何瑞恩：美国关于对台政策的辩论
编者按：何瑞恩是美国布鲁金斯学会桑顿中国中心的主任，之前曾在美国国家安全委员会任职。他对台海关系的分析、对美国应该如何应对台海局势和中国的崛起都有独到的观点。今天是5月20日，特转发他一周前在《台北时报》发表的一篇时评。本文编译来自《万维读者网》的江夏。
延伸阅读：
英文《台北时报》发表布鲁金斯学会（Brookings Institution）高级研究员、中国中心主任何瑞恩（Ryan Hass）的文章说，美国正在酝酿一场关于如何最好地支持台湾的政策辩论。这场辩论主要发生在美国的政策界，以及美国国会的少数地方。
辩论的一方，前白宫国家安全委员会中国、台湾和蒙古事务主任、2018年至2021年亚洲事务副高级主任简以荣（Ivan Kanapathy）认为，为了维护和平，华盛顿必须在硬威慑方面投入更多资金。他表示，几十年来，美国和台湾对中国的军事优势一直是台湾海峡和平的主要保护因素。
从这个角度来看，中国近年来军力的激增让人怀疑美国和台湾是否会在两岸冲突中获胜。简以荣警告说，军事结果的不确定性会带来不稳定。结果越不确定，中国就越想试探台湾的防御能力。按照这种逻辑，解决办法是重新建立军力的优势，使中国仍然意识到自己的劣势，阻止其使用武力将意志强加给台湾人民。
布鲁金斯学会军事专家奥汉隆（Michael O’Hanlon）对台海冲突场景的模拟推演显示，如果发生冲突，双方都无法确定谁会占上风。各种封锁场景也是如此。奥汉隆评估说，任何两栖入侵的企图对北京来说都是一场危险的赌博。第二次世界大战中盟军入侵诺曼底时，尽管英吉利海峡的宽度只有台湾海峡的三分之一，而且精确弹药和传感器技术尚未发明，盟军也只是勉强获胜。
他对台湾海峡冲突的风险并不乐观，也不同意通过相对军力计算来实现威慑的观点。他主张，除了加强军力外，华盛顿应向北京明确表示，无论何时攻击台湾以胁迫投降和统一，那么美中关系就永远不会一样了，中国不要幻想它与美国几十年来建立的丰富、广泛、互利的关系能够在这种情况下幸存下来。
“亚洲协会政策研究所”（Asia Society Policy Institute）常务理事但若云（Rorry Daniels）警告说，不要通过军事解决方案使台湾沦为军事问题，因为这种做法有可能造成对冲突路线的依赖。但若云没有预测即将发生和不可避免的冲突，而是认为美国在两岸问题上的一贯态度使台湾海峡出现了稳定的现状——“不统、不独、不武”，同时保护了台湾行使相当大政治、社会和经济自治的空间。
但若云主张美国在解决台湾主权问题上保持中立。她警告说，华盛顿越倾向于台湾独立，中国对台湾的武力威胁就越大。华盛顿支持台湾安全的一种更有效的方式是，帮助台湾深化和加强与国际社会其他成员的联系。这将增加中国破坏和平的代价和风险，支持美国的和平与稳定目标，同时也符合台湾人民对尊严、持久现状和政治自治的愿望。
明尼苏达大学外交学者、前外交官汉森（Thomas Hanson）观察到，中国在国内面临越来越多的挑战，已不堪重负。此外，中美关系也面临压力。汉森认为，在这种情况下，美国最谨慎的做法是与中国进行积极的外交，以缩小误判的空间，避免梦游般地陷入台湾海峡的战争。
看完这场辩论后，笔者发现美国重新建立对中国的军事优势的想法很诱人，但不切实际。美国没有财力来大幅扩大军费开支，然而也不会放弃其全球存在和影响力，使自己沦为亚洲的地区大国。美国2024年总统候选人和政党都不支持这种做法。
这意味着需要采取更全面的方法来维护和平并影响中国的选择。要使这一战略正确，需要华盛顿和台北频繁、密切地协调和相辅相成的努力。这并不容易，但肯定胜过替代方案。
英文原文：（May 13， 2024, Taipei Times）
Ryan Hass On Taiwan: Debating America’s approach toward Taiwan
The people of Taiwan recently received confirmation of the strength of American support for their security. Of four foreign aid bills that Congress passed and President Biden signed in April, the bill legislating additional support for Taiwan garnered the most votes. Three hundred eighty-five members of the House of Representatives voted to provide foreign military financing to Taiwan versus only 34 against. More members of Congress voted to support Taiwan than Ukraine, Israel, or banning TikTok. There was scant debate over whether the United States should provide greater support for Taiwan. It was understood and broadly accepted that doing so served America’s strategic interests.
