Next a discussion about the political future and chinas military modernization with policy experts from the broking institution and at the German Marshall Fund. The panel also talks about the tension between taiwan and china and the probability of the u. S. Going to war with china over taiwan. Welcome everyone. Im Suzanne MaloneyVice President and director of the Foreign Policy program at the Brookings Institution and im delighted to welcome you to todays event marking the release of an important new book titled u. S. Taiwan relations with chinas challenge lead to a crisis. It is a great honor to help launch such a profoundly important to study of the u. S. Taiwan relations and to celebrate its truly impressive coauthors, ryan and richard bush who are my colleagues here at brookings and Bonnie Glaser of the German Marshall Fund. I want to congratulate them on the publication of this book. Growing concerns about chinas intentions and plans prompted an enormous amount of policy attention on cross trade affairs here in washington and around the world. Some u. S. Officials called for action that may depart from the longstanding u. S. Policy posture on taiwan and risk more harm than benefits for the longterm objectives that are shared by the United States and taiwan. Peace and stability in the Taiwan Strait. Bonnie, richard and ryan responded to an increasingly overheated to debate with a book that called for calm and informed policymaking. The book lays out the past, present and future of the Taiwan Strait and appeals to the decisionmakers to appreciate taiwan and its 23. 5 Million People as friends of the United States who share similar ideals and aspirations with the american people. The authors also explain how america can best support taiwan and its people and their contest for the future. I cant imagine a more timely or relevant study. The authors draw on their deep knowledge and hand to run expertise in writing this book. Ryan is currently a senior fellow at the michael h chair and Foreign Policy here at brookings where he holds the joint appointment to the china center into the center for east asia policy studies. He is also the sicilia chair in taiwan studies here at brookings. Prior to joining the institution, he served as director for china, taiwan and mongolia on the National Security council and in that role he advised president obama and senior white house officials on all aspects of u. S. Policy towards china, taiwan and mongolia and coordinated the implementation of the policy throughout the region. We are also joined today by the second coauthor who is the managing director of the German Marshall Fund indo pacific program. Shes also a nonresident fellow with the institute in Sydney Australia and senior associate with the pacific forum. Shes worked at the intersection of asiapacific geopolitics and u. S. Policy for more than three decades including at the center for strategic and International Studies and in Government Service at the department of defense and state. Finally, we are also joined by our third coauthor here today, richard bush. Richard spent more than 20 years with brookings helping to found what is now the center for east asia policy studies where he is currently a nonresident senior fellow. Richard started his career at the asia society and went on to serve in the u. S. Government for many years including in positions with the House Foreign Affairs committee and the National Intelligence council. From 1997 to 2002 he served as the chairman and managing director of the American Institute in taiwan, the mechanism through which the United States government conducts substantive relations with taiwan and absence of diplomatic relations. And of course we are thrilled to have the newshour Foreign Affairs and defense correspondent nick shifrin who will moderate the discussion along with the three authors of this masterful book. Following their conversation, we will open the discussion to those of you here in the audience for questions and answers. Microphones will be passed around the audience. A quick reminder that we are live and on the record. If you would like to submit your questions those the few that are watching the program virtually, please do so at the email address event at brookings edu or twitter with the hashtag u. S. Taiwan relations. Since this is a book event, let me just say the book is currently on sale, available for purchase in the bookstore in the lobby of the Brookings Institution, or any online realtor of your choice. I encourage you to pick up a copy. There could be no more important to look at this moment. The floor is all yours. Thank you very much and thank you all for being here. I will say you are not going to get the signed copy if you order it online. Thats my plug. Thank you. Brian, it is your name at the top. You get the first big question and what im going to do here is we can do a quick first round, get some of the big thoughts from all three of you and then the book has been divided into three top present kind of last few years and then future. Richard is in the past and ryan has been the future so we will split up the rest of the conversation based on having split up the writing of the book but the first round, the overall and ryan you get the question that you asked in your subtitle will chinas challenge lead to a crisis . Thank you for being here and its wonderful to be among so many friends and have the audience, my family watching in seattle. Will the challenge leave the crisis . I will tell you my answer and im sure my colleagues well i dont think it is a forgotten conclusion. I think that if we look at whats happened over the past 40 years theres