Taiwan news, Thursday (3/11/2022) print newspaper. Most important news is tucked away inside A6, I find the only print newspaper left in Taipei confusing. A global security dialogue took place in Taipei, a second-third track quasi-official conference full of leaders from the Indo-Pacific. That the focus is on the China Threat is not surprising. That a former US official called on Taiwan Republic to focus its resources to defend its soverignty is fantastic — this echoes President Tsai’s main idea, and is why the China communists-KMT and some American academics are staging such fierce information warfare against Tsai and Taiwanese democracy.
On the same page is the other significant news: the head of the American FCC is visiting Taiwan Republic to discuss cybersecurity. Taiwan Republic just established a Ministry of Digital Affairs and assigned their genius cabinet member Audrey Tang (part Taiwanese, part Vulcan) to head it. Remember the head of the Taiwanese FBI visiting the head of the American FBI? Then I pointed out that whether the Library of Congress style categorizing has the heading of hacking, cybercrime, industrial espionage, illegal drugs, or human trafficking, these are all spokes leading back to the Chinese Communist Party. And so once the Americans started counterattacks against the Chinese communists in semiconductors, then I am looking at ways the US will lead its democratic allies to combat the Chinese in financial, cyber, and other related realms. Taiwan is an interesting frontline beyond the obvious geography — China, HK, Taiwan, California — the movement of people, multiple passports, nationalities, know-how, capital — dictator Xi plugged up HK as a conduit to strengthen (temporarily) his dictatorship, the US, in turn, shows up in Taiwan Republic with FBI, DEA, Coast Guard, and Homeland Security. A multifront, all-domain, global struggle. 4.11.2022
When it comes to the Taiwan Strait the actors and players, however different they are, converge on the quasi-religious, allegedly sacred principle of the “status quo.” But what does it mean, and is it that important?
President Biden and Secretary Blinken recently – and accurately – framed the status quo as no side using violence to change the de facto reality. What has been the reality? In China there is unfortunately a ‘People’s’ Republic of China with a Chinese communist dictatorship – and in Taiwan, there is a “Republic of China” that used to be a warlord Chiang dictatorship, but since the 1990s has become a stable, electoral democracy. Whatever official name one gives to the political entity exercising democratic sovereignty over Taiwan, Taiwan has never been a part of the PRC.
Is this “status quo”? Philosophically the concept of the status quo has always been a fudge, a placeholder, an illusion. World history and human behavior are always dynamic – we build monuments and write last wills and testaments all in desperate, futile attempts to pretend that there can be permanence, unchanging, but this is impossible. The “status quo” hedge was formulated in the 1970s to get to pressing business – US-communist China facing down the USSR – moving, and deferring irresolvable differences over Taiwan.
The US government has been inconsistent, and self-contradictory for decades on its own Taiwan policies. The one constant element regarding its meaning of the status quo is no war – and no military coercion to change the status quo. This is ironic given some American anti-war activists rhetorically converging with some US think tankers converging with Chinese communist propaganda about what the status quo means, and who is allegedly pushing for war.
So, if the historically accurate definition of the status quo is that “RoC/Taiwan/Make up any name it actually matters less than democratic sovereignty derived from free and fair elections in Taiwan” has never been a part of the People’s Republic of China, and Taiwan’s future must be peacefully and democratically decided by its 23 million citizens free from coercion and threats, then I cannot think of a major political party nor likely presidential candidate in Taiwan who would dare to veer far from this democracy red line. Can we say the same for American academics and think tank experts? Their relative reluctance to center democratic sovereignty is fascinating and ought to be a separate study/book.
I think a particularly bad habit pushed by the China communists and China KMT is to overload the system with character salads and mind-numbing numerical formulations – the fictional 92 consensus that’s not a consensus, the three yes and four no’s and the five musts and twelve something somethings and on and on and on. Cutting through the junk, the fundamental belief of the Chinese communists, some in the China KMT, and some in American academia are that might makes right – communist China is bigger, its status quo, which is invasion and annexation of democratic Taiwan, is the meaning of status quo. This is also why some American experts will do almost anything to avoid using the words democracy/dictatorship – ever notice that? I bet they talk about democracy plenty when it comes to domestic American politics though. As Mr. Spock would say, fascinating.
Two additional issues are usually ignored but worth thinking about. Historically, in terms of “separatists” and “splittists” – in 1949, it was Mao and the Chinese communists who added the tragic comedic word “People’s” to the Republic of China and created the reality of two Chinas – so, who split from whom? What would geopolitics have been like had Mao kept the national name and declared Chiang a bandit?
