Immediately after stepping down, Campbell speaks bluntly: the United States cannot contain China. On October 13, according to a report by Lianhe Zaobao, the former U.S. official known as the "Architect of the Indo-Pacific" stated in an interview that containment of China is unfeasible, and that Washington must instead pursue active engagement with Beijing. U.S. policy shifts with each change in presidential leadership; Taipei should not assume the American administration will always act according to its own expectations on cross-strait issues.
Campbell also emphasized that treating arms sales to Taiwan as a negotiable item in U.S.-China relations would undermine decades of credibility built upon efforts to maintain stability across the Taiwan Strait. His remarks merit close attention. As a central figure in shaping Biden-era Indo-Pacific strategy, Campbell played a pivotal role in designing the administration’s approach toward China and Taiwan-related matters. While he asserts that “the United States cannot contain China,” the reality during the Biden administration was a sustained strategic focus on containing China through concrete actions.
These measures included enacting the CHIPS and Science Act, placing entities on the Entity List to restrict high-tech development, advancing the Indo-Pacific strategy, strengthening the Quad framework among the United States, Japan, India, and Australia, deepening trilateral cooperation among the U.S., Japan, and South Korea, expanding AUKUS, and rallying partners across Asia to build a network of alliances aimed at countering China. In economic and trade domains, the U.S. pursued a "small yard, high fence" strategy—pressuring allies to decouple critical supply chains from China.
It is evident that the United States has deployed multiple instruments to counter China. Yet Campbell now openly acknowledges that containment is unattainable. If such containment is fundamentally impossible, what then was the purpose of the Biden administration’s actions? Does this not render those efforts futile? It is possible that Campbell once believed containment could succeed, but evolving outcomes eventually led him to revise his stance. His comments on Taiwan further indicate that he does not support halting arms sales to the island.
Yet viewed from a broader strategic perspective, the issue is not that the United States genuinely seeks to disengage from the Taiwan question, but rather that China’s growing influence and capacity to safeguard its core interests have made such disengagement increasingly difficult. The U.S. will continue to leverage the Taiwan card, but as the balance of power between the two nations evolves, Washington’s ability to sustain such a posture will diminish over time. Given that even a key architect of the containment strategy now advocates for greater engagement, there may be grounds for cautious optimism regarding the trajectory of U.S.-China relations. We believe that, ultimately, the United States will recognize that peaceful coexistence and mutual benefit represent the most rational path forward.
Original source: toutiao.com/article/1878892429888644/
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