been a dynamic among all three parties each responding to the actions that have led to the other and theres no reason to believe weve arrived at some conclusion in history. But i do think is that its the fundamental interest of all three parties to avoid conflict as possible and there is no inevitability in conflict at all and thats part of the work the book is trying to do. One of the things we want to do is harness this growing interest to that exists in the United States across productive purposes. My view is that a lot of energy has been devoted to the security and defense side of that discussion. As some of the economic and other issues have been underweight in the discussion hopefully through the process of the book we can begin to balance. Youve answered enough questions of mine and youre going to answer whatever questions you want. [laughter] rather than giving you the same thing, let me read to you a quote you may know this is going on already. December 2021 taiwan is located within the first chain anchoring a network of u. S. Allies and partners that is critical to the regional security, critical to the defense of vital u. S. Interests in the indo pacific. You went on to say taiwan is a stark contrast in authoritarianism and oppression in the prc. Taiwan has proven the possibility of alternatives to that of the Chinese Communist party. Does the u. S. Now viewed taiwan as a Strategic Asset to be kept separate . Thank you. I want to thank you for a fun project writing this book and starting off with a tough question i think that the United States has had a powerful policy of accepting any outcome that is agreedupon peacefully besides the two sides of the straight. We have yet to hear a Biden Administration official make that statement and a so in the absence of that statement, i believe that the description did raise concerns among many people that the United States use taiwan as such an important Strategic Asset that it would under no circumstances allow it ever to be integrated into the peoples republic of china and i think that the danger of that conclusion if that judgment is made by beijing, if that increasingly this is potentially part of a chinese assessment that the United States has walked away from all of the components of its one china policy and weve heard many chinese officials express about that even President Bidens statements directly many say are not credible as chinese experts say that on the various conversations. The president says he will support Taiwan Independent of the chinese claim that actions dont match our words. So, my view is that we need to have a clear and consistent set of policies from the u. S. Administration and that its really not in our interest to foreclose the possibility at some point in the future. This is even part of taiwans policy that if there is majority of people in taiwan that if there were to be a referendum because the people of taiwan would have to agree that there could be some outcome in which the two sides of the street find a way to have a relationship thats different than the one it is today. That door should be left open. Closing the door creates more potential for crisis. And richard, we will come to you. And the history and a second. We talk so much about the u. S. Policy of course, talk so much about beijing whether its military modernization or some of the coercion that is used with the other tools. The taiwanese people theres a sentence in the book maybe you wrote it or maybe not but you can speak to this, the will of the taiwan people to put their democrat excess demand political autonomy at the center of gravity for determining the future of the Taiwan Strait. Why . Can you explain that . First of all, let me thank you for quarterbacking this effort and getting the ball over the goal line. Without his efforts it wouldnt have happened. This is not a purely military issue. It is a political dispute with the military dimension and at the end of the day, what china has been trying to do is persuade the leaders in taiwan and the people in taiwan that unification under the terms that they have set forth the one country and two system formula is so in taiwans interest that of course they would want to comply. The people of taiwan have their own views. They oppose one country to systems by a wide margin. On the other hand, they dont want to go for a republic of taiwan. A completely independent entity. They understand that independent means more and that if taiwan is seen by the United States is provoking that war, they cant be confident that we would come to their defense. So they are very pragmatic and the status quo is not perfect but its a hell of a lot better than any of the other options. I think that its very important that beijing realized the democracy in taiwan is authentic. That the opinion polls we see are not the result of the antics by politicians but this is 23 Million People who live in a Civilized Society and if theres going to be a change in the status quo they have to be convinced that it is the right thing to do and that that decision has been carried out from some sort of an authoritative mechanism. I will take about 25 minutes or so to go through the past, present and future if you well and then i will open it up to questions here and we have some questions coming in from the audience already. So, let me start with back in the 40s take us through a few aspects and we will get quickly to that party were ending with about the taiwanese democracy but first why in the ccp and kmt are they not considering taiwan particularly important and how did that change . Why did they not consider taiwan particularly important and