And I know this is difficult to swallow given concerted China communists and China KMT, and some US academics’ propaganda to vilify the democratically elected president of Taiwan Tsai Ing-wen. Decades from now world history will show that Tsai’s moderate, intricate domestic and foreign compromises are the last plausible opportunity for the China communists and China KMT to have a facesaving option to avoid a wasteful, unwinnable war. Yes, President Tsai has danced around RoC RoC-Taiwan RoC is Taiwan. Her red line is democracy and peace, not having or not having China in the national name – and notice, she has never, ever made pronouncements about the future. Like any good world historian and believer in democracy, she knows that that is a bad habit brought to Taiwan by Chinese authoritarians – to have the arrogance and imperiousness to leave edicts to descendants on what they may or may not do. Democracy, peace, and letting the future citizens of Taiwan democratically and peacefully choose their own path. In an era of narrow ethnonationalism (China CCP and China KMT, plus fascism all over the democratic west), Tsai’s policies are a bulwark for principled democratic values. Would be lovely to see self-styled progressives and enlightened western academics and journalists support this kind of thoughtful policy from President Tsai, both for democracy and for true peace. 29.10.2022
Taipei is now sadly a one traditional newspaper town (traditional as in print). A few observations. Amazing how much Taiwan Republic and the world have changed that the leader of the US Navy speaking of imminent Chinese communist invasion to annex Taiwan is on the second page, not the front. The big news about US-Taiwan Republic co-producing weapons got tucked away, though with a very interesting op-ed.
If you asked me a year ago if there would be a war, I would have said 10% yes, 90% no — now watching the body language of American, Taiwanese, Japanese, and European (minus Germans ….) political and military leaders, we are now at even odds, 50-50. In retrospect, when former Prime Minister Abe coaxed and warned the US to reexamine its policy of strategic ambiguity, it was probably not a theoretical argument. Big mistake if you think a war will be Taiwan focused or can be contained to Taiwan — this is not Ukraine/Europe, study the map and you will see why any Chinese communist invasion will become a kinetic world war. This is why it is so critical to pursue military, political, economic, and diplomatic policies now to prevent Beijing from attacking – without forcing Taiwan to surrender its democratic sovereignty.
Several important global and historical contexts usually missing in the general discourse on the Chinese communist problem. First, this “no position” position by the US, clearly stated, takes place a year after President Tsai’s significant democratic sovereignty Taiwan has never been a part of the PRC speech. The US, Japan, and EU did not respond to that speech – they neither endorsed, nor disavowed, President Tsai’s assertion that Taiwan has never been a part of communist China, that China and Taiwan exercise separate sovereignties, and that the future of Taiwan belongs exclusively to the twenty-three million citizens of Taiwan exercising their democratic sovereignty.
Since that speech, the emphasis of the US, Japan, and EU has been on the peaceful ‘status quo’ – meaning, as they see more and more menacing signs of Chinese communist plans for military options to annex Taiwan, the international line for acceptable behavior has been underlined and sharpened.
Finally, a more subtle but critical point. The US may have no “formal” position on Taiwanese sovereignty (and significantly, Price phrased this as sovereignty across the strait, meaning, Chinese communist sovereignty is also up for discussion ….) but the ‘body language’ of the US, Japan, and EU since the 2021 speech by President Tsai has been anything but position-less. The Taiwanese de facto embassy in Washington, DC, and Tokyo and major European capitals have been as active and public as they have been in decades. European and Asian diplomats visit the Taiwanese embassy in DC and Tokyo – Taiwanese diplomats meet regularly with their American, Japanese, and European counterparts across the globe. One may call all of this “unofficial” and “no position” and “no change in policy” all one wishes – what is one to make of all of this? A peaceful status quo marks the Chinese communist military option as a catastrophic international incident. No position on sovereignty saves a little bit of face for the Chinese communists – incidentally, President Tsai convincing her supporters to tolerate, for now, “RoC” does the same – while the US, Japan, and the EU in behavior push interactions with Taiwan up to the edge of all-but-formal-recognition.
Signal and noise, forest and trees. Many over-the-top reports about Chinese communist blockades and missiles and jet fighters around Taiwan Republic. Related to my earlier post about the nature of Taiwanese democratization and its resilience, compared to the 1996 Chinese communist crisis, this time Taiwan Republic is far more democratic, diverse, and less reliant on a centralized party-state. This is the same as the unruly democracy in Ukraine that confounded and surprised the invading Soviet Red Army and western experts. Imperialists, western or not, are always confounded when peasants have their own ideas – and are willing to fight for them.
