This topic has never registered in most Americans’ minds except in recent years when US-China relations became tense triggering a hostile confrontation. The Taiwan issue to most American international relations scholars has been a fuzzy one since the U.S. openly admits its practicing of an ambiguous foreign policy regarding the status of Taiwan and its significance to China and U.S.-China Relations. The ambiguous Taiwan policy may be a deliberate design or a choice led by the circumstances that happened on the world stage, but it has worked to the U.S. advantages in the past under the Cold War atmosphere. However, the ambiguous Taiwan policy is causing confusion, indecision, and miscalculation in dealing with the ever-challenging U.S.-China relations under the mutually acknowledged one-China principle. In the past one hundred years, the U.S. has emerged as the world superpower but facing an increasingly complex world with serious challenges. In the same period, China suffered devastating foreign invasions and experienced an internal revolution that never ended resulting in a split between Mainland and Taiwan across the Taiwan Strait. Two sides were influenced respectively by the communist block (the Socialist Camp led by the Soviet Union/Russia) and the Western Alliances (led by the U.S.) politically and economically.
During and after WW II, the U.S. backed the Kuo Ming Tang (KMT/ROC) government which retreated to Taiwan while the Chinese Communist Party united the entire mainland (CCP/PRC) but Taiwan in 1949. The U.S. strategically or out of realistic assessment made a switch to recognize the PRC in 1979 with the intent of allying with China against the Soviet Union in the Cold War (which ended in 1991). Over 40+ years, Taiwan and Mainland China pursued economic development (separately following Sun Yat Sen’s political and economic development philosophy but practiced with different political party mechanisms and systems), thawing their relationship from a hostile ‘conquering the other side’ to a peaceful coexistence with mutual trade dependency. Taiwan was successful economically becoming the head of the four Asian little dragons and Mainland was catching behind with a faster (double-digit) growth rate. During this time, the U.S. maintained its one China policy but kept its legacy strategy of anti-communism considering China as a communist country. Even though the Soviet Union collapsed, the guard against communist countries remained. With China’s rapid rise in its nation-building process, the U.S. raised its concern over China’s development.
Indeed, China maintained its development and growth rate ever since 1978 when its GDP was 149.54 B, 1/40 of the U.S. GDP, and accelerated to 1.21 T, when China was admitted to the World Trade Organization (WTO) in 2000. China’s GDP reached 6.09T overtaking Japan as the world’s second-largest economy next to the U.S. (15.05T) in 2014. The latest GDP figure in 2022 showed 17.96 T for China and 25.46 for the U.S. With China’s 2-3 times faster growth rate, one might expect China to surpass the U.S. GDP in a few years. It is under this atmosphere that the U.S. has strategically targeted China as its number one competitor (a code name for the enemy). Indeed the U.S. has launched a trade war, technology sanctions, a media campaign, and across the board including diplomatic and military alliances against China. In this U.S.-China confrontation, the Taiwan issue has become a critical chess piece in the game. The ambiguous Taiwan policy thus becomes cumbersome for the U.S. to conduct its fast-changing and vulnerable China policy.
Militarily, the U.S. had formulated the first island chain from South Korea, Japan, Philippines to Singapore to circumvent China and control China’s major shipping route along all of China’s coastline. Taiwan was not legally part of this island chain plot, but its geographical location between Japan and the Philippines made it strategically important to the containment strategy against China. Based on what happens in the U.S. diplomatic and military maneuvers (in forming anti-China mini-NATO-like alliances) and its desperate measures to reduce its dependence on China’s supply chain, one can see that the U.S. cannot hide behind a hypocritical one-China policy anymore; on the one hand selling weapons and arming Taiwan for war preparation and on the other hand coercing Taiwan along with South Korea and Japan to move their manufacturing technology and supply chain to the U.S. The U.S. Congress has attempted to create legislation to facilitate official contacts and weapon sales to Taiwan, but they are simply violating the one-China policy and stepping on China’s sovereignty redline. Crossing this redline is essentially breaking U.S.-China relations and ending diplomatic contacts. It is no surprise that China is fed up with the U.S. hypocritical one-China policy and shut its doors for U.S. officials.
