Escalating tensions between the US and China over trade, the South China Sea and recent arms sales are pushing Taiwan back into the US foreign policy spotlight, attracting Beijing’s ire.
After a precedent-shattering telephone call with Donald Trump when he was president-elect, President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) has found an increasingly receptive audience in the US during the recent disputes.
She has been aided in that by the presence of long-standing allies in the White House, the US Department of State and the Pentagon, including US National Security Adviser John Bolton.
“The Republic of China has more high-level friends in this administration than it’s had for many, many years,” said Nicholas Eberstadt, who focuses on Asian security issues at the American Enterprise Institute. “It’s also apparent that the administration has an approach that is going to contest China on many different fronts.”
While it is not clear how far the Trump administration is willing to boost Taiwan, it is seen as an increasingly valuable point of leverage over Beijing, which considers Taiwan’s fate a “core interest” — more important than nearly any other issue.
A faction in Bolton’s National Security Council (NSC) is seeking a more aggressive posture, including by sending more warships through the Taiwan Strait, while Trump and US Vice President Mike Pence have advocated proceeding with caution, according to one current and one former administration official.
An NSC spokesperson said the US president did not need to give further authorization for the US Navy to sail or operate wherever international law allows.
Decades have passed since the fate of Taiwan was considered so important that it featured in the 1960 US presidential debate.
The US broke diplomatic ties with Taiwan and officially recognized the government in Beijing in 1979, but the brewing confrontations over trade and security have created a new opportunity for Taiwan to push back against China’s bid to steadily erode its influence overseas.
Taiwan’s importance to Beijing was why Trump set off a shock wave in China when, as president-elect, he took a call from Tsai. The move raised questions about the US’ continuing commitment to its “one China” policy, which underpinned the restoration of ties between the two powers.
The move prompted then-US president Barack Obama to offer a rare rebuke of the president-elect.
“If you’re going to upend this understanding, you have to have thought through what the consequences are,” Obama said.
While Trump has since affirmed US support for “one China,” his administration has followed its predecessors and gone ahead with weapons sales to Taiwan and made clear that the island’s fate would feature in a broader realignment toward greater confrontation with leaders in Beijing.
In an Oct. 4 speech in Washington, Pence assailed China for a series of moves chipping away at Taiwan’s diplomatic presence overseas and its ramping up of pressure on private companies to refer to Taiwan as a province of China rather than what he called a “distinct geographic entity.”
“America will always believe Taiwan’s embrace of democracy shows a better path for all the Chinese people,” Pence said.
The speech followed sharp condemnation from the US after China persuaded three Latin American and Caribbean countries to switch their allegiances and establish diplomatic ties with China.
Chinese Minister of Foreign Affairs Wang Yi (王毅) delivered an unusually sharp rebuke during US Secretary of State Michael Pompeo’s visit to Beijing on Tuesday last week.
Wang urged the US to stop its “incorrect actions which harm China’s core interests.”
While he did not specify what he meant, there were many potential culprits: Pence’s speech, the announcements of US$1.4 billion in arms sales to Taiwan last year and another US$330 million proposed last month.
Taiwan is no longer seen as a bulwark of resistance against a communist threat, and the economic relationship between China and the US, the world’s two biggest economies, is too important to risk war, several analysts said.
“Although Washington’s rhetoric is loud and its provocative movements are frequent, as a researcher who followed the issue for years, I don’t worry that much about a fundamental change in status quo,” said Zhu Feng (朱峰), dean of Nanjing University’s Institute of International Relations. “If the Trump administration abandons the ’one China’ policy and fully supports Tsai Ing-wen militarily, that will be doomsday for US-China relations.”
FAST TRACK? Chinese spouses must renounce their Chinese citizenship and pledge allegiance to Taiwan to gain citizenship, some demonstrators said Opponents and supporters of a bill that would allow Chinese spouses to obtain Taiwanese citizenship in four years instead of six staged protests near the Legislative Yuan in Taipei yesterday morning. Those who oppose the bill proposed by the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) demanded that Chinese spouses be granted citizenship only after renouncing their Chinese citizenship, passing a citizenship test and pledging allegiance to Taiwan. The demonstrators, who were protesting at a side entrance to the Legislative Yuan on Jinan Road, were mostly members of the Taiwan Association of University Professors and other organizations advocating Taiwanese independence. Supporters of the bill, led
SILENT MAJORITY: Only 1 percent of Chinese rejected all options but war to annex Taiwan, while one-third viewed war as unacceptable, a university study showed Many Chinese are more concerned with developments inside their country than with seeking unification with Taiwan, al-Jazeera reported on Friday. Although China claims Taiwan as its own territory and has vowed to annex it, by force if necessary, 23-year-old Chinese Shao Hongtian was quoted by al-Jazeera as saying that “hostilities are not the way to bring China and Taiwan together.” “I want unification to happen peacefully,” Shao said. Al-Jazeera said it changed Shao’s name to respect his wish for anonymity. If peaceful unification is not possible, Shao said he would prefer “things to remain as they are,” adding that many of his friends feel
Taiwan has “absolute air superiority” over China in its own airspace, Deputy Minister of National Defense Po Horng-huei (柏鴻輝) told a meeting of the legislature’s Foreign Affairs and National Defense Committee on Monday, amid concern over whether Taipei could defend itself against a military incursion by Beijing. Po made the remarks in response to a question from Democratic Progressive Party Legislator Chiu Chih-wei (邱志偉) on whether Taiwan would have partial or complete air superiority if Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA) warplanes were to enter Taiwan’s airspace. Po, a retired pilot, said that the Taiwanese military has “absolute air superiority” over PLA
A shipment of basil pesto imported by Costco Wholesale Taiwan from the US in the middle of last month was intercepted at the border after testing positive for excessive pesticide residue, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) said yesterday. Samples taken from a shipment of the Kirkland Signature brand of basil pesto imported by Costco contained 0.1 milligrams per kilogram of ethylene oxide, exceeding the non-detectable limit. Ethylene oxide is a carcinogenic substance that can be used as a pesticide. The 674kg shipment of basil pesto would either be destroyed or returned to its country of origin, as is the procedure for all