The meeting between US President Joe Biden and Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) last week did not stray far from their respective policy structures, but there are a few points that deserve attention.
First, the January presidential election in Taiwan is not a choice between war and peace. Voice of America quoted one senior US official who said Xi denied that China was preparing to invade Taiwan in 2027 or 2035. Xi told Biden that there was no such plan, and that no one had ever spoken to him about such a plan. Such a statement is a slap in the face of those who keep claiming that the election is a choice between war and peace.
The only thing stopping Xi from pulling the trigger is military strength. Whether Xi will make a move against Taiwan lies in his assessment of the chances of success, not in who gets elected.
Even though some presidential candidates vow to bring “peace” if elected, all solutions other than annexation are regarded by China as “pro-independence” moves. As soon as Xi thinks he has a 100 percent chance of taking out Taiwan, he would not hesitate to launch a war. The only thing that Taiwan can do to keep China at bay is to keep ratcheting up its military power, so that Xi will not be misled into thinking he has a chance to win. “Peace through strength” says it all.
At the meeting, Xi said that China has no plans to surpass or supplant the US, a statement that has resurfaced once again. China has obviously changed its wrong notion of “the East is rising, the West is declining,” especially when its GDP growth rate has begun to fall below that of the US. Its per capita GDP in 2021 was only 75 percent of its rival’s and in the third quarter of this year slid to 64 percent, equivalent to the US’ in 2017.
What is worrisome is whether Taiwan would grow slack in its self-defense and in turn bolster China’s confidence in annexing it. If the presidential candidates who claim they would bring peace if elected, Taiwanese could grow naive enough to believe that peace is secured. Taiwan would be lured into complacency, shortening the period of compulsory military service and causing its defense capability to falter.
As soon as the government accepts the so-called “1992 consensus” of Taiwan being a part of China, cross strait issues would become a domestic problem in which the US or other allies have no right to interfere, which would put Taiwan on a plate for Xi.
Second, Xi urged the US to support unification, while Biden asked Xi to respect Taiwanese elections.
Before the Xi-Biden meeting, the Financial Times quoted an insider as saying that Xi wanted Biden to express opposition to Taiwanese independence instead of the usual stance of not supporting it, but added that Biden was not considering the move. Xi has proposed a new stance by wanting the US to “support peaceful unification.”
“Oppose” and “does not support” do not mean the same thing, yet Beijing and pro-China media outlets have intentionally confused the two.
The US has always maintained the same stance that Biden stated in 2021, that Taiwan should decide its future for itself. What the US insisted on is for the process to be peaceful, regardless of the result. This is why Biden was going out of his way to urge Xi to respect Taiwan’s elections.
Third, Xi wants the US to stop providing arms to Taiwan, while the US is adamant that it is obligated to help bolster Taiwan’s self-defense.
At the meeting, Xi strayed from the usual stance of “opposing US arms deals with Taiwan” to “stopping the US from arming Taiwan.” This is perhaps an echo of pro-China supporters who keep calling for the US to stop arming Taiwan to the teeth. The US has reiterated that based on the Taiwan Relations Act (TRA), it is obligated to ensure that Taiwan has the ability to defend itself by providing it with the assistance it needs.
The US believes it is China that is trying to change the “status quo,” just as in October of last year US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said China has decided the “status quo” of Taiwan’s situation is no longer acceptable. China has decided on “coercion and making life difficult in a variety of ways on Taiwan in the hopes that that would speed reunification, but also holding out the possibility, if that didn’t work, of using force to achieve their goals” he said.
Unless China gives up on using force or halts its daily incursions and military harassment against Taiwan, the US has a duty to follow the articles in the TRA and help ratchet up Taiwan’s self defense.
Chen Shih-min is an associate professor in National Taiwan University’s political science department.
Translated by Rita Wang
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