Rather than being led by the western press and think tanks passing on Chinese communist scary talking points, and staring only at Speaker Pelosi’s visit or these Chinese communist military intimidations, none of what’s been happening makes any sense without understanding the nature of global shipping. It is not that Taiwan is unique or important per se, but that Taiwan is one of many, many global maritime chokepoints in the Chinese communist world war against the maritime global order imposed by the US Navy. From 1300 AD to now we have lived in an era of global maritime empires. Each leading maritime imperial power has had unique takes on how this empire building ought to proceed. But they ALL share a core principle – a ‘rules-based’ world order and a ‘free and open maritime environment’ that is to serve the global movements of goods, services, and labor. Anything, ANYTHING (and anyone) that interferes with this principle is pummeled.
The revival of the Chinese communist economy from 1980 to 2022 owes largely to this global maritime imperial order imposed by the US Navy. But as the Chinese communists ascend, and the US stalled or declined, this Globalization 1.0 world order frayed. This is why while it is important to study the Taiwan case, not connecting Taiwan to many many other global cases misses the central point – the Chinese communist navy bases in East Africa, Mideast, South Asia, and Southeast Asia. Chinese communists claimed the entirety of the South and East Seas. Chinese communists recently declared the Taiwan Strait as Chinese territorial water, functionally choking off critical supplies for Japan and Korea. Chinese communist military expansions into the south Pacific. Chinese communist “corporations” buying major global shipping harbors – and shares of the Panama and Suez canals. The main point is that this present Chinese communist crisis over Taiwan Republic is not occurring in isolation – and all of them are related to a long-standing effort by the Chinese communists to subvert the maritime empire created and led by the US Navy.
Once we understand the historical and global context, then it is easier to guess what the US Navy, Japanese Navy, and NATO navies will do if the Chinese communists come anywhere near a blockade of the Taiwan Republic. And no of course this is not about friendship. It is not even about democracy though it really doesn’t hurt. It’s actually not even about dollars and cents per se. A global maritime imperial order requires steadfast enforcement of precedence. The two ‘recent’ historical precedents I can think of are the Libyan attempt to claim the tiny, far less economically important than the Taiwan Strait Gulf of Sidra, as their own – the US Navy showed up in less than a day and pummeled the Libyan military. And the Iranian attempt to blockade the opening to the Pershing Gulf – US and allied navies showed up immediately and annihilated the Iranian navy. 3.8.2022
When you install an alarm system for your home are you “provoking” and “escalating” against your neighbor? Only if one believes your neighbors have the right to access your home. The simple but clearest way to think about Taiwan Republic and Ukraine.
Global studies-information warfare pro tip: think of the narratives generated by Moscow and its echo chambers in western academia, media, think tanks, and officialdom against democratic Ukraine (It’s about NATO, the pandemic made Putin crazy, we need offramps and golden bridges for Moscow, de-escalation but only by Ukrainians conceding land and democratic sovereignty …. Nuclear war!); and the propaganda generated by the Chinese communists, their amen corners in western academia, media, think tanks against Speaker Pelosi’s routine visit to Taiwan Republic (The Fourth Taiwan Strait Crisis, dictator Xi’s fragile ego and coronation as dictator for life, apparently someone in the White House has a Chinese Communist farmer’s almanac and it shows American officials may not visit Taiwan on “PLA Day,” don’t forget “face”!) as global information warfare dress rehearsals. Then understand the “Taiwan Policy Act of 2022 will raise tension/anger the snowflakey Chinese/nucular war etc etc” hot takes coming from western experts in this context.
I have written about the Taiwan Policy Act so will not repeat here This should have been done during the 1990s. Think of the TPA as a decades late updating of the Taiwan Relations Act, TRA 2.0. As to angering the Chinese — wake me up when they are not hysterical about something, that would be the real news/moment to notice. The fallacy held by many in the west is also the key lesson that remains unlearned from the west’s deadly mistakes in Ukraine. While we should never purposely provoke a dictatorship, we should also remain clear-eyed that a dictatorship’s choices are often not tied to actions chosen by global democracies. Did the west ‘provoke’ the Chinese communist genocide against Tibet? Or the genocide against East Turkestan? Was the Putin invasion of Ukraine provoked by anyone in DC or Kyiv (I know, to some in the west, by Ukrainians and Taiwanese merely daring to democratically elect their leaders and have an opinion about their own future they are ‘provocations’ ….) So we return to the key issue for all frontline democracies – not lofty jargon and theories which did nothing to prevent the loss of lives and suffering in Ukraine and elsewhere – How do democracies prevent-deter war launched by dictators without capitulation and surrendering one’s democratic sovereignty? Taiwan Policy Act of 2022 is an important step in clarifying to Beijing that an invasion to annex Taiwan will be treated by the global democracies as an international incident, not a domestic affair. It should raise the price for war for Beijing, hopefully, high enough cost to prevent a war of annexation.
