Taipei Times
Date: Mar 30, 2016
By: William Lowther / Staff reporter in WASHINGTON

The chance of China using military force to seek unification with Taiwan in the near to medium term is “very slight,” a former senior US official said.

However, Beijing might resort to “strong-arm tactics” against the incoming government of president-elect Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文), said Jeffrey Bader, a Brookings Institution senior fellow and former US National Security Council senior director for Asian affairs in the administration of US President Barack Obama.

In a new academic paper outlining a framework for future US policy toward China, Bader said that as a result of increasing geopolitical tensions in Asia, the next US president would need to adapt and protect the liberal international order as a means of continuing to provide stability and prosperity.

Bader, an adviser to US Democratic presidential front-runner Hillary Rodham Clinton, said the White House should develop a strategy that encourages cooperation, not competition, among willing powers and, if necessary, “contain or constrain actors seeking to undermine those goals.”

“Serious people understand that the manner in which the US deals with China will be a critical, if not the critical, overseas challenge of the US in the 21st century,” he said.     [FULL  STORY]