The chairmen of the Taiwan Statebuilding Party and the New Power Party (NPP) on Wednesday said that given the circumstances surrounding the COVID-19 pandemic, President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) missed an opportunity when she emphasized maintaining the cross-strait “status quo” in her second inaugural address.
Although they did not elaborate, presumably what Taiwan Statebuilding Party Chairman Chen Yi-chi (陳奕齊) and NPP Chairman Hsu Yung-ming (徐永明) meant is that the global economic crisis resulting from the pandemic had caused a worldwide backlash against China. Some countries have already begun thinking of ways to decouple their economies from China. Australia, which had called for an investigation into the origins of the pandemic, is now facing retaliatory trade restrictions from China. As a result, farmers have found new trading partners. Japan and the US have also been seeking to reduce their economic reliance on China, and their governments have proposed providing assistance to companies that relocate their supply chains. Yet what, if anything, does this mean for Taiwan?
The nation could conceivably take up some of the trade that has been shifted out of China or assist companies in other countries with relocating to Southeast Asia, where it has significant experience due to the government’s New Southbound Policy.
However, in terms of Taiwan-China relations, it is much less clear what effect the pandemic has had.
Taiwanese businesses have also been seeking to move out of China, but that started with the US-China trade dispute last year. It might also have had an effect on China’s “united front” efforts, since cross-strait exchanges have come to a halt, but the pandemic has done nothing to curb Beijing’s ambitions regarding Taiwan. China has continued to conduct military exercises near Taiwan in the past several months. Fortunately, the US has also not ceased its surveillance and right-of-passage activities in the area.
None of this implies that Taiwan should not — or should, for that matter — amend its Constitution or laws governing cross-strait relations, but it should inform the public that the threat of war from doing so has not gone away amid the pandemic. One argument is that Beijing, emboldened by the pandemic, is moving forward with its South China Sea ambitions while countries are distracted by a health crisis. Perhaps China has been dissuaded from attempting an invasion of Taiwan due to the US’ continued presence, but whether it would continue to be deterred if cross-strait laws were amended is hard to predict.
Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) Legislator Tsai Yi-yu (蔡易餘) last week was pressured to retract a proposed bill that would remove “unification of the nation” from the Act Governing Relations Between the People of the Taiwan Area and the Mainland Area (台灣地區與大陸地區人民關係條例), because it would throw cross-strait ties off balance ahead of Tsai Ing-wen’s reinauguration. Whether the DPP was responding to a threat from China’s Taiwan Affairs Office spokesman Ma Xiaoguang (馬曉光) on May 9 that Taiwan should not “underestimate the strong will and determination of China’s 1.4 billion people to maintain sovereignty” is unclear. However, the threat shows that China has not backed down.
If Taiwan wants a “good opportunity” to amend laws or the Constitution, it should seek a clear commitment from the US or other friendly nations to provide military aid. The US has always maintained that it would not accept unilateral change to the “status quo in the Taiwan Strait,” but US-China relations have significantly destabilized under US President Donald Trump. Now might be an opportune moment to pursue a change in the US’ stance.
Recently, China launched another diplomatic offensive against Taiwan, improperly linking its “one China principle” with UN General Assembly Resolution 2758 to constrain Taiwan’s diplomatic space. After Taiwan’s presidential election on Jan. 13, China persuaded Nauru to sever diplomatic ties with Taiwan. Nauru cited Resolution 2758 in its declaration of the diplomatic break. Subsequently, during the WHO Executive Board meeting that month, Beijing rallied countries including Venezuela, Zimbabwe, Belarus, Egypt, Nicaragua, Sri Lanka, Laos, Russia, Syria and Pakistan to reiterate the “one China principle” in their statements, and assert that “Resolution 2758 has settled the status of Taiwan” to hinder Taiwan’s
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