The U.S.-Taipei relationship is raising tensions between the U.S. and Beijing. On Wednesday, May 20, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo broke decades of diplomatic protocol when he tweeted congratulations to Taiwan’s newly re-elected leader, Dr. Tsai Ing-wen. In the tweet, Pompeo referred to the new leader as “president”—another serious breach of protocol. According to Taiwan’s foreign ministry, it was the first time a US secretary of state had congratulated the island’s chief executive. The tweet provoked no less than three Beijing officials to lash out at Pompeo’s kind words.
The Ministry of National Defense said that the military would “take all necessary measures to firmly safeguard” China’s sovereignty, as reported by Bloomberg. China’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs urged the U.S. to “immediately correct its mistakes” or the nation would respond. The Guardian also quoted China’s Taiwan Affairs Department as saying Beijing would continue “to work with both sides but would never tolerate any act separating Taiwan from China or leave any room for any forms of independence.” These threats contribute to a deteriorating political environment between the U.S. and China widely considered to be a new cold war, an environment where the strained relationship has been politicized by both sides and Taiwan has been used as leverage against Beijing.
Adding to the tensions, China recently modernized and expanded its military, the People’s Liberation Army (PLA), which now controls the South China Sea. The PLA commands an arsenal of strategic (large-scale) and non-strategic (smaller-scale) nuclear weapons, and advanced capability in “systems destruction warfare”—the ability to disrupt systems, like ‘command and control’, communications, intelligence, and data, on and off the battlefield.
Furthermore, both countries recently made significant changes to foreign policy documents. Beijing removed the word “peaceful” from its language regarding unification with Taiwan in a document that was unchanged for the past thirty years. For its part, the US released a strategy that plans to counter the PLA’s nuclear arsenal by “prioritizing the modernization of the [US’] nuclear triad”—that is, land-launched nuclear missiles, nuclear-armed submarines, and strategic-nuclear bombers.
Lastly, China’s new national security laws in Hong Kong don’t bode well for Taiwan. “Beijing’s move against Hong Kong suggests that the Chinese leadership has decided it can pursue a tougher strategy in the larger confrontation with Washington … I read this as a material increase in the long-term chances of armed conflict over Taiwan,” wrote Derek Scissors for the LA Times.
The U.S. and China have already come close to war over Taiwan on three separate occasions. The most recent was in 1996 when Beijing backed away from aggressions after U.S. Navy involvement. In fact, The National Interests writes that it “was a direct response to the humiliation it suffered in 1996 at the hands of [the U.S. Navy]” that propelled China to modernize its military. If tensions over Taiwan bring the two nations to the brink of war, as in 1996, China may not hesitate this time. This is a dangerous scenario made worse by intensifying political attacks between the two leaders.
Tension over Taiwan is not new and can be traced back to the end of China’s civil war in 1949. The U.S. supported Chiang Kai-shek’s nationalist Republic of China (ROC) over Mao Zedong’s communist People’s Republic of China (PRC). Despite losing the war and retreating into exile in Taiwan, Chiang retained legitimacy in the international community until the 1970s.
Since then, there have been three presidential communiqués, the Taiwan Relations Act, six assurances, and most recently the TAIPEI Act. Together, they constitute the basis of the U.S.’ One-China policy— the notion that “the Government of the People’s Republic of China is the sole legal government of China, and Taiwan is a province of China,” as written in the first communiqué. The U.S.’ position is that Taiwan is part of China, but the seat of the government remains an issue that needs to be resolved peacefully between Taipei and Beijing. Additionally, the U.S. pledged to remain neutral but is committed to defending Taiwan if invaded. A final provision allows the US to supply weapons and services to Taiwan to match its defenses against Beijing.
Politicizing Tensions with China Increases Risks
As a result of the blame game over COVID-19, the Trump administration has made China the new Mexico in the run up to the 2020 presidential campaign; if Mexico was going to pay for a wall, China will pay for the virus. China’s initial missteps in handling the virus led Trump to make the dubious claim that the pandemic was China’s fault. This has perpetuated increasingly caustic exchanges with Beijing.
But for Trump, making China pay isn’t just a slogan; his administration has been discussing possible scenarios to make it happen. The ideas range from lawsuits to sovereign-debt cancellations. But as Doug Bandow writes: “Making China legally liable is appealing but foolish. It would set an extraordinarily dangerous precedent. Imagine the rest of the world ‘making America pay’ for Washington’s mistakes, failures, and crimes.”
Taiwan Caught in the Middle
Secretary Pompeo wasn’t the first high-ranking official to break protocol on Taiwan: it was actually the incoming President Trump when he took a congratulatory phone call from Dr. Tsai Ing-wen during her first administration. The President-elect was also first to refer to the island’s leader as “president”—the mainland refers to her as the “leader of the Taiwan region.” If the administration didn’t understand the gaffe they committed then, they knew it by 2020, suggesting that Pompeo’s statement was part of a wider strategy to use Taiwan to pressure Beijing.
