“The path to our destination is not always a straight one.” (Barbara Hall)
The United States may be soon forced to make a horrible decision about how we stand with regard to Taiwan’s independence from mainland China. As Yahoo 360 News reports: “For the past 70 years, Taiwan has existed in a geopolitical gray area. Internally, it governs itself like an independent nation, complete with a strong economy and thriving democratic system. But China has always insisted that the island is part of its territory, a stance that has made other world powers hesitant to recognize Taiwan’s sovereignty.”
In contrast, Chinese President Xi Jinping made no bones about his opinion of the future of Tawain, averring, “Taiwan independence separatism is the biggest obstacle to achieving the reunification of the motherland, and the most serious hidden danger to national rejuvenation.”
This puts the United States in a precarious position because the stakes are incredibly high and involve the specter of going to war. And while many people believe that leaving Tawain in this ill-defined state is a recipe for disaster, the reality is that this attempt at neutrality has been the de-facto policy of the United States for several decades. Essentially, there are four paths we can follow with regard to dealing with this crisis.
Path 1: Maintain our current ambiguous stance
Path 2: Declare we will intervene militarily if mainland China tries to take Taiwan by force
Path 3: Fight them in a non-military fashion
Path 4: Support China through proxy measures
Let’s take a moment to unpack all of the implications of these paths.
Path 1: Maintain our current ambiguous stance
For better or worse, this stance has worked so far. That doesn’t mean it will continue to work, only that China has been hesitant under several American presidential administrations to take any overly aggressive actions against Taiwan. The National Review frames it this way:
“As a superpower, the United States should preserve flexibility in its global security relationships. It also is not even obvious that Taiwan’s body politic would welcome an explicit security guarantee from the United States. Both major political parties in Taiwan — the ruling DPP and the opposition KMT — over many years have shaped how they refer to the current reality. They are not stuck in the rhetoric of 1979 even if the United States is. It could be problematic for the U.S. to be seen as upsetting their characterizations of cross-strait reality.”
In other words, lets’ not adopt a cold-war mentality in the vein of Vietnam, because we know exactly where that leads to, and that’s nowhere good at all.
Path 2: Declare we will intervene militarily if mainland China tries to take Taiwan by force
This is the most drastic of our options. A war with China would not only put thousands of our military men and women in mortal danger, but it would also strain our budgets and resources at a time when we are just beginning to emerge from the pandemic-induced coma. Of course, there are those that are all too happy to rattle their sabers.
Writing for Bloomberg, Hal Hal Brands declares, “Abandoning Taiwan in the face of a Chinese military assault would be a monumental disaster. … The U.S. cannot afford to see a country that occupies vital strategic space in the Western Pacific subdued by Beijing.” Let’s not forget, however, that we should have learned about the nature of nation-building from our experiences in Afghanistan and Iraq. And although Tawin presents a different context, the bottom line, involving ourselves in another war, is something most Americans want nothing to do with.
Moreover, we would be well advised to remember China is a nuclear power. And even though they are unlikely to pursue that route, pushing down that path does not seem wise at this juncture, especially given President’s Biden record thus far with regard to military affairs.
Daniel R. DePetris, a fellow at Defense Priorities, puts it this way: “The U.S. doesn’t want a full-fledged conflict with China, either. Stumbling into a shooting war over Taiwan is akin to opening a Pandora’s box, and it would make the last 20 years of conflict in the Middle East look like an uneventful peacekeeping mission. A fight between Washington and Beijing could also escalate to the nuclear level, particularly if the Chinese Communist Party determines that the use of such weapons is the only thing standing in the way of a humiliating defeat.”
Path 3: Fight them in a non-military fashion
This seems like the most straightforward path. This means we use diplomatic or economic weapons in a two-pronged approach. First, we keep strong economic ties with Taiwan as a trading partner. The Office of the U.S. Trade Representative (USTR) states, “The United States and Taiwan have a long-standing and vibrant trade relationship. Taiwan is the United States’ 9th largest goods trading partner, with two-way goods trade totaling $90.9 billion in 2020. Goods and services trade between the United States and Taiwan totaled $106 billion in 2020.”
It also means building on our most recent agreements reached at the eleventh Trade and Investment Framework Agreement (TIFA) Council that occurred in June of this year. And it implies the need to reinvigorate the American economy in such a way that we out-innovate and outproduce China to such a degree that they are constantly under pressure just to keep up.
We can also use sanctions, trade embargos, and revisit the idea of tariffs while simultaneously providing our businesses with a tax climate that fuels development and growth. And though it may be somewhat symbolic, we can isolate China diplomatically through the United Nations. At the end of the day, these measures may not prevent China from seizing Taiwan, but they will surely give them pause.
Path 4: Support China through proxy measures
In addition to diplomatic and economic measures, the United States can help arm Taiwan and build up its military. Of course, this might mean escalating tensions with mainland China, but it seems a rational approach, even if it smacks a bit of cold-war approach. Ultimately, anything that prevents a full-out war will be well worth the effort.
