1/ @mike_mazza, Thanks for reading my article and taking the time for this lengthy discussion. I understand that some on Taiwan would reject my "civil war" framing, believing that it should have died with Chiang Ching-kuo if not his father. https://twitter.com/mike_mazza/status/1318909570484490243

2/ Yet the official name of the country, The Republic of China, speaks for itself. I credit China with a great deal of "agency" over the past 40 years, largely by influencing various administrations in Taipei, but especially in Washington... /

3/ ...which has exercised far more effective constraint on Taiwan actions than Beijing has, including preventing Taiwan's development of nuclear weapons.

4/ My main purpose was to open the aperture on China's options in the event it decided to compel Taiwan, and shift the focus from "invasion." In the same vein, the "unfinished cold war" framing was to underscore the long centrality of the US in this dynamic.

5/ I don't subscribe to the view that China would be "forced" to attack/invade if some red line is crossed. What's going to force them? How many major demonstrations have there been in China over Taiwan policy over the past 40 years?

6/ The CCP is more sensitive today to public opinion, but it appears to a lot of capability to blunt that, provide other outlets, and take more direct action (detentions, etc).

7/ Taiwan has been a victim of great power competition since 1683) at the hands of the Qing dynasy, Imperial Japan, and now between China and the United States.

8/ Much of the current US public discussion is lacking is any vision beyond the risk of war, and most troubling to me, framing Taiwan's utility to the US either as a card to play in our strategic rivalry, or a red line for US "credibility."

9/ These are both lazy, dangerous arguments that fail to take into account either the history or actual future interests of the Taiwan people to determine.

10/ They also lose sight of what decades of US ambiguity and backchannel influence on both sides of the Strait have helped wrought: A stable, democratic, and prosperous Taiwan, owning largely to the efforts of Taiwan's people.

11/ The triangular dynamic has been to seek marginal gains, signal to respective audiences, and kick this can down the road until a clearer advantage/threat emerges. I fear that collectively, we are running out of road, and need to lay some new asphalt.

12/ China hasn't attacked or more forcefully coerced Taiwan for many reasons, not just because the PLA isn't ready--this leads to the equally wrong conclusion that as soon as the PLA *is* ready, they'll just launch the invasion.

13/ If the US (much more than Taiwan) keeps framing this as primarily a military rather than a political issue, neither we nor Taiwan will probably like the result. END