Obama’s vs. Trump’s Taiwan Policies: Understanding China’s Military Incursions in the Taiwan Strait

Abstract

For decades, China has utilized credible threat as a means of coercive diplomacy to deter U.S. policies that indirectly support Taiwan’s sovereignty (Ross, 2000). The growth of Chinese military capabilities, tension in the Taiwan Strait, and the U.S. grand strategy in the Asian region are important topics that have been analyzed by scholars, with the understanding that Taiwan is a ticking time bomb for military confrontation between the U.S. and China. Instead of viewing the U.S. as reacting to Chinese belligerence, this research examines whether U.S. Taiwan policies and statements have provoked China into forms of military intimidation toward Taiwan. With Chinese President Xi Jinping on a path to steering China’s future indefinitely, an examination of whether Chinese military activity in the Taiwan Strait correlates with President Barack Obama’s and President Donald Trump’s policies and statements on Taiwan will provide insight into how Xi utilized military threats to manage U.S.–Taiwan relations. Such an examination also provides a foundation from which to understand current and future Chinese military aggression by the Xi regime toward Taiwan, shedding light on China’s military incursions around the island. This quantitative research utilizes content analysis to compare incursions by the People’s Liberation Army Air Force (PLAAF) and the People’s Liberation Army Navy (PLAN) into and around Taiwan’s Air Defense Identification Zone (ADIZ) against notable positive U.S. policies and statements on the issue of Taiwan. The enumeration of this data begins from Xi’s succession to the position of General Secretary of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) on November 15, 2012 and extends to January 20, 2021, thereby evaluating most of Obama’s second term to the end of Trump’s presidency. The data confirms my first hypothesis: China utilized credible military threat as third-party coercive diplomacy to deter the U.S.’s increasing support for Taiwan in order to prevent a moral hazard in which Taiwan is emboldened to take steps toward independence. This research refuted my second hypothesis: that President Xi Jinping’s regime remained consistent in its response to different forms of U.S.–Taiwan interactions, regardless whether those actions were conducted by Obama or Trump, for example, similar responses to arms sales by both former U.S. presidents. This research shows that PLA incursions into Taiwan’s ADIZ is not reactionary to U.S. arms sales, diplomatic visits, or other positive U.S.–Taiwan interactions. Indeed, there is no consistency between the PLA incursions that took place during Obama and Trump’s tenures for similar U.S.–Taiwan interactions. In addition, there is also no correlation between an increase in specific positive U.S.–Taiwan interactions and the frequency and number of military aircrafts employed by the PLA during incursions. The lack of correlation between arms sales, diplomatic visits, positive U.S.–Taiwan interactions, and PLA incursions into Taiwan’s ADIZ is evidence that the incursions are not a reaction to specific types of U.S. policies or engagements with Taiwan per se. Instead, the PLA incursions prove to be a stand-alone strategy utilized by Xi to signal a credible threat strong enough to deter deviation from the status quo as a whole.