Trying to Decipher U.S. Taiwan Policy
I don’t usually write about Taiwan — don’t really care about it too much, to be honest. Once in a while, however, I do notice what the U.S. is doing with respect to cross-strait tensions.
I recently wrote about the U.S. decision not to sell additional F-16s to Taiwan, a move which I consider quite prudent given the huge multilateral problems facing the U.S., most of which require China’s support.
The latest tidbit concerns the U.S. House of Representatives and its passing of a non-binding resolution “honoring” the 30th anniversary of the passage of the Taiwan Relations Act, which among other things states that the U.S. will help Taiwan defend itself (i.e. it will give/sell weapons to it). The resolution itself was just some low-level political theater, albeit quite annoying.
Why would the House pass such an empty resolution and piss off China, particularly at a time when cross-straits relations are very good? An article in Asia Times by Jian Junbo of Fudan University has some interesting thoughts:
[C]ross-strait relations are now in their best phase since the KMT, then led by Chiang Kai-shek, fled the mainland for Taiwan in 1949. So at first glance it seems strange that the US Congress should choose now to adopt the TRA resolution – reduced tensions across the Taiwan Strait reduce the need for US arms sales to Taiwan. But the move is in no way intended to further detente across the Taiwan Strait.
The official reason given for the resolution was to mark the 30th anniversary of the TRA. However, this year also marks the 30th anniversary of the 1979 joint Communique for the PRC and the US. Why didn’t the House honor that? The question can be asked in another way: why did the US House choose to reawaken tensions instead of encouraging the healthy state of China-Taiwan relations?
Obviously, Washington thinks that cross-strait ties have progressed so rapidly in the past year that they are deviating from the status quo it desires, that is, a continuation of tensions. The House’s adoption of the TRA resolution is a blatant signal that the US is dissatisfied with warming China-Taiwan ties. If we link this resolution to the recent Pentagon report on Chinese military power - which stated that the PRC is militarily superior to Taiwan – maybe it’s easy to conclude that the US wants to see some instability on the Taiwan Strait.
I think this argument is rather compelling. I actually find it rather easy to believe that the U.S. military sees Taiwan as an important ally in the region and would prefer to drive a wedge between it and the mainland. On its face, this strategy sounds reasonable in a realpolitik sort of way.
The reason why I think it’s ultimately bullshit, though, is that the logic of the U.S. position is fundamentally circular. An “independent” and armed Taiwan may offer the U.S. some military support in the area, but what is the value of those military capabilities?
Seems like a lot of them are evaluated based on their usefulness in an armed conflict with the mainland. What sort of conflict? A cross-straits conflict. In other words, Taiwan is a significant U.S. military ally in the event that Taiwan itself is attacked.
Am I oversimplifying this? It seems to me that if cross-straits tensions are eased, and the threat of armed conflict is reduced, then the strategic importance of Taiwan to the U.S. slowly fades away. At the same time, perhaps some of these ridiculous war games and show of force exercises could be done away with as well.
Now, I know that the U.S. defense industry loves Taiwan and would like them to buy lots of U.S. weapons (paid for by the U.S. government or Taiwan, doesn’t matter). There are also ideologues in the U.S. government that will support any regime with interests adverse to that of “Red” China. But weapons and ideology aside, and looking at this only with long-term U.S. interests in mind, why on earth would you do anything to slow down China-Taiwan detente?
In the end, those resolutions are not much more than paying lip-service to America’s long-standing commitments (possibly with Taiwanese-American and good-old-commie-hating votes in mind). Not going ahead with the sale of actual fighter plans sends a much stronger message.
Anyway: I’m not quite sure why passing a “non-binding resolution” does anything to impede PRC/Taiwan reconciliation? (Then again, meeting the Dalai Lama doesn’t really harm China either, but it is still construed to be a highly aggressive anti-China thing to do…)
I think you answered your own question. It’s a symbolic act by a part of the government. It gets in the press, forces Beijing to respond, etc.
