Taiwan: The Most Dangerous Flashpoint in the U.S.-Chinese Cold War

By Joseph Gerson

Taiwan has become the most dangerous flashpoint in the new U.S.-China Cold War. Neither the U.S. nor China want war, but accidents and miscalculations could easily occur.

While U.S. support for the island’s liberal democracy is a profound source of tension with authoritarian China, two geostrategic realities are at the heart of the great power tensions. Like Cuba, just 90 miles from Florida where the 1962 introduction of Soviet missiles sparked the Cuban Missile Crisis, Taiwan is only 110 miles from the Chinese mainland. It is thus seen as a source of Chinese military vulnerability, especially if U.S. forces are ever stationed there. Taiwan is also the world’s leading source of advanced semiconductors on which the U.S., Chinese, and Japanese economies depend. Hence the island is coveted strategic prize.

Despite right-wing and Pentagon exaggeration of an impending Chinese invasion of Taiwan, the reality is that unless Taiwan crosses Beijing’s red line of declaring de jure independence, China is unlikely to embrace the danger of a devastating – and potentially nuclear – great-power conflict. In addition to the immediate, unpredictable, and devastating costs of such a war, Beijing is not about to embrace the massive disruptions to its economy (and thus its political stability), along with the armed Taiwanese resistance that would inevitably follow an invasion.

But the red line is real and the danger of war is growing. Marking the Chinese Communist Party’s 100th anniversary on July 1, General Secretary Xi stressed the importance of “peaceful reunification” with Taiwan to the completion of China’s “national rejuvenation.” Meanwhile, Taiwanese support for independence is growing, especially among younger generations. And Donald Trump and now Joe Biden have been playing with fire. At the close of his disastrous reign, Donald Trump exacerbated U.S-Chinese tensions over Taiwan by approving more than $3 billion in new arms sales – including potentially offensive missiles – and by sending high-level administration officials to the quasi-independent entity that China sees as a “renegade province” and a final vestige of its century-plus of colonial humiliation.

Joe Biden and Secretary of State Antony Blinken have made matters worse. For the first time since the renewal of U.S.-Chinese relations in 1979, which was based on the “One China” policy, Taiwan’s functional ambassador to the U.S. was invited to attend the presidential inauguration. Contrary to the decades-old U.S. “strategic ambiguity” about possible U.S. commitments to defend Taiwan, Blinken has affirmed Washington’s “rock solid” commitment to Taiwan’s defense. This, when polls indicate that increasing the U.S. commitment to defend Taiwan fuels Taiwanese support for independence and thus presses toward Beijing’s red line. Moreover, the Biden administration has repeatedly deployed U.S. warships to the Taiwan Strait, and dispatched an “unofficial” delegation of former top officials to meet with senior Taiwanese officials. Guidelines that long restricted U.S. diplomats from meeting their Taiwanese counterparts are being revised to encourage such meetings which have begun. And discussions are proceeding for the likely deployment of a permanent U.S. naval presence near Taiwan.

Refusing to be intimidated, China’s People’s Liberation Army has engaged in repeated shows of force, sending combat planes and warships into Taiwanese-claimed air and maritime space on a near-daily basis, thus increasing the opportunities for accident and miscalculation.

We ignore history at our peril. Like other borderlands, Taiwan’s history is complex. Its indigenous population, the Formosans, settled the island five thousand years ago and now constitute 2% of its population. Taiwan was colonized by the Dutch in the 17th century, soon followed by immigration from the Chinese mainland and the island’s integration into the Chinese Qing empire.

China’s defeat in the 1895 Sino-Japanese War resulted in Taiwan becoming a Japanese colony, with its accompanying modernization designed to serve Japanese imperial interests. With Japan’s defeat in 1945, the Kuomintang (KMT) Chinese “nationalist” government assumed control over Taiwan, and it was to that offshore province that Chiang Kai-shek and his defeated nationalist forces retreated after their defeat in China’s civil war in 1949. With murderous brutality, Chiang established a dictatorship on Taiwan committed to reestablishing KMT rule over all of China.

With the Korean War in 1950, President Truman dispatched the 7th Fleet to the Taiwan Strait prevent a possible Chinese Communist invasion of Taiwan. One-sided nuclear crises followed in 1954 and 1958 in response to Chinese shelling of Taiwanese-occupied offshore islands. Another crisis arose in 1996, when Taiwan held its first direct presidential election. Warning Taiwanese voters against opting for the independence oriented Democratic Progressive Party (DPP), China bracketed Taiwan with rockets launched into waters north and south of the island. The Clinton Administration responded with the dispatch of two nuclear-capable aircraft carrier fleets through the Taiwan Strait. That panicked Chinese leaders, triggering Beijing’ military modernization drive which has resulted in the acquisition of potent area-denial capabilities, such as ballistic missiles designed to sink U.S. aircraft carriers.

Since the renewal of U.S.-Chinese relations in the 1970s, Taiwan has remained a potential flashpoint for possible U.S.-Chinese conflict. Weakening the commitment to the One China policy carries the potential of catastrophically unravelling the diplomatic fabric that has been the foundation of U.S.-Chinese relatively peaceful, if competitive, coexistence. The U.S. commitment to “One China” – the notion that both Taiwan and the mainland are part of China, and that Taiwan will eventually be reunified with China – was established in the 1972 U.S.-PRC Shanghai Communique, and was reaffirmed in the 1979 in the agreement to resume formal diplomatic relations.

The establishment of U.S.-PRC relations on January 1, 1979 required the termination of formal U.S. diplomatic relations with Taiwan. The island’s Congressional allies in Washington responded with the Taiwan Relations Act of 1979, which remains in force. It requires the U.S. to provide Taiwan with defensive weapons and to maintain sufficient military capabilities to prevent reunification by force of arms or coercion. The U.S. and Taiwan maintain de facto embassies in their respective capitals.

Preventing accidents or miscalculations (political as well as military) that could trigger armed conflict and escalate to nuclear war must now become an urgent priority. Taiwan is the most dangerous flashpoint for great power, potentially nuclear war, followed by the South China and Baltic Seas. With the contradictory forces of popular Chinese backing for the reunification of Taiwan with the mainland and growing support among younger Taiwanese for national independence, as well as the inevitable tensions between rising and status quo powers, a nervous sailor who pulls a trigger or a Taiwanese political leader who makes a reckless statement could ignite a nuclear World War III.

What, then, must be done?

·       The One China formula must be honored.

·       All sides must halt provocative and dangerous military shows of force.

·       Arms sales to Taiwan must be terminated.

·       The U.S., China, and the region’s nations must commit to pursuing Common Security diplomacy, aimed at enhancing the security of all nations in the Asia-Pacific region, while encouraging direct Chinese-Taiwanese negotiations on the future status of the island.

*This blog is based on articles published in Common Dreams and prepared for Massachusetts Peace Action