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Washington sends Xi a quiet message not to touch Taiwan
Jan 15, 2021 1 min, 52 secs

When Donald Trump shocked the Washington establishment – and much of the world – by getting himself elected as United States President four years ago, the message from diplomats and foreign policy analysts both in Australia and the United States was one of quiet reassurance.

But for Australia, the question of where the new administration picks up on foreign policy, particularly the Indo-Pacific, will be crucial.

Those who have been involved in running US policy want to make sure the strategic architecture is explicit and on the public record, no matter how the more colourful actions of President Trump may have dominated the headlines, and that it becomes a jumping off point for the Biden administration.

When the policy was being formulated across the US administration in 2017, there were still some analysts who believed that Chinese President Xi Jinping would not pursue the aggressive approach that he has, as illustrated by the end of any semblance of observing democratic niceties in Hong Kong, and increasingly aggressive moves in the South China Sea.

Washington sources familiar with the development of the strategy said Australia had a significant influence on the document, as did Japan, and They speak of how alliances in the region have developed over the last four years from a "hub and spoke" network built around the US, to a latticework of inter-relationships centred on the so-called "quad" of the US, Japan, India and Australia.

Keep in mind that President Xi said a couple of years ago that Taiwan “must and will be” reunited with China.

If there have been questions about whether the US would, or even could, push back against Chinese incursions on Taiwan, Rory Medcalf said the language in the document was “very clear code for America holding its ground with Taiwan, with partners and allies in the South China Sea, with Japan, with Korea, really maintaining the integrity of those relationships and protecting them from Chinese assertiveness and Chinese aggression".

The newspaper said Foreign Ministry spokesman Zhao Lijian told a daily news conference on Wednesday that the “document purposefully distorted China's neighbourhood policy and sensationalised the "China threat" theory, adding that it "highlights the Cold War mentality and military confrontation".

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