I think the problem with your argument is in your last line
“looking at this only with long-term U.S. interests in mind”- the House is by design incapable of looking at things in a long-term perspective. Indeed, it’s hard for them to see anything in terms besides dollar signs and political favors. I would suggest that the house resolution probably had more to do with the Defense industry and Taiwan lobby than anything else.
Junbo’s article comes of as kind of paranoid and puts way too much faith in the purposefulness and ability of the American political system.
Stan, the US does create or stoke tensions in Taiwan Strait. Tensions are caused by, and only one thing, China’s desire to annex the island.
Lots of US congresspersons consider ties to Taiwan to be important, which is why they re-affirm them from time to time. They also consider Taiwan’s democracy — which has a long history of support in Congress — to be important. That is why they like these non-binding resolutions.
The reason that Congress passed this is probably domestic, not international. The Obama administration, like previous Dem administrations, is widely considered to be weak on Taiwan, and Congress is basically sending periodic warnings to the Administration that it will not put up with the administration abandoning the island. Such theater is necessary, especially since so many Dem (and Republican) China policy types are deeply involved in the China business. Google for Ken Silverstein’s excellent article “Mandarins” on the China business connections of our mandarin class in Harper’s last august.
Why would you slow down Taiwan-China detente? Long-term speaking, to prevent a war between the US and China. China does not merely want to annex Taiwan, an island no ethnic Chinese emperor ever owned. It also has claims to South China Sea Islands, and to the Senkakus. Unlike Taiwan, the Senkakus, discovered to be Chinese for every minute of the last 5,000 years after japanese announced the possibility of oil there in 1968, are part of Japan, have been for a century, and the US is bound by treaty to defend them. The US has even pointedly conducted wargames there. Other areas China claims, like Assam, Mongolia, and elsewhere, are also possible flashpoints for a war. Beyond that there is the simple fact that if you feed an expansionist beast, its appetite grows. See Czechoslovakia, 1968. God only knows what Beijing will want to eat next after it annexes Taiwan.
Of course, to the 90% of Taiwanese who don’t want to join the PRC, the US commitment in the longterm also prevents the inevitable violence that will occur here when the Chinese attempt to formal annex this place, both local on local, and local against occupier.
There is also the US commitment to the people to consider as a moral act, but I realize Really Serious Thinkers don’t bother their heads about trivial things like right and wrong.
Michael
Aargh …
US DOES NOT create tensions..
Czechoslovakia, 1938
Typing too fast, sorry man.
We’ll have to agree to disagree on this. I really don’t buy any neo-domino theory that says that if Taiwan “falls” then the rest of the Pacific will go next.
I wouldn’t say that the U.S. created these tensions, but you gotta admit that when it sells weapons, it certainly stokes them, motivations aside.
Not to get sucked into a deeper historical argument, but if it wasn’t for the Korean War, the U.S. would never have gotten involved in this in the first place. Poor timing, that.
We’ll have to agree to disagree on this. I really don’t buy any neo-domino theory that says that if Taiwan “falls” then the rest of the Pacific will go next.
Stan, it’s not a “neo-domino theory.” China claims the Senkakus, pure and simple. The Senkakus are Japanese; only Chinese argue otherwise. You’d have to fly in the face of a lot of history, including Chinese history, to argue that successful expansion doesn’t encourage more expansion.
I wouldn’t say that the U.S. created these tensions, but you gotta admit that when it sells weapons, it certainly stokes them, motivations aside.
Without weapons, how are we on Taiwan to defend ourselves from China’s expansionist dreams?
China stoking tensions because the US sells weapons to Taiwan is a policy choice designed to evoke precisely your reaction (weapons sales increase tension! they must be bad!). “Tension” is not some nonhuman factor like weather or gravity that changes without human intervention. Beijing chooses the level of tensions in the Strait, and it manages that choice to attempt to get the western media and western analysts to align themselves with its interests, and to discredit its opponents. Hence “tensions” rise when the local pro-democracy parties advocate for democracy and independence, because Beijing hates our democracy, and they “fall” when the local pro-China party gets elected. The purposes of tension are quite clear; the trick is stop treating tension as if it had no human origin, and instead see who and what its functions are.
Michael Turton