“He who wishes to fight must first count the cost.” — Sun Tzu, The Art of War

Earlier this week, the United States’ top diplomat, Secretary of State Antony Blinken, paid President Xi Jinping a visit in Beijing for the first time since 2018.

Suffice it to say, relations with China have not improved In the intervening years. When former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo met with Xi in October 2018, a burgeoning trade war was top of mind. Concerns about a Chinese invasion of Taiwan surely lingered in the background, but it wasn’t really until China’s crackdown on Hong Kong in 2019 that concerns about China’s near abroad came into focus.

Since then, a global pandemic that not just originated in China but likely leaked out of a Chinese lab ravaged the world. Its disruptions reverberated throughout the world economy, revealing just how fragile the supply chains that keep our globalized arrangement afloat. China has become even more assertive in its near abroad while modernizing and enlarging its military.

Just five years on, it’s the prospect of a real war, not just a trade war, that defines Sino-American relations.

Nevertheless, Blinken set expectations for his Beijing envoy low relative to the daunting task at hand. “It was clear coming in that the relationship was at a point of instability, and both sides recognized the need to work to stabilize it,” Blinken said, justifying his trip. “And specifically, we believe that it’s important to establish better lines of communication, open channels of communication, both to address misperceptions, miscalculations and to ensure that that competition doesn’t veer into conflict.”

After Blinken’s Monday meeting with Xi, the secretary of State hinted that the discourse was contentious. “We have no illusions about the challenges of managing this relationship,” Blinken claimed. “There are many issues on which we profoundly, even vehemently, disagree.”

Xi’s comments struck similar chords. “The competition among major countries is not in line with the trend of the times and cannot solve the problems of the United States itself and the challenges facing the world,” the Chinese president asserted. “China respects the interests of the United States and will not challenge or supplant the United States. Similarly, the United States should also respect China and not harm its legitimate rights and interests.”

Such comments are what’s to be expected from the U.S.–China relationship in 2023. So was another comment from Blinken. At a press conference held at the U.S. embassy in Beijing following Blinken’s meeting with Xi, the secretary of State said, “I raised U.S. concerns, shared by a growing number of countries, about the PRC’s [People’s Republic of China] provocative actions in the Taiwan Strait as well as in the South and East China Seas.”

The secretary continued: 

On Taiwan, I reiterated the longstanding U.S. One China policy. That policy has not changed. It’s guided by the Taiwan Relations Act, the Three Joint Communiques, the Six Assurances.

We do not support Taiwan independence, we remain opposed to any unilateral changes to the status quo by either side. We continue to expect the peaceful resolution of cross-strait differences. We remain committed to meeting our responsibilities under the Taiwan Relations Act, including making sure that Taiwan has the ability to defend itself.

These comments drew the ire of China hawks, Republicans especially. “Blinken flew to Communist China to appease Xi Jinping and state the Biden administration does not support Taiwan’s independence,” tweeted Sen. Marsha Blackburn of Tennessee. “Why won't this administration stand up to bullies and stand for freedom?” “Blinken Blinks, Cowers To XI in Beijing,” tweeted Fox News’ Sean Hannity with a clip of Blinken’s remarks attached.

While the Biden administration has been hawkish at multiple junctures vis-à-vis Taiwan, particularly in Biden’s previous statements about how the U.S. military would come to Taiwan’s defense if China decided to invade, Blinken’s comments in Beijing were prudent. Blinken simply iterated the United States' decades-long policy toward Taiwan, which, as Blinken stated, is outlined by “the Taiwan Relations Act, the Three Joint Communiques, [and] the Six Assurances.”

The pieces of U.S. policy Blinken listed are consistent, the most important among them being the Taiwan Relations Act (TRA). Enacted by Congress in 1979, the TRA replaced what some Republicans and China hawks seek, tacitly if not explicitly, today: a mutual defense treaty with Taiwan. 

But America’s policy of “strategic ambiguity” that stems from the TRA has delivered the same results as the mutual defense treaty that the U.S. had with Taiwan from 1954 to 1979: China has not invaded. When the U.S. dropped its explicit commitment to defend Taiwan with its blood and treasure, the Chinese did not rush in. When Taiwan transitioned from a military junta to a democracy less than a decade later, China did not scramble its jets. 

It’s the same result, but for a much lower cost to the United States. While the TRA stipulates that the U.S. will provide arms to Taiwan and “resist any resort to force or other forms of coercion” that could come from the mainland, the United States is under no obligation to send its sons and daughters to fight another war an ocean away. It leaves the door open to American involvement in a war between China and Taiwan, but leaves what exactly that constitutes up to the Chinese imagination, hence the “ambiguity.” The TRA speaks softly, but carries a big stick.

Furthermore, the effects of strategic ambiguity are felt not only on the mainland but across the strait. Not even Taiwan can be sure what kinds of aid the U.S. will provide if China does attempt to invade. Thus, rather than become a free-rider on the American military, like many European nations have become under NATO’s Article 5 commitments, Taiwan is under constant pressure to maintain defense expenditures. While Taiwan’s defense expenditures likely remain too low given the Chinese threat, the 2.1 percent of GDP it spends annually on its military is higher than most countries with outright mutual defense treaties with the United States. Taiwan’s unimpressive defense expenditures and nonstrategic allocation of those dollars (buying more tanks won’t do you much good when defending a mountainous jungle island from an amphibious assault) is not a consequence of strategic ambiguity. Rather, it’s Taiwan’s hubristic belief that no matter its behavior, America will send its finest to defend the island when bullets begin to fly.

"U.S. policy does not currently commit us to the direct defense of Taiwan. Since it isn't in our interests to fight a costly war against China for this small island far away from home, this is a good thing," Will Ruger, president of the American Institute for Economic Research, told The American Conservative. "But strategic ambiguity has value by constraining both China and Taiwan from making a destabilizing move away from a not-terrible status quo from the American perspective. This status quo also gives Taiwan, which isn't currently doing enough, the chance to improve its defensive capability to dissuade any hostile move by China in the future."

In other words, strategic ambiguity provides the U.S. leverage to encourage Taiwan to increase military funding and modernize, train, and equip its forces to stave off a Chinese invasion. If Taiwan doesn’t take its own defense seriously, why should the United States?

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"Ending strategic ambiguity and moving to an American commitment would be strategically unwise to say the least—which is why the Biden administration has walked it back when the president himself has gone off script towards such a move," Ruger added.

Hawkish Republicans can sound off on Twitter all they want, but any pejorative they levy against Blinken for his comments in Beijing this week ultimately reflects on them. Though the executive retains wide-ranging authority in foreign affairs—too much authority—in this instance, the executive branch is performing its duties within the confines that Congress has established. If Congress wants to drop strategic ambiguity, then it can change the law.

The hawks have tried that. Up to this point, they’ve failed for good reason, but their efforts will continue. This is Washington, after all. Here, when powerful people want a war, they often get it.