Recent breakthroughs in Taiwan Republic’s foreign relations, Baltics and Eastern Europe, Somaliland, and the South Pacific are vital to deter a Chinese communist war of annexation. This is why the arguments over “symbolic” versus “substantive” are, much like other recurring arguments over hawks or doves, realists or unrealistic, beside the point. Will Lithuania ever play a dominant role in Taiwan’s GDP? Probably not. Yet Lithuania represents a sea change in American, Japanese, and European attitudes toward the threat posed by the Chinese Communist Party upon the world. Lithuania and Somaliland also represent creative re-thinking on how best to recognize Taiwan’s democratic sovereignty, without full breaks with the Chinese communists. To edge towards internationalizing Taiwan as much as possible, so as to prevent Beijing and its allies in Taiwan and the west from claiming that an invasion is a “domestic issue.” This is why it is important for the US and Japan to think more broadly about the threats posed by Beijing, and how best to prevent a war. Integrating Taiwan into the US-Japan-EU-led global economic, cultural, educational, and technological systems will go a long way in doing so. A more proactive approach by the US to export its Taiwan Relations Act+ model to like-minded allies will also undercut any efforts by the Chinese communists, its allies in Taiwan, and the west, from sabotaging international efforts to prevent a Chinese invasion of annexation.
The most reassuring part of this report is the indication that the US and Taiwan Republic are collaborating. Remarkable progress in that the US is allowing the Taiwanese ambassador to the US to do this, in public – what a difference a few decades make. Would be even better if Japan co-lead this effort. The Chinese Communist Party ‘war’ against the world is all domain, multidimensional – and so seeing geoeconomic tools as a part of the efforts to deter a war of annexation against Taiwan makes sense. The main lesson from the Russian invasion and war of annexation against Ukraine is that a dictatorship like Russia and China will have very different ways of calculating “acceptable economic sacrifices.” And so I suspect the two main tools for the US, Japan, EU, and Taiwan to dissuade dictator Xi from launching a war of annexation remain convincing dictator Xi that such a move would lead to the end of his dictatorship. A parallel to the Ukraine case is the dictatorship’s information bubble – somehow Putin either convinced himself or selectively only listened to those inside Russia and Ukraine that assured him that Kyiv would fold and that most Ukrainians would welcome an invasion. One suspects Xi has created a similar information bubble, wherein he has selectively listened only to the most extreme anti-democracy anti-Taiwan voices inside Taiwan – assured, falsely, that Taipei would melt the way Chiang Kai-shek and his party-state did in 1949 and that the majority of Taiwanese would welcome a Chinese communist annexation. How the US, Japan, EU, and Taiwan find effective and convincing voices to change this perception in Beijing will go a long way to dissuade dictator Xi from resorting to an invasion.
I am not as optimistic as Dr. Song – if the Taiwan Policy Act of 2022 passes without major revisions, and if it is signed by President Biden, the executive branch has many tools to slow-walk and water down the measures (see also, legislation re: the Chinese communist genocide in East Turkestan.)
What these major legislative push shows are three main things. First, decades of mediocre American presidents have long delayed much-needed reevaluations of US-Taiwan policies. Such reviews started way back during the Clinton administration, and for one or another reason, expectations were never matched by results. Bureaucratic inertia, foreign entanglements, domestic scandals, “the blob” being its blobby selves, etc etc. Therefore, it is good to see sustained pressure coming from both political parties in Congress.
The second context is this. DC policy circles are mostly stuck in the imperious idea that they are “managing” or “creating” the world as we experience it, overestimating their roles and underestimating factors out of American control. Whether DC chooses to adjust to the dynamic, changing meaning of the “status quo,” Taiwan Republic, communist China, and even the US in 2022 are vastly different than 1972, or 1978. Rather than seeing this legislative effort as “changing the status quo,” it is a belated updating of formal policies to catch up with geopolitical reality.
