US President Joe Biden and US Secretary of State Antony Blinken at the end of last month each delivered important remarks and speeches that put more flesh on the bone of their administration’s China policy.
Biden’s remarks and Blinken’s speech have attracted a great deal of attention, with commentators and analysts sharing their interpretations of the key takeaways.
Regarding Taiwan, the US’ China policy is becoming increasingly clear. Faced with the threat of Beijing’s rapacious designs on Taiwan, there is no longer any doubt that the US military would assist Taiwan to defend itself.
Biden’s remarks were unequivocal.
Following talks with Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida in Tokyo on Monday last week, Biden was asked by a CBS reporter if Washington would defend Taiwan militarily.
Biden replied with a simple: “Yes.”
Asked for clarification, Biden responded: “That’s the commitment we made.”
Three days later, in Washington, Blinken elaborated on the US’ China policy, saying that Beijing represents “the most serious long-term challenge to the international order.”
Blinken also said that the US would seek to “shape the strategic environment around Beijing” to influence its behavior.
As for Taiwan, he said that Washington’s policy had not changed, but emphasized that the US enjoys a “strong unofficial relationship” with the nation.
Blinken made clear that Washington has not shifted its policy, rather it is Beijing that has changed. He referenced China’s actions toward Taiwan, including its attempts to sever Taiwan’s diplomatic relations with countries around the world, and its “increasingly provocative rhetoric and activity, such as flying PLA [Chinese People’s Liberation Army] aircraft near Taiwan on an almost daily basis.”
Blinken called out Beijing’s “destabilizing” rhetoric and actions that “threaten the peace and stability of the Taiwan Strait.”
His boss was even more direct, warning that the Chinese military’s incursions into Taiwan’s air defense identification zone are “playing with fire.”
The US commitment to Taiwan is founded upon its Taiwan Relations Act (TRA) and the “six assurances” of former US president Ronald Reagan.
The TRA states that the US considers “any effort to determine the future of Taiwan by other than peaceful means, including by boycotts or embargoes, a threat to the peace and security of the western Pacific area and of grave concern to the United States.”
However, the wording of the act does not clearly state whether the US would use its armed forces to assist Taiwan, nor under what circumstances deploying the US military might be necessary.
In the past, the US has employed a policy of “strategic ambiguity” over what it might do were China to use military force against Taiwan. This policy has been severely tested by Beijing’s multiple coercive actions in the past few years, and led to manifest miscalculations on China’s part.
For this reason, many people with knowledge of the US’ Taiwan and China policies have been calling on Washington to move to a position of “strategic clarity” to more effectively deter Beijing.
It is no accident that Biden has adopted such a clear stance. At the news conference, he said that the US continues to “support the one China policy, but that does not mean that China has the ... jurisdiction to go in and use force to take over Taiwan.”
Were China to invade, it would be met with an even stronger response from the international community than that meted out to Russia for its invasion of Ukraine, and that the international community must continue with its sanctions against Russia to avoid Beijing drawing the conclusion that any sanctions directed at it would only inflict short-term pain, he said.
Biden’s commitment to militarily defend Taiwan at the Tokyo news conference was no “gaffe.” Biden was vice president under former US president Barack Obama, has chaired the US Senate Foreign Relations Committee several times and is experienced in foreign relations. It is the third time in nine months that he has committed to militarily defend Taiwan.
Biden participated in the legislative process surrounding the passing of the TRA four decades ago and has visited Taiwan. His pledge is heartfelt and unwavering.
From Washington’s perspective, the Cold War-era policy of engagement with China to defeat the Soviet Union developed by former US president Richard Nixon and his main foreign policy adviser, Henry Kissinger, was a failure. Decades of trade and diplomatic engagement with Beijing with the hope of changing China, bringing political reform and turning it into a responsible member of the international community has come to naught. Engagement simply fed the beast.
Today an empowered China is champing at the bit to annex Taiwan, become top dog in the Indo-Pacific region and supplant the US.
Former US secretary of state Mike Pompeo was right when he said that Americans do not comprehend the true evil of the Chinese Communist Party.
In a keynote speech at a graduation ceremony for US Naval Academy graduates on Friday last week, Biden excoriated Russian President Vladimir Putin, mentioned Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) by name, and vowed that the US would defeat aggression in the battle between democracy and autocracy.
While the US’ “one China” policy has not changed, with China seeking to alter the “status quo” through the use of military force, Biden has categorically stated that the US would resist any such attempt. While the White House officially does not support Taiwanese independence, in reality Washington is not ideologically opposed to the idea. Were Taiwan, as a fellow democracy that respects the right to self-determination, to go for formal independence, Washington would not support the move, but it would also not oppose it.
Chinese and pro-Beijing Taiwanese media frequently misrepresent Washington’s position on independence by conflating “does not support” with “is opposed to.” The people who manufacture these distortions are fundamentally anti-democratic, as they clearly do not believe in the right of Taiwanese to determine their own future. The same actors also regularly and deliberately confuse the US’ “one China” policy with Beijing’s “one China principle,” despite them being entirely different.
Former Chinese leader Deng Xiaoping (鄧小平) planned to employ deception and stealth in a “100-year marathon” in which China would displace the US and dominate the world.
However, Xi’s wild ambition drove him to cast aside Deng’s policy and revealed China’s hand early. Starting with former US president Donald Trump and continued by Biden, Washington has wised up to China and is determined to cut Beijing down to size. China will not be able to pull the same trick twice, even with a leadership change. The US-China relationship has changed for good.
Today words such as “decoupling,” “competition,” “threat,” “antagonistic” and “cold war” are frequently used to describe this most unharmonious of relationships.
However, the most important variable in this equation is Taiwan. Beijing believes its fangs are large and sharp enough to annex the nation, yet it also wants to get its paws on the prize without paying too heavy a price. It believes it can use cognitive warfare or “united front” tactics to bring about societal collapse and win without fighting.
Russia’s invasion of Ukraine shows that people have to help themselves before outsiders would be prepared to help them.
Taiwanese must follow the example of Ukrainians, spend more on defense, improve the nation’s ability to defend itself, reimagine its defensive strategy and doctrine, and reallocate funds where they are most needed.
The military must cast aside the shibboleths of conventional warfare and outdated weapons systems, and instead fully embrace more affordable, lightweight and nimble asymmetric weaponry. If the military does this, it can significantly raise the cost of an invasion.
Taipei and Washington are in the process of discussing how to make these adjustments.
Differences of opinion over identity — am I Taiwanese or Chinese? — continue to divide politics and the nation, hampering the ability of Taiwanese to unite against the enemy.
Pro-China, anti-US forces within Taiwan sometimes overtly, sometimes covertly eat away at society’s natural defenses. This lack of national unity is Taiwan’s greatest weakness in its battle to prevent annexation.
Taiwanese must fall back on the power of civil society and form social movements as a corrective to internal malefactors.
This is our country. Only we can save it.
Translated by Edward Jones
Source: Taipei Times - Editorials 2022/06/04
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