In the U.S., there are numerous think tanks, invariably tied with government and industrial military complex on strategic matters. The current schools of thought on China may be summarized as follows: One school proposes abandoning the one-China policy, and the other wants to maintain an ambiguous Taiwan policy, but neither has a clear solution or strategy to deal with the above-stated consequences. The U.S. has been opposing ‘Taiwan Independence’ for fear of giving China the legitimate reason to use force to take over Taiwan (which is a feasible outcome based on the U.S.'s military analysis with no real proof that China will do so.) while encouraging Taiwan government to buy U.S. weapons to arm for defense, obviously for U.S. advantage. The ones arguing for maintaining an ambiguous Taiwan policy (keeping one-China policy) cannot convince, even the U.S.’s own Allies, that the U.S. is not meddling in China’s historical domestic issues with unjustified selfish interest. Hence the U.S. containment or deterrence strategy has holes that cannot be repaired by money alone (The U.S. does not have enough money and thus wishes its allies to chip in.) This dilemma is further compounded by the U.S. misinterpretation of Taiwan’s democracy and its people’s (not politicians’) real desire.
Taiwan has been a part of China for many centuries, although it was briefly occupied by invaders such as Dutch colonizers and Japanese imperialists. Japan’s fifties years of occupation of Taiwan (1895-1945) did make a deliberated colonization attempt. Hence, today after Japan surrendered in WW II and returned Taiwan to China in 1945, there are still Japanese immigrants in Taiwan, dependents of Chinese-Japanese intermarriages, and pro-Japan people. These people constitute an influence of about 30% of the total population. The rest are divided into KMT descendants and sympathizers (about 30%) and other political or no political affiliations (including those businesspeople commuting between Mainland and Taiwan.) Taiwan’s election cannot be used as a democracy versus authoritarian contest, rather it is a pure power play very much like a U.S. local village election. The media has repeatedly found that most Taiwanese people prefer to maintain the island's current situation, that is, peace with no war and trade with no sanctions (from the U.S.). The past 70 years of peace gave Taiwan prosperity and China a chance to rise to the second-largest economy in the world. The educated people in Taiwan have a better understanding of the Taiwan issue in the U.S. -China relations. They believe in historical destiny. It is unwise for the U.S. to misinterpret the Taiwan democracy for its legacy strategy. Given time, Taiwan will be united with Mainland China for mutual benefits, not for any other foreign interest. This is the real Taiwan issue in the U.S.-China relations. Honoring the one-China policy, changing deterrence to collaboration, and cultivating genuine friendship and cooperation will reap true benefits for all including the U.S. for sure!
This topic has never registered in most Americans’ minds except in recent years when US-China relations became tense triggering a hostile confrontation. The Taiwan issue to most American international relations scholars has been a fuzzy one since the U.S. openly admits its practicing of an ambiguous foreign policy regarding the status of Taiwan and its significance to China and U.S.-China Relations. The ambiguous Taiwan policy may be a deliberate design or a choice led by the circumstances that happened on the world stage, but it has worked to the U.S. advantages in the past under the Cold War atmosphere. However, the ambiguous Taiwan policy is causing confusion, indecision, and miscalculation in dealing with the ever-challenging U.S.-China relations under the mutually acknowledged one-China principle. In the past one hundred years, the U.S. has emerged as the world superpower but facing an increasingly complex world with serious challenges. In the same period, China suffered devastating foreign invasions and experienced an internal revolution that never ended resulting in a split between Mainland and Taiwan across the Taiwan Strait. Two sides were influenced respectively by the communist block (the Socialist Camp led by the Soviet Union/Russia) and the Western Alliances (led by the U.S.) politically and economically.
During and after WW II, the U.S. backed the Kuo Ming Tang (KMT/ROC) government which retreated to Taiwan while the Chinese Communist Party united the entire mainland (CCP/PRC) but Taiwan in 1949. The U.S. strategically or out of realistic assessment made a switch to recognize the PRC in 1979 with the intent of allying with China against the Soviet Union in the Cold War (which ended in 1991). Over 40+ years, Taiwan and Mainland China pursued economic development (separately following Sun Yat Sen’s political and economic development philosophy but practiced with different political party mechanisms and systems), thawing their relationship from a hostile ‘conquering the other side’ to a peaceful coexistence with mutual trade dependency. Taiwan was successful economically becoming the head of the four Asian little dragons and Mainland was catching behind with a faster (double-digit) growth rate. During this time, the U.S. maintained its one China policy but kept its legacy strategy of anti-communism considering China as a communist country. Even though the Soviet Union collapsed, the guard against communist countries remained. With China’s rapid rise in its nation-building process, the U.S. raised its concern over China’s development.
