Taiwan, China, and the US in the Indo-Pacific (GS Paper 2, International Relation)
Why in news?
- The Speaker of the United States House of Representatives Nancy Pelosi arrived in Taiwan recently for what she called a show of American solidarity with the island, defying repeated warnings from China and fueling a new round of US-China tensions.
- This visit took place at a time when US-China relations are the poorest in decades.
What was China’s reaction?
- In a phone call with U.S. President, President Xi Jinping had warned the US against any unilateral moves that would change the island status.
- China views Pelosi’s visit as a serious violation of the “One China” principle and the provisions of the three China-US joint communiqués.
- This, according to the China, gravely undermines peace and stability in the region, and sends a wrong signal to the “separatist forces for Taiwan independence”.
What does the ‘One China’ policy say?
- The policy that forms the basis of Chinese diplomacy and determines Sino-US relations, is the diplomatic acknowledgement of China’s position that there is only one Chinese government. Under the policy, the US recognises and has formal ties with China rather than the island of Taiwan.
- The policy is clearly explained in the US-PRC joint communique of December 1978: “The People’s Republic of China and the United States of America have agreed to recognise each other and to establish diplomatic relations as of 1 January 1979.The United States of America recognises the Government of the People’s Republic of China as the sole legal Government of China. Within this context, the people of the United States will maintain cultural, commercial, and other unofficial relations with the people of Taiwan.”
- The Government of the United States of America acknowledges the Chinese position that there is but one China and Taiwan is part of China.
Does this mean US has no ties with Taiwan?
- No. As per the ‘One China’ policy, US maintains formal ties with China, it also has unofficial ties with Taiwan.
- This has been facilitated as US Congress passed the Taiwan Relations Act (TRA) in 1979. Basically, this Act notes that US must help Taiwan defend itself, which is why the US continues to sell arms to Taiwan. The US has also said it insists on the peaceful resolution of differences between the two sides and encourages both sides to pursue “constructive dialogue”.
- It maintains an unofficial presence in Taipei via the American Institute in Taiwan, a private corporation through which it carries out diplomatic activities.
- The TRA came into being because while US follows the ‘One China’ policy, it doesn’t ascribe to the One China principle, whereby China insists Taiwan is an inalienable part of one China to be reunified one day.
How does ‘One China’ policy affect Taiwan?
- It is obvious that China has been a huge benefactor of the ‘One China’ policy, as it casts Taiwan out into the diplomatic wilderness.
- Taiwan doesn’t have nation status at the United Nations and at most other international bodies. China has also had Taiwan excluded from World Health Organization (WHO) meetings about the coronavirus pandemic, even though Taiwan has been held up as a poster child for its response to the pandemic. It competes at the Olympics as Chinese Taipei.
- As China has grown richer, it has used its economic might to convince, though some might say coerce, countries into not accepting Taiwan’s country status.
- China has steadily been picking off Taiwan’s remaining diplomatic partners, many of them in the Pacific, including Kiribati and the Solomon Islands.
- Taiwan is left with recognition from only 14 out of 193 United Nations member states: Belize, Eswatini, Guatemala, Haiti, Honduras, the Marshall Islands, Nauru, Nicaragua, Palau, Paraguay, Saint Kitts and Nevis, Saint Lucia, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines and Tuvalu.
What is the genesis of the China-Taiwan tensions?
- The Republic of China (ROC) was founded in 1912 following the collapse of the Qing dynasty and the 1911 Revolution. Dr Sun Yat-sen who assumed the presidency of the ROC, was soon succeeded by Yuan Shikai.
- Taiwan was at the time under Japanese colonial rule, having been ceded by the Qing following the 1895 Treaty of Shimonoseki. After the defeat of Japan in World War II, the ROC government began exercising jurisdiction over Taiwan in 1945.
- After the communists won the civil war on the mainland, Mao Zedong proclaimed the founding of the People’s Republic with its capital in Beijing on October 1, 1949. That December, after the PLA advanced into Sichuan province, Chiang Kai-shek, one of Sun Yat-sen’s lieutenants, retreated to the island of Taiwan along with some 2 million nationalist soldiers.
