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PacNet #19 – Reader Survey: Does Strategic Ambiguity Still Make Sense?

The Asia Foundation’s Commissioned Task Force on America’s Role in Asia had as one of its primary recommendations, "Maintain the one-China policy and strategic ambiguity about U.S. actions." The Task Force Report acknowledges that "maintaining the policy (and its ambiguity" is by no means automatic or easy," but further argues that "absent a specific crisis (or the prospect of one), detailing the circumstances under which the United States would (or would not) intervene in the Taiwan Straits could needlessly embolden or antagonize one side or the other."