Indeed, China maintained its development and growth rate ever since 1978 when its GDP was 149.54 B, 1/40 of the U.S. GDP, and accelerated to 1.21 T, when China was admitted to the World Trade Organization (WTO) in 2000. China’s GDP reached 6.09T overtaking Japan as the world’s second-largest economy next to the U.S. (15.05T) in 2014. The latest GDP figure in 2022 showed 17.96 T for China and 25.46 for the U.S. With China’s 2-3 times faster growth rate, one might expect China to surpass the U.S. GDP in a few years. It is under this atmosphere that the U.S. has strategically targeted China as its number one competitor (a code name for the enemy). Indeed the U.S. has launched a trade war, technology sanctions, a media campaign, and across the board including diplomatic and military alliances against China. In this U.S.-China confrontation, the Taiwan issue has become a critical chess piece in the game. The ambiguous Taiwan policy thus becomes cumbersome for the U.S. to conduct its fast-changing and vulnerable China policy.
Militarily, the U.S. had formulated the first island chain from South Korea, Japan, Philippines to Singapore to circumvent China and control China’s major shipping route along all of China’s coastline. Taiwan was not legally part of this island chain plot, but its geographical location between Japan and the Philippines made it strategically important to the containment strategy against China. Based on what happens in the U.S. diplomatic and military maneuvers (in forming anti-China mini-NATO-like alliances) and its desperate measures to reduce its dependence on China’s supply chain, one can see that the U.S. cannot hide behind a hypocritical one-China policy anymore; on the one hand selling weapons and arming Taiwan for war preparation and on the other hand coercing Taiwan along with South Korea and Japan to move their manufacturing technology and supply chain to the U.S. The U.S. Congress has attempted to create legislation to facilitate official contacts and weapon sales to Taiwan, but they are simply violating the one-China policy and stepping on China’s sovereignty redline. Crossing this redline is essentially breaking U.S.-China relations and ending diplomatic contacts. It is no surprise that China is fed up with the U.S. hypocritical one-China policy and shut its doors for U.S. officials.
In the U.S., there are numerous think tanks, invariably tied with government and industrial military complex on strategic matters. The current schools of thought on China may be summarized as follows: One school proposes abandoning the one-China policy, and the other wants to maintain an ambiguous Taiwan policy, but neither has a clear solution or strategy to deal with the above-stated consequences. The U.S. has been opposing ‘Taiwan Independence’ for fear of giving China the legitimate reason to use force to take over Taiwan (which is a feasible outcome based on the U.S.'s military analysis with no real proof that China will do so.) while encouraging Taiwan government to buy U.S. weapons to arm for defense, obviously for U.S. advantage. The ones arguing for maintaining an ambiguous Taiwan policy (keeping one-China policy) cannot convince, even the U.S.’s own Allies, that the U.S. is not meddling in China’s historical domestic issues with unjustified selfish interest. Hence the U.S. containment or deterrence strategy has holes that cannot be repaired by money alone (The U.S. does not have enough money and thus wishes its allies to chip in.) This dilemma is further compounded by the U.S. misinterpretation of Taiwan’s democracy and its people’s (not politicians’) real desire.
Taiwan has been a part of China for many centuries, although it was briefly occupied by invaders such as Dutch colonizers and Japanese imperialists. Japan’s fifties years of occupation of Taiwan (1895-1945) did make a deliberated colonization attempt. Hence, today after Japan surrendered in WW II and returned Taiwan to China in 1945, there are still Japanese immigrants in Taiwan, dependents of Chinese-Japanese intermarriages, and pro-Japan people. These people constitute an influence of about 30% of the total population. The rest are divided into KMT descendants and sympathizers (about 30%) and other political or no political affiliations (including those businesspeople commuting between Mainland and Taiwan.) Taiwan’s election cannot be used as a democracy versus authoritarian contest, rather it is a pure power play very much like a U.S. local village election. The media has repeatedly found that most Taiwanese people prefer to maintain the island's current situation, that is, peace with no war and trade with no sanctions (from the U.S.). The past 70 years of peace gave Taiwan prosperity and China a chance to rise to the second-largest economy in the world. The educated people in Taiwan have a better understanding of the Taiwan issue in the U.S. -China relations. They believe in historical destiny. It is unwise for the U.S. to misinterpret the Taiwan democracy for its legacy strategy. Given time, Taiwan will be united with Mainland China for mutual benefits, not for any other foreign interest. This is the real Taiwan issue in the U.S.-China relations. Honoring the one-China policy, changing deterrence to collaboration, and cultivating genuine friendship and cooperation will reap true benefits for all including the U.S. for sure!
RSS Feed