then how did that change . It was something of a nonissue in the 1930s because japan owned taiwan and the republic of china government acknowledged that and had a consulate on taiwan. The ccp and katie were fighting their own civil war. However, as people started thinking about the postwar settlement, it suddenly occurred to people in taiwan, people in the United States and the ccp that who controlled taiwan would be important. One person involved in this was Franklin Roosevelt and his conception of the postwar order was that the great powers would Work Together to maintain peace and security and that this would be is done through quarantines and air bombardment so islands became very important and so it was automatic for him to say taiwan should go back to china. John had a similar view and he felt that taiwan was one of the chinese fortresses, one of the gateways guarding china from foreign aggression and it was much better for the republic of china than to not. The communists actually were the last to come to an agreement on this. But once they did, they then ferocious as tigers and defending that view. Absolutely. We are going to fastforward through a lot of taiwanese history. Remind us how taiwanese gained a seat at the table through democratic reforms and how fundamental a shift that was and even to this day how influential is that . Taiwan is the poster child for the third wave of democratization and in a way proves the hypothesis that a society that goes through social and economic modernization creates a public that wants more of a say over its future. Moreover, there is a special factor operating in taiwan and that was the kmt under president john wanted to impose a conservative version of the chinese nationality. And moreover, john had stated the goal of recovery of the mainland and the civil war was still going on and therefore you couldnt have democracy. His son and i think had a much different attitude. He was more a man of the people and recognized in a counterintuitive way that the kmt could better stay in power by opening up this political system than by keeping it tight and allow the taiwanese identity to grow and flourish. Maybe also to make it harder for the prc to reach its unification goals. So what happened in taiwan as a result of enlightened thinking my leaders but also by pressure from the opposition and a little bit of pressure from some american congressmen that i know taiwan made the transition to democracy peacefully, gradually and in an Ethnic Chinese society which people at that time thought was impossible. And one of the things you point out it became part of the struggle between the democratic and communist goliath and the u. S. Instinct was to support david. How important is that . It depends on i think today how much our political leaders and politicians understand the background of u. S. China taiwan relations. There was a time not too long ago when the consensus in the United States was that u. S. Interests are served by having a Good Relationship with china. Economic, political and security. The soviet union was the target of that policy for a long time then there was the belief that if we could cooperate as much as possible with china, that would serve peace and prosperity. Its only been in the last ten years or so you have the consensus to viewing china as hostile and in the early days the leaders understood they needed to balance the policies. Now there is no balance. And you also make one last point they didnt create the term rejuvenation. He didnt create the term rejuvenation. It is not something that we can say he was a revolutionary leader about the product of the party and that isnt the case that it created the idea that didnt exist. Whether its rejuvenation or revival its an ambition that goes back more than a century but restoring wealth and power to china was the goal of statesmen in the dynasty and in the republic of china and the peoples republic of china. The corollary of that is at least from the ccp side, china that doesnt have taiwan under control isnt. That brings up the singular leader. How has he both accelerated what we could argue is the fastest military modernization in World History but also you write quite extensive use of other instruments of power. How has that often been pointed out taiwan . Its a very important question because of course china has developing the return for some time and it has been under the really rapid progress made including breakthroughs that have made to china dominated some areas of military Technology Like hypersonics. We see an incredible achievement in space and things like that but in terms of the toolbox china has to use against taiwan we have seen massive and developed misinformation. Cyber tools when Speaker Pelosi was in taiwan in august of last year and then the chinese initiated their display of force after she left one of the examples with the use of cyber taking control of the video cameras it displays in the 711s throughout taiwan. And theres been many instances in which its been a tax to take down government websites periodically representatives from taiwans government gives data of how many attacks there are per day or month and if it is massive. Then of course the media where there is been purchases of media in taiwan and some of that was outed by some journalist who found theres some media organizations in taiwan who actually been receiving money and also instructions from the Taiwan Affairs office. So the amount of interference and forms of pressure is incredible. It really has increased and that is the latest component that we didnt see for some time but now its growing in the economic and of course