Xinhua news agency on Tuesday published a summary of the key positions of US President Joe Biden and Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) from their meeting on the sidelines of the G20 summit in Indonesia.
Unsurprisingly, the article identified the issue of Taiwan as the first “red line that cannot be crossed” in US-Sino relations.
It quoted Xi as saying that Biden has repeatedly said he does not support Taiwanese independence, and that he has no intention of using Taiwan to seek a competitive advantage over China or to contain Beijing.
The article concludes by expressing the hope that Xi “will implement his promises” to put Biden in his place.
However, most interesting about this representation is how it shines a light on the differences between how the US and China view “Taiwanese independence.”
On Nov. 3, during a trip to Palau, Vice President William Lai (賴清德) said that China equates not supporting unification with supporting independence, whereas the US interprets Taiwanese independence as participating in processes legally inferring independence.
When Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) participated in a videoconference, in her capacity as president of the Republic of China, at the George W. Bush Presidential Center on Wednesday, would this be considered as inferring independence? Was allowing Tsai to attend the conference stepping over the “red line that cannot be crossed”? Herein lies the confusion between the two interpretations.
In his poem Written on the Wall of West Forest Temple (題西林壁), Song Dynasty official Su Shi (蘇軾) wrote: “When you look across, it is a mountain range, when you look up, it is a peak, always changing, depending on where you stand, near or far.”
After a century of struggle, the world is paying attention to the Taiwanese independence movement. Now, caught in the political struggle between two major global powers, one has to ask what independence looks like for this small nation?
Perhaps the time has finally come when Taiwanese should give this question serious consideration. It is a matter of crucial importance to peace in East Asia.
Shih Ya-hsuan is an associate professor in National Kaohsiung Normal University’s Department of Geography.
Translated by Paul Cooper
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