William Kazer made a similar connection in the Wall Street Journal: “He took the congratulatory phone call from Ms. Tsai, then tweeted about it. Ten days later he suggested the ‘One-China policy was of questionable value if there were no concessions on trade or currency issues.” In another instance, Trump suggested: “Everything is under negotiation, including One China.” Trump seems prepared to use Taiwan as a bargaining chip.
The Trump administration has been called the “most pro-Taiwan administration in U.S. history” by the Washington Post. This can be good or bad for Taiwan. Taiwan has received billions of dollars in weapons, like F16s, that past presidents originally denied. Also, Trump expanded support for the island with the TAIPEI Act of 2019. According to The Diplomat, the Act calls for the U.S. government to consider “increasing its economic, security, and diplomatic engagement with nations that have demonstrably strengthened, enhanced, or upgraded relations with Taiwan”—and, by the same token, consider “altering” relations with countries that “take serious or significant actions to undermine the security or prosperity of Taiwan.” The Act essentially pushes other countries to begin choosing sides. Similarly, Trump is pushing U.S. corporations to pull their supply chains from mainland China. Both proposals are designed to make China pay but might have unintended consequences. Foreign Policy explains:
Washington would put almost every country on Earth in the middle of a collision between the two most important—and by some measures, at least, most powerful—nations. This would transmit great-power conflict around the globe. Every government would have to decide who to support and who to defy. The United States might be surprised at some decisions: though many countries are angry with Beijing, they are not likely to appreciate America making them take sides.
In addition to the difficulty some companies will have extricating their business from China, the proposals have consequences for Taiwan as well. The island’s biggest trading partner is China, with 24% of total trade. The U.S. is second but at half the amount, with 12% total trade. A slowdown in China’s economy means fewer exports for Taiwan too. “At least some people in the Trump administration do not understand that in using tariffs to put pressure on China, they are simultaneously hurting the [Taiwanese] economy,” Richard Bush said in a speech for the Brooking Institute.
Advance free-trade agreements, multi-lateral alliances, and diplomatic corps
In finding a solution to the Taiwan situation, the Trump administration could take three steps. As a prerequisite, Trump must be willing to return to previously broken or abandoned free-trade agreements, multilateral alliances, strong institutions, and diplomacy.
The first step is to neutralize Beijing’s propaganda campaign regarding COVID-19. In order to do that, the U.S. needs to stop its attacks against China, acknowledge its own mistakes in fighting the virus, and utilize the process that worked to control the virus in Taiwan. It’s impossible for Beijing to criticize a process that stopped the virus—at 441 total cases, 7 deaths, and still case free—without calling attention to its own missteps.
Taiwan’s anti-coronavirus strategy utilized a combination of early vigilance, proactive measures (e.g. border control, travel restrictions, and contact tracing), information sharing, data analytics and online platforms to coordinate supplies. It also helped that Taiwan has one of the best health system in the world. All this was done with what Hilton Yip described as “an impressive level of public transparency and engagement.”
The next step is for the U.S. to expand its international networks by rejoining the Trans-Pacific Partnership agreement (TPP). It won’t be easy since the Trump administration walked away from the first TPP deal. However, the U.S. could offer to join as is (without any renegotiations). In addition, the U.S. should expand the NATO Enhanced Opportunities Plan (NATO EOP) to interested Pacific partners. By integrating the U.S. into Pacific partnerships, the U.S. could gain an international forum to bring non-military consequences against China for aggression in the East and South China Seas.
Lastly, the Trump administration’s “hollowing” of the State Department through budget cuts, a hiring freeze, and attrition has left the US without enough experienced foreign policy experts. This is especially important given the confrontational nature of the Trump administration. While the hiring freeze was lifted in 2018, the damage has had a lasting effect. The problem will take time to fix and may even remain stagnated until the end of the Trump administration.
Dan Blumenthal, director of Asian Studies at the American Enterprise Institute had a very optimistic view of the U.S.-Taiwan-China relationship in 2016 just after President Tsai’s call to President-elect Trump. He wrote;
It is the height of cynicism to view U.S. relations with Taiwan and China in zero-sum terms. We can have good relations with both sides of the strait. The good news is that the Sino-American relationship has matured and has a solid foundation. Ironically, the people who seem willing to take the Tsai-Trump call in stride are Chinese Communist Party leaders. It appears that China is prepared for the United States to a return to strenuous advocacy on behalf of its interests and values. China will doubtless do the same. The work of diplomacy will be managing our differences, including on Taiwan, in ways that do not lead to conflict.
Recent events have proved many of Mr. Blumenthal’s statements wrong, with one exception. It is still the “work of diplomacy [to] manage our differences…in ways that do not lead to conflict.”
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