US Senator Josh Hawley introduced his draft Taiwan Defense Act to the Senate on June 11. Like its predecessors — the Taiwan Travel Act and the Taiwan Allies International Protection and Enhancement Initiative Act in 2018, and the Taiwan Assurance Act last year — decisive majorities in the US House of Representatives and the US Senate are expected to support this bill, making US President Donald Trump’s administration legally obligated to implement it.
These laws adopted in the past few years — along with previously existing legislation, such as the Taiwan Relations Act and the “six assurances,” to the extent that the latter have been written down — express the path that Taiwan has followed in its post-war reconstruction from a de facto state to a political one.
The passive aspect of these laws is that they have prevented Taiwan’s powerful neighbor from depriving it of its political and economic achievements.
Their active aspect is that they have laid the basic foundation of governance necessary for Taiwan to exist as a political state.
In an article published three years ago in the Taipei Times, I reminded decisionmakers that the San Francisco Peace Treaty obligates the US, as the principal occupying power, to preserve territories (“Taiwan’s status can’t be changed unilaterally,” Nov. 21, 2017, page 8).
The key concept of US policy regarding security in the western Pacific is therefore to preserve the “status quo,” but unfortunately China has changed the “status quo” into a fait accompli.
In view of this, the draft Taiwan Defense Act says at the outset that it is “a bill to maintain the ability of the United States Armed Forces to deny a fait accompli by the People’s Republic of China against Taiwan.”
As well as being targeted solely at the People’s Republic of China, the bill mentions the term fait accompli no fewer than 32 times.
The bill praises Taiwan as “a beacon of democracy in Asia” and “a steadfast partner ... in the common pursuit of a free and open Indo-Pacific region in which all societies enjoy sovereign autonomy.”
In contrast, the longstanding intent of Beijing’s military modernization is to unite Taiwan with China by force.
At the same time, Beijing also aims to impose its will on neighboring countries and preventing US access to trade routes and markets in the Indo-Pacific region, thereby undermining the American way of life.
This makes relations between Taiwan and China an existential issue for the US and lends legitimacy to Hawley’s bill.
The bill presumes that China plans to seize Taiwan by force through a lightning strike, and that once it establishes a fait accompli, it would be difficult for the US to restore the previous “status quo.”
In that case, Taiwan would change from an asset for the US in its Indo-Pacific strategy to a burden.
The US therefore seeks to delay, degrade and defeat China’s aforementioned plan.
To achieve this, the bill calls for maintaining military deterrence capabilities by developing new operational concepts.
The bill also calls for employing a global operating model with multidomain operations.
If the US Congress passes the Taiwan Defense Act, it would be a factor that China would have to take into account in its desire to alter the cross-strait “status quo,” and it would also be a factor that it could not afford to misjudge.
HoonTing is a political commentator.
Translated by Julian Clegg
There has been much catastrophizing in Taiwan recently about America becoming more unreliable as a bulwark against Chinese pressure. Some of this has been sparked by debates in Washington about whether the United States should defend Taiwan in event of conflict. There also were understandable anxieties about whether President Trump would sacrifice Taiwan’s interests for a trade deal when he sat down with President Xi (習近平) in late October. On top of that, Taiwan’s opposition political leaders have sought to score political points by attacking the Lai (賴清德) administration for mishandling relations with the United States. Part of this budding anxiety
The diplomatic dispute between China and Japan over Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi’s comments in the Japanese Diet continues to escalate. In a letter to UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, China’s UN Ambassador Fu Cong (傅聰) wrote that, “if Japan dares to attempt an armed intervention in the cross-Strait situation, it would be an act of aggression.” There was no indication that Fu was aware of the irony implicit in the complaint. Until this point, Beijing had limited its remonstrations to diplomatic summonses and weaponization of economic levers, such as banning Japanese seafood imports, discouraging Chinese from traveling to Japan or issuing
On Nov. 8, newly elected Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Chairwoman Cheng Li-wun (鄭麗文) and Vice Chairman Chi Lin-len (季麟連) attended a memorial for White Terror era victims, during which convicted Chinese Communist Party (CCP) spies such as Wu Shi (吳石) were also honored. Cheng’s participation in the ceremony, which she said was part of her efforts to promote cross-strait reconciliation, has trapped herself and her party into the KMT’s dark past, and risks putting the party back on its old disastrous road. Wu, a lieutenant general who was the Ministry of National Defense’s deputy chief of the general staff, was recruited
Tokyo-Beijing relations have been rapidly deteriorating over the past two weeks as China tries to punish Japan over Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi’s remarks about Taiwan earlier this month, and the off-ramp to this conflict is yet to be seen. Takaichi saying that a “Taiwan contingency” could cause a “situation threatening Japan’s survival” — which would allow Japan to act in self-defense — has drawn Beijing’s ire and sparked retaliatory measures. Her remark did not gain public attention until Chinese Consul General in Osaka Xue Jian (薛劍) made an apparent threat to behead her. The two sides lodged protests against each
RSS