US Should Specify Economic Penalties China Will Face If It Attacks Taiwan, House Panel Hears
To deter an invasion of Taiwan, the U.S. government should make it clear it will inflict “economic pain” on China if Beijing launches an attack, a researcher told the House Select Committee on China May 15.
Sign up for a free preview to unlock the rest of this article
Export Compliance Daily combines U.S. export control news, foreign border import regulation and policy developments into a single daily information service that reliably informs its trade professional readers about important current issues affecting their operations.
The specific actions the U.S. would take should be spelled out in legislation, said retired Navy Rear Admiral Mark Montgomery, senior director of the Center on Cyber and Technology Innovation at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies.
“I think it’s incumbent on Congress to say to the president, "If these things happen, these are triggered,'” Montgomery testified. “I do believe that we could use legislation to then pull in our allies and partners to agree to that and create the kind of deterrent effect” that is desired.
Montgomery made his comments in response to Rep. Carlos Gimenez, R-Fla., who asked whether the U.S. should impose an embargo on Chinese exports and “wreck their economy” if Taiwan is attacked.
To improve Taiwan’s ability to defend itself, Montgomery would “continue fixing” the Foreign Military Sales program and would "prioritize Taiwan’s place within it." The FY 2023 National Defense Authorization Act called for prioritizing arms deliveries to Taiwan, but "thanks to a persistent combination of insufficient U.S. industrial capacity and a sluggish bureaucratic process dangerously disconnected from the serious threats facing the United States and Taiwan, there is still a backlog of around $21 billion worth of weapons intended for Taiwan that have not been delivered," he said.
To secure Taiwan’s energy supply, he recommended that the U.S. help Taiwan end its reliance on Qatari liquefied natural gas, as he expects China would pressure Qatar to stop shipments to Taiwan in a conflict.
“I think in the middle of a crisis, China’s going to turn to Qatar and say, ‘We buy 15 times more LNG than Taiwan. You need to stop delivering to one country.’ And Qatar’s going to choose very quickly to stop delivering to Taiwan,” he testified.