War With China Over Taiwan Not Inevitable: Biden Security Adviser

White House national security adviser Jake Sullivan speaks during the daily press briefing at the White House in Washington on Aug. 23, 2021. (Drew Angerer/Getty Images)

The White House’s national security adviser believes that communist China can still be deterred from launching an invasion of Taiwan.

Jake Sullivan, who has served as national security adviser for the entirety of the Biden administration, said that tensions between the United States and China’s communist regime could still be solved peaceably, albeit with great difficulty.

“There is a risk of conflict with respect to Taiwan, but I believe that with responsible stewardship, we can ensure that this contingency never comes to pass,” Sullivan said during a Jan. 5 interview with NPR.

“It will require us following through on the commitments of the Taiwan Relations Act, which for 40 years now has said we will provide defensive articles to Taiwan. And it will require direct diplomacy with the [Chinese Communist Party].”

To that end, Sullivan said that maintaining the peace would require “hard work” and close “coordination with allies” to ensure that catastrophic conflict never erupted in the Indo-Pacific.

“We have to make this a priority to ensure there is not a war over the Taiwan Strait,” Sullivan said.

US Seeks to Maintain Status Quo

The Chinese Communist Party (CCP), which rules China as a single-party state, alleges that Taiwan is a rogue province of China that must be united with the mainland by any means necessary.

CCP leadership refuses to rule out military conquest to achieve this goal, and top CCP leaders have threatened their U.S. counterparts with war over the issue.

Despite such claims, the CCP has never controlled Taiwan, which boasts a robust democratic government and thriving market economy.

The United States formally recognizes, but does not endorse, the CCP’s position. The United States does not have formal diplomatic relations with Taiwan. Still, it is bound by the Taiwan Relations Act to provide the island with the arms necessary for self-defense and to prevent any unilateral changes to the status quo.

‘Fundamental Differences’ Not a Bar to ‘Greater Stability’

CCP leader Xi Jinping has made the quest for achieving dominance over Taiwan a central priority of his rule, however, and has butted heads with the Biden administration on the issue several times.

During their first face-to-face meeting in November 2022, Xi told Biden that Taiwan was the “first red line” in bilateral ties between the two nations.

Shortly after the meeting, Chinese state-owned media reported that Xi believed “Cross-Strait peace and stability and ‘Taiwan independence’ are as irreconcilable as water and fire.”

Similarly, Xi personally made veiled threats to Biden about the issue during a July teleconference, in which he suggested the United States would be damaged by any attempt to prevent China’s takeover of Taiwan.

“Playing with fire will set you on fire,” Xi told Biden. “I hope the U.S. can see this clearly.”

Sullivan reframed the issue of Biden and Xi’s contentious discussions and said that the duo’s meeting in November provided “greater stability” to the Biden-Xi relationship and underscored that the two nations could still work together on other issues like climate change.

“That does not erase the fact that we have fundamental differences and different disagreements with the PRC, and we are not going to be shy about those,” Sullivan said, using an acronym for the official name of communist China, the People’s Republic of China.

“Whether it’s speaking out on human rights, whether it is pushing back against provocative actions around Taiwan, whether it is the ways in which the PRC acts in an intimidating and coercive way against its neighbors.”