- The ROC has exercised effective jurisdiction over the main island and several outlying islands ever since, leaving Taiwan and China under the rule of different governments.
- The Taiwan Strait is only 130 km at its shortest distance, and the mainland city of Xiamen in Fujian is only 2 km from the Taiwanese-controlled island of Kinmen.
- Until the 1970s, the US and most Western governments recognised the ROC as the government of all of China. The US and PRC established diplomatic relations on January 1, 1979, almost thirty years after the communists came to power.
- There have been three instances of disturbances in the Taiwan Strait in 1954, 1958, and 1995-96, but peace has largely been maintained due to American “strategic ambiguity”.
What is the current issue between Taiwan, China, and the US?
- Domestic policy aspects of Taiwan, China, and the US have contributed to today’s situation.
China:
- In 2015, China initiated path-breaking military reforms to convert the PLA into a world-class force by 2049. One of China’s stated national security objectives has been “reunification with Taiwan”.
- In his Chinese Communist Party (CCP) Centenary speech in 2021, President Xi said, “Resolving the Taiwan question and realising China’s complete reunification is a historic mission and an unshakable commitment of the Communist Party of China.”
- Since September 2020, China has routinely sent aircraft into Taiwan’s air defence identification zone (ADIZ). Meanwhile, between 2018 and 2020, Xi dropped the word “peaceful” while referring to reunification with Taiwan, underlining his aggressive approach to territorial disputes everywhere.
Taiwan:
- In 2016, the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) candidate Tsai Ing-wen was elected President. On December 2 that year, she initiated a telephonic conversation with then US President elect Donald Trump, the first time since 1979 that the two countries spoke at that level.
- Under the Tsai administration, US-Taiwan relations warmed. In March 2018, Trump signed into law the Taiwan Travel Act, which allowed American officials to step up exchanges with Taiwan.
- Over the last six years, the US has approved multiple sales of arms to Taiwan — including 108 M1A2T Abrams tanks, Hercules armoured vehicles, heavy equipment transporters, rocket launchers, sensors, artillery and, most importantly, 66 F-16 Viper fighter jets.
- China views all of this as US attempts to use Taiwan to contain the PRC’s “peaceful rise”, emboldening “Taiwan’s pro-independence separatist activities”, and “impacting cross-strait harmony.”
United States:
- Taiwan is just one aspect of the worsening geopolitical checkerboard between the US and China. Antagonistic stances on security, economics, technology, and ideology have crystallised under the Biden Administration, with limited room for adjustment.
- The US has carried out a diplomatic boycott of the Beijing Winter Olympics, added more Chinese companies to its trade restriction list, and Congress has passed a bill to counter China’s human rights abuses in Xinjiang.
- The Trump Administration had opened a more confrontational era in relations with China, and Biden has concretised this approach by signing the AUKUS trilateral security pact with the UK and Australia, and increasing Quad coordination with Japan, India, and Australia to limit Beijing’s influence in the Indo-Pacific region.
- Following the Russian invasion of Ukraine, there was concern in Western capitals over whether China could carry out similar action in Taiwan. Against this background, Speaker Pelosi’s trip to Taiwan has led some security scholars to predict a fourth Taiwan Strait Crisis.
What have been the reactions to Pelosi’s visit in China and Taiwan?
- China has imposed restrictions on the import of Taiwanese food brands, and has announced military exercises in areas surrounding Taiwan between August 4 and 7.
- The PLA’s Eastern Theatre Command, which is responsible for contingencies against Taiwan, has said that these exercises will include joint maritime-aerial drills in the north, south west and south east of Taiwan, long-range firing in the Taiwan Strait, and conventional missile firing in waters east of Taiwan.
- Before Pelosi’s arrival, major Taiwanese government websites, including the President’s official website, went dark due to an alleged distributed denial-of-service attack. Hours after Pelosi left, 27 Chinese warplanes entered Taiwan’s air defence zone.
- Taiwanese lawmakers cutting across party lines, including the DPP and Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT), have welcomed Pelosi’s visit as a high point in US-Taiwan relations.
- However, some academics have criticised the visit as being reckless, and resulting in needless escalation of tensions in the Taiwan Strait.
