense sector, to the economy and supply chains as well."

Gray also proposed using the Quad, a security partnership among the United States, Japan, Australia and India, to jointly respond to China's economic pressure on Taiwan.

Addressing controversy over the second Trump Administration's commitment to defending Taiwan, he said there had been no fundamental change in longstanding U.S. policy toward Taiwan. He added that the Trump Administration had not only maintained the United States' longstanding policy of defending Taiwan but had also strengthened it.

"President Trump has viewed Taiwan as the 'unsinkable aircraft carrier' of the Indo-Pacific," Gray said. "The way the United States views its relationship with Taiwan and formulates policy is fundamentally rooted in the same principles as U.S. policy toward Taiwan dating back to the Truman and Eisenhower administrations."

Gray also rejected suggestions that the United States' recent delay in a $14 billion arms sale to Taiwan, worth about 20 trillion won, signaled a weakening commitment to Taiwan's defense, saying, "I absolutely disagree."

Michael Cunningham, a senior fellow at the Stimson Center, offered a different analysis, saying the Trump Administration was adjusting the timing of arms sales to Taiwan in consideration of its diplomatic relations with China.

"Successive U.S. presidents have adjusted the timing of arms sales to Taiwan to align with diplomatic schedules involving China," Cunningham said. "The sale will take place at the earliest toward the end of this year or early next year."

"In some ways, this administration is trying to increase strategic ambiguity even further," he said. "That is because it sees China as a competitor on an equal footing with the United States."

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.