On Monday, the New York Times published an analysis piece by Stanford University academic Oriana Skylar Mastro, titled “This is what America is getting wrong about China and Taiwan.”
Regrettably, Skylar Mastro herself got some fundamentals wrong.
Skylar Mastro is right that a delicate balance of deterrence and reassurance has been upset, but her solution of “easing China’s concerns” is headed in the wrong direction. Her faulty recipe stems from a fundamental flaw in the agreements made in the 1970s in the process of normalizing US-China relations.
In her article, she quotes from the 1972 Shanghai Communique that the US “reaffirms its interest in a peaceful settlement of the Taiwan question by the Chinese themselves” and that China still views this arrangement as binding.
The problem with the arrangement was that it excluded the Taiwanese themselves, as the issue was perceived as a contest between the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) of Chiang Kai-shek (蔣介石) and the Chinese Communist Party of Mao Zedong (毛澤東).
Taiwanese were clearly not consulted and certainly did not accept it.
In the 1980s, Taiwan underwent a transition to democracy, and from the early 1990s onward, there was a very different situation in which “Taiwan” did not claim to rule China anymore, instead morphing into a full and free democracy that wanted to claim its rightful place as a member of the family of nations.
The problem was that the policies of the US and other Western nations did not adjust to the new situation, remaining stuck in the 1970s.
As democratic Taiwan increased its quest for international space — particularly after President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) was elected in 2016 — the US and other Western nations tried to push the envelope, gradually broadening and deepening informal ties with a democratic and vibrant Taiwan.
This is running into a strong headwind from Beijing, which sees democracy in Taiwan as a threat to its authoritarian existence, and still perceives the struggle for control of Taiwan as an unfinished tail-end of its civil war with the KMT, which ended 74 years ago.
Beijing also fails to understand that Taiwanese value their own history and do not want to be ruled by an authoritarian China that snuffed out freedoms in Tibet, East Turkestan — known in China as Xinjiang — and Hong Kong.
In her prescriptions, Skylar Mastro argued that the US needs to reassure China by reiterating that it “does not support Taiwanese independence or oppose the island’s peaceful unification with China,” and that it should move away “from attempts to create international space for Taiwan.”
These formulas are at odds with the basic US principles of democracy and self-determination, as they deny Taiwanese any voice in their own future.
Anyone who has eyes and has witnessed China’s actions in Tibet, East Turkestan and Hong Kong would understand that “peaceful unification” is a contradiction in terms.
Taiwanese have fought long and hard for their democracy, and they are not going to let their freedoms be taken away by a strongly authoritarian regime in Beijing. If the US were to let that happen, then its credibility in Asia as a defender of democracy would quickly go down the drain.
One other important aspect is that Skylar Mastro presents her case as if the US and China can decide the fate of Taiwan between themselves only. There are other countries in the region — Japan, South Korea and the Philippines — that also have a vested interest in keeping Taiwan free and democratic.
A Taiwan controlled by China would represent an undesired sea change for those countries.
Instead of adding to the confusion with yet another communique — without the input and consent of Taiwanese — the US needs to emphasize to China that peaceful coexistence as two friendly neighbors is fundamentally the only peaceful solution that would work in the long run.
Beijing needs to accept Taiwan as it is, and the international community needs to work harder to bring Taiwan into the family of nations, from which it has been excluded unfairly and unjustly.
Gerrit van der Wees is a former Dutch diplomat who teaches Taiwan history at George Mason University in Fairfax, Virginia, and US relations with East Asia at the George Washington University Elliott School for International Affairs in Washington.
The Executive Yuan recently revised a page of its Web site on ethnic groups in Taiwan, replacing the term “Han” (漢族) with “the rest of the population.” The page, which was updated on March 24, describes the composition of Taiwan’s registered households as indigenous (2.5 percent), foreign origin (1.2 percent) and the rest of the population (96.2 percent). The change was picked up by a social media user and amplified by local media, sparking heated discussion over the weekend. The pan-blue and pro-China camp called it a politically motivated desinicization attempt to obscure the Han Chinese ethnicity of most Taiwanese.
On Wednesday last week, the Rossiyskaya Gazeta published an article by Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) asserting the People’s Republic of China’s (PRC) territorial claim over Taiwan effective 1945, predicated upon instruments such as the 1943 Cairo Declaration and the 1945 Potsdam Proclamation. The article further contended that this de jure and de facto status was subsequently reaffirmed by UN General Assembly Resolution 2758 of 1971. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs promptly issued a statement categorically repudiating these assertions. In addition to the reasons put forward by the ministry, I believe that China’s assertions are open to questions in international
The Legislative Yuan passed an amendment on Friday last week to add four national holidays and make Workers’ Day a national holiday for all sectors — a move referred to as “four plus one.” The Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) and the Taiwan People’s Party (TPP), who used their combined legislative majority to push the bill through its third reading, claim the holidays were chosen based on their inherent significance and social relevance. However, in passing the amendment, they have stuck to the traditional mindset of taking a holiday just for the sake of it, failing to make good use of
As strategic tensions escalate across the vast Indo-Pacific region, Taiwan has emerged as more than a potential flashpoint. It is the fulcrum upon which the credibility of the evolving American-led strategy of integrated deterrence now rests. How the US and regional powers like Japan respond to Taiwan’s defense, and how credible the deterrent against Chinese aggression proves to be, will profoundly shape the Indo-Pacific security architecture for years to come. A successful defense of Taiwan through strengthened deterrence in the Indo-Pacific would enhance the credibility of the US-led alliance system and underpin America’s global preeminence, while a failure of integrated deterrence would
RSS