Worse than 1996 crisis

GT: You said in a recent interview the current situation in the Taiwan Straits is more serious and dangerous than the 1996 Taiwan Straits Crisis. What did you mean?

Chiu: If the situation in the Taiwan Straits is compared to a poker game, in 1996 it was the Chinese mainland and Taiwan that played the cards and the US was initially a bystander. While the US later sent two aircraft carrier groups to the Far East to help Taiwan, it was still the Chinese mainland and Taiwan that played the cards. But the situation in 2020 is quite different from that time. Now it is the US playing its cards and the Chinese mainland responding to its cards, while Taiwan is a “human bomb” rushing forward regardless of costs.

After Tsai Ing-wen's inaugural speech in 2016, which the mainland considered as an “unfinished answer sheet,” the official cross-Straits exchanges were almost suspended and Taiwan authorities [were] increasingly looking to the US for support. On the US side, after Trump took office, he did things in a way that often went against the rules which almost disturbed the entire existing international order. Over the past four years, the Trump administration has increasingly positioned China as a strategic competitor, aiming to contain China's rise. Therefore, when the Washington counts its bargaining chips against Beijing and Taiwan shows its desire to seek America's embrace, the Americans take it over gladly to play the “Taiwan card.”

That's why I said that the current situation is that Taiwan has been tied up as a “human bomb” by the US. The US now tests the mainland's strategic determination together with the Taiwan. Under the current situation, the two sides facing each other are the two “nuclear powers,” which are different from the rivalry between the mainland and Taiwan. Therefore, the situation is much more dangerous and difficult to control than in the past.