Following his remarks at the Shangri-La Dialogue security forum in Singapore on May 31 that “any attempt by communist China to conquer Taiwan would result in devastating consequences for the Indo-Pacific and the world,” US Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth on June 10 told a US House of Representatives Appropriations Subcommittee on Defense hearing that China is undergoing rapid military buildup and invasion drills targeting Taiwan.
Within just two weeks, Hegseth has twice mentioned the risk of a Chinese invasion of Taiwan. This level of warning is only comparable to the lead-up to the Ukraine war. It has long been the primary stance of the US military to avoid armed conflict in the Taiwan Strait. In response to a potential Chinese military invasion of Taiwan, the US Indo-Pacific Command has a well-established time-sensitive contingency plan. Admiral Samuel Paparo, head of the US Indo-Pacific Command, has advocated for what he calls the “Hellscape” strategy — one where allied forces would deploy numerous uncrewed submarines, uncrewed surface ships and aerial drones to prevent the advancement of troops and deter China from successfully launching an invasion.
It is absurd that at such a critical moment Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) and Taiwan People’s Party (TPP) legislators have proposed an amendment to Article 29 of the Act Governing Relations Between the People of the Taiwan Area and the Mainland Area (臺灣地區與大陸地區人民關係條例), which would transfer the authority to define and publish restricted or prohibited waters and controlled airspace from the Ministry of National Defense to the Ocean Affairs Council.
The stated rationale behind the proposed amendment classifies the situation across the Taiwan Strait as a civil war between the KMT and the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), adding that “the state of civil war between the two sides of the Taiwan Strait has yet to legally end since it began in 1949.”
The goal of this attempt to characterize the cross-strait situation as a civil war is to block international aid, while completely disregarding two important realities of international law. First is that the sovereignty status of Taiwan and Penghu differ entirely from that of the islands of Kinmen and Matsu. Kinmen and Matsu were not part of the 1952 San Francisco Peace Treaty by which Japan “renounced all right, title, and claim to” Taiwan and Penghu, nor were they under the direct rule of the exiled KMT government from 1949 onwards. Second is that the US and Taiwan have a long-standing and special military relationship.
The Taiwan Relations Act (TRA) of 1979, which authorized the continuation of nonofficial relations between the US and Taiwan, and affirmed the US’ commitment “provide Taiwan with arms of a defensive character,” and the National Defense Authorization Act are both US laws that contain clauses involving Taiwan with regard to military matters. Such measures stem from the US obligation to maintain order in the Western Pacific after the end of the Pacific War and the signing of the San Francisco Peace Treaty. The preamble of the TRA states that its purpose is to “help maintain peace, security and stability in the Western Pacific,” and directly affirms the strategic importance of “the islands of Taiwan and the Pescadores [Penghu],” as being inextricably tied to peace and stability in the region.
The draft amendment defining the Taiwan Strait issue as a civil war is an attempt by KMT and TPP lawmakers to slip in China’s assertions into domestic law. Such framing would most directly impact the regions not covered by the TRA — namely Kinmen, Matsu and surrounding islands.
In 1955, the US passed the Formosa Resolution — which granted the US president the broad authority to “employ the Armed Forces of the United States for the specific purpose of securing and protecting Formosa [Taiwan] and the Pescadores [Penghu] against armed attack” — thereby sidestepping the issue of non-intervention in China’s internal affairs.
However, the resolution was repealed in 1974 when the US moved toward normalizing relations with the People’s Republic of China. If the KMT and the TPP succeed in passing this draft amendment, and incidents similar to the Battle of Guningtou or the 823 Artillery Bombardment — where the Chinese People’s Liberation Army attempted to invade Kinmen County — were to occur again, the residents of Kinmen and Matsu might be left with no choice but to fend for themselves.
Seizing Kinmen and Matsu would allow Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) to reach a significant personal and historical milestone at the lowest possible cost while simultaneously easing the pressure of fulfilling his goal of unification. The draft amendment stipulates that Kinmen, Matsu and the surrounding areas may be exempt from Article 5-3 — which stipulates that the Executive Yuan must submit a signing plan and a political impact assessment report to the Legislative Yuan at least 90 days before it is scheduled to begin negotiations with the Chinese government — thereby allowing for direct political negotiations between the two sides. The KMT and the TPP might very well be preemptively preparing to turn Kinmen and Matsu into the new eastern Ukraine.
Ou Wei-chun is chief legal officer of a private company.
Translated by Kyra Gustavsen
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