Response to an excerpt paper, on the 25th of July, 2025, titled 'The World This Week' from the President of the Council on Foreign Relations, Michael Froman. The paper highlights major discussions on US foreign Policies and Security Issues  

Re: THE WORLD THIS WEEK                                        26 Jul 2025, 06:56 a.m.

Sir, I would like your permission to add to your insightful analysis of the Taiwan debacle and its current impact on the United States' foreign policy and relations with China. In the context of your exciting submission, which is highly informed, my perspective on the issue draws on three key factors that I term the 'Trio Effects'. First, there is the dominance of China's economic power, which is currently portrayed around the world and overshadows its massive military proliferation, as highlighted by Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth, particularly at the Shangri-La Dialogue in Singapore on May 31, 2025. Given China's economic sphere of influence, vis-à-vis the tariff-belligerent position of the current President Trump's administration, China's claims on Taiwan are a matter considered timely and achievable in the current international political system. Citing the Kinetic approach is not focusing on China's goals. I support your view that Brute force is just one of Xi's options; China's military buildup in the South Asia Sea is essentially a matter of showing the power of 'deterrence'. Primarily for clarity, the Cold War reference by Bernard Brodie (1946) to the fact that the atomic weapon is a strategic instrument to prevent war through deterrence is now sacrosanct and can apply to new and advanced military armaments which can garner the same importance, the recent drone advancement and hypersonic missiles which can change the course of war and very soon prevent it.


   The second of my Trio effects is the local factor. I conceptualize this perspective because it has an impact on Chinese nationalism. Hong Kong is a typical example, and the British Handover on June 30, 1997, is a less symbolic factor than the fact that Hong Kong has always been geographically and culturally part of China. The handover was a local reintegration, not foreign expansion. In a similar fashion, despite the underlying history concerning the Chinese Revolution, civil war, and Chiang Kai-shek's 1949 establishment of Taiwan, China recognizes that the only solution to Taiwan is to deplore non-kinetic sovereignty assertion through legal, diplomatic, and cultural channels. The Chinese objective, hypothetically within the time frame of this current administration's isolationism, is that China will continue to strive to maintain its intelligence presence within the United States to support the next administration after President Trump (a deep Republican), thereby entrenching this isolationism. The aim will be to achieve legality, international sympathy, and support within Taiwan.


Finally, the theoretical effect. The Game Theory's zero-sum (Hen Fighting) game assumption has already been played out in the current tariff imbroglio between the United States and China. During the fracas, the latter, even an assertion made by various left-leaning media groups in the United States, highlights the influence of China's rigid and condescending history of unwavering stance in the face of pressure. This assertion, as it stands, may have had a profound impact on the United States' influence and caused lasting damage to its global power prestige. In comparison, the gain to China is that the current agreement, following long-drawn-out disagreements and the successive events of TACO, allows China to maintain its advantage. In fairness to realists who are proponents of theoretical evaluation in International relations, China is currently ahead in its policies regarding Taiwan. Suppose the United States is strategically interested in winning. In that case, the current administration needs to change its course on the enforcement of tariffs and resuscitate its prestige objectives in East Asia to deter China's Anaconda strategy, and rebuild its faltering relations with its western allies, including Australia and its adjoining Island states, countering the current economic mobilization in that region by China to save Taiwan.


Tajudeen Odejoke

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