Finally, this reminds me of the no-we-are-not-maybe-we-will Ross and Rachel dance between the US and the PRC from 1949 to 1978. While the US embassy to China remained in Taipei, and while the official statements kept asserting that US policy remained unchanged, salami slicing continued unabated, with changes in world conditions, the nature of contact between DC and Beijing changed, substantially, and rapidly. Given the dismal performance of the Biden White House on the Pelosi episode, I am not holding out high hopes for this. A wise and creative executive would minimize fighting against Congress on this issue, and use this as an opportunity to “internationalize” America’s policies on Taiwan – i.e., exporting the Taiwan Relations Act+ model to fellow democracies of Japan and EU. Using this approach as one of many other policy tools to prevent a Chinese communist war of annexation against Taiwan from ever starting. If we learn nothing else from the democratic west’s failure in Ukraine, it ought to be that porcupine or not, finding credible ways to prevent an authoritarian belligerent from starting an invasion is key for all of our interests. 7.9.2022
Historical knowledge, particularly world history level analysis, is so vital for policymaking. A few big-picture ideas and predictions.
The world is dynamic, yet humans shape the world as if it is static. When America and communist China normalized their relations in the 1970s unresolvable issues were purposely fudged. The status of Taiwan is one of those – this is why there is the confusing ‘One China Principle’ versus the ‘One China Policy’. Long story short: in the 1970s and 1980s, Taiwan was a China KMT colonial dictatorship, the Chinese communists did not have the means to invade and annex Taiwan, the two dictatorships did not have a disagreement about One China – merely over which side is the real China and which side are the bandits. It was far easier for Beijing and DC back then to sidestep the issue over the status of Taiwan.
This is not the reality of 2022 – for several decades starting with President Clinton successive administrations have talked about adjusting policies to changing reality. A stronger but authoritarian, ethnonationalist, imperialist communist China, a democratic and technologically advanced Taiwan Republic where the sovereignty is arrived at via peaceful fair and free national elections. And yet by our bad luck, we have had decades of mediocre presidents, each distracted by his own scandals and mistakes. My observation is that with the end of Globalization 1.0 – leaders can either get ahead of changing circumstances and shape and guide – or, as in the case of US Indo-Pacific policy, we can passively wait until we are forced to deal with it. That is where we are now, the room and time for kicking the can down the road have run out.
Military. For at least a decade the Chinese communists have had the ability to plausibly annex Taiwan by force. At the very least to cause a ton of damage and disruption to the region. America had been distracted by its wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and the GWoT. Not until the Obama second term did we pivot to the Indo-Pacific, and even now it has been half-hearted. Not only have we not focused on the military preparation for the China Threat, but we have also been slow in changing the diplomatic-political conceptualizations necessary to deter and defeat China’s ambitions. Meaning, the 1970s fudging about the status of Taiwan was basically a ‘agree to disagree’ – Red China had no power to act, and both DC and Beijing wanted to focus on the USSR. However, by 2022 it is long past the time for a US-led global adjustment on Taiwan – is it a nation? would a Chinese communist invasion to annex Taiwan violate international norms? Strategic ambiguity can no longer function while serving the vital national interests of the US and its democratic allies in the Indo-Pacific.
That strategic ambiguity era is gone; the status quo is dynamic. The previous pattern that used to work – kind of like with the North Koreans, is changing rapidly. Every time Beijing wants something it throws a military tantrum – and then their partners in the west would push for “de-escalation/talks” – and then DC would concede something. This is how we ended up with so many communique. That era is over not because “hawks” are in charge – the material and geostrategic realities have changed.
So while there are long overdue military-strategic changes that this latest Chinese communist missile crisis will provoke – Japan will change its constitution and double its military; Japan-Taiwan-US will no longer hide their military-intelligence collaborations. The counterstrike capabilities of both Japan and Taiwan will massively increase – Japan will become a nuclear power before the end of this decade. Assuming American democracy can keep it together long enough to deal with real-world problems, the largest overdue project is an American-led global democracy consensus on the status of Taiwan. My guess is that it will be the internationalization of the Taiwan Relations Act adopted by Japan and NATO and Quad. Think of it this way – during the annual RIMPAC maneuver in the south Pacific the “group photos” of the alliance carriers and destroyers and submarines – there will be a diplomatic-economic parallel to this. What we know about the Chinese communists is that they can target and sanction smaller nations like Lithuania – but when democracies take collective action, they are too vulnerable alone to act. 7.8.2022
Taiwan in World History (台灣與世界歷史) 