There also has been very little debate on American support for Taiwan in America’s presidential election. This is even though many American commentators are expressing rising anxiety about the risk of conflict in the Taiwan Strait during the next four years. Instead, the public’s attention has been consumed by President Trump’s legal troubles, in addition to immigration, inflation, abortion, crime, Ukraine, and Israel.
Outside the bright lights of the presidential election, though, a policy debate is brewing in the United States over how best to support Taiwan. This debate is mostly occurring in America’s policy community, as well as in pockets of the US Congress.
To help bring these competing views into conversation with each other, the Brookings Institution, where I work, recently convened a debate on whether the United States should change its policies toward Taiwan. The debate occurred both in writing and in person at the University of Minnesota.
On one end of the debate, Ivan Kanapathy, a former White House’s National Security Council director for China, Taiwan and Mongolia as well as deputy senior director for Asian affairs from 2018-2021, argued that “to maintain peace, Washington must invest more in hard deterrence.” He suggested that America’s and Taiwan’s military advantage over China has been the primary protector of peace in the Taiwan Strait for decades.
From this vantage, China’s surge in military capabilities in recent years has called into question whether the United States and Taiwan would prevail in a cross-Strait conflict. Kanapathy warned that uncertainty about military outcomes invites instability. The more uncertain the outcome, the more tempted China would be to test Taiwan’s defenses. The solution, according to this logic, is to re-establish overmatch in military capabilities so that China remains aware of its inferiority and is deterred from using force to impose its will on the people of Taiwan.
Not so fast, argued Brookings military expert Michael O’Hanlon. O’Hanlon shared findings from his modeling of conflict scenarios in the Taiwan Strait. He said if there is a conflict, neither side could have confidence about who would prevail. The same is true for various blockade scenarios.
O’Hanlon assessed that any Chinese attempt at an amphibious invasion would be a dangerous gamble for Beijing. Allied forces in World War II barely prevailed in their invasion of Normandy, even though the English Channel was one-third the width of the Taiwan Strait and precision munitions and sensor technology had not yet been invented.
O’Hanlon is far from sanguine about the risk of conflict in the Taiwan Strait. Yet, he did not subscribe to a view that deterrence could be achieved through a mathematical calculation of relative military capabilities. In addition to strengthening military capabilities, O’Hanlon also argued for Washington to make it “unambiguously clear to Beijing that, were it ever to attack Taiwan in a concerted attempt to coerce capitulation and reunification, the US-China relationship could never be the same.” He suggested China “should have no illusions that the rich, broad, mutually beneficial relationship that it built with the United States over several decades could survive such a scenario.”
Rorry Daniels, Asia Society Policy Institute managing director, warned against reducing Taiwan to a military problem with a military solution. She cautioned that such an approach risked “creating a path dependence toward conflict.” Rather than forecasting impending and unavoidable conflict, Daniels believed America’s generally consistent approach to cross-Strait issues had enabled a stable status quo to emerge in the Taiwan Strait — “one of no unification, no independence, and no use of force” — while protecting space for Taiwan to exercise considerable political, social, and economic autonomy.
Daniels advocated for the United States to remain neutral on the settlement of questions of Taiwan’s sovereignty. The more Washington leans into a preference for Taiwan independence, she warned, the more China’s threat of force against Taiwan would increase. A more productive way for Washington to support Taiwan’s security, in Daniels’ view, is to help Taiwan deepen and strengthen its linkages with the rest of the international community. This would raise the cost and risk to China for breaking the peace. Ultimately, Daniels believes this approach would support America’s objective of peace and stability while also aligning with the wishes of Taiwan’s people for dignity, a durable status quo, and political autonomy.
For his part, Thomas Hanson, a former Foreign Service officer who is now diplomat-in-residence at the University of Minnesota Duluth, observed that China is overwhelmed at home with mounting domestic challenges. Additionally, the US-China relationship is under stress. In this context, Hanson argued, the most prudent course for America is active diplomacy with China to shrink space for miscalculation and avoid sleepwalking into war in the Taiwan Strait.
After watching this debate, I found the idea of America reestablishing military overmatch vis-a-vis China alluring but unrealistic. America does not have fiscal space to dramatically expand military expenditures. It also is not about to abandon its global presence and reduce itself to a regional power in Asia. Neither of America’s 2024 presidential candidates nor political parties support such an approach.
This means that a more comprehensive approach for preserving the peace and influencing China’s choices will be needed. Getting this strategy right will require frequent, close coordination and mutually reinforcing efforts by Washington and Taipei.
This will not be easy, but it sure beats the alternative.
Ryan Hass is a senior fellow, the Chen-Fu and Cecilia Yen Koo Chair in Taiwan Studies, and the Director of the China Center at the Brookings Institution.
