Taiwan and the US are improving resilience and innovating operational concepts to maintain the capability to deter Beijing from attacking across the Taiwan Strait, a senior US defense official said on Wednesday.

Keeping Taiwan-US deterrence capabilities strong through improving bilateral cooperation has been a constant task for the US government, US Assistant Secretary of Defense for Indo-Pacific Security Affairs Ely Ratner told the American Enterprise Institute in Washington.

A war in the Taiwan Strait is not imminent or inevitable, he said, citing US Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin.