US pushes back against China pressure

BEIJING: As China ratchets up pressure on Taiwan, the self-governing island it claims as its territory, the United States is cautiously starting to push back.

In recent months, Chinese strategic bombers have been conducting “island encirclement” flights, escorted by fighter jets. The Chinese government has discouraged tourism to Taiwan and imports of goods such as fish over the past year and a half, hurting its economy. And China persuaded the island’s most important remaining diplomatic ally, Panama, to switch diplomatic recognition last summer from Taipei to Beijing.

Concern about Taiwan’s fate now appears to be building slowly in Washington, even as US President Donald Trump continues to seek China’s help on other issues.

Through his first year in office, Mr Trump pressed Beijing to put more pressure on North Korea to abandon its nuclear and ballistic missile programmes, with limited success. He has also sought to limit China’s US$400-billion trade surplus with the US, which has continued to widen.

Against that backdrop, Washington has recently begun moving gradually to reinforce its ties to Taiwan, a vigorous democracy facing an increasingly authoritarian government in Beijing.

Bills have been introduced in Congress to promote visits to Taiwan by warships and by civilian officials.

A small gathering of defence contractors is planned for May to discuss Taiwan’s production of parts for weapons assembled in the United States. And in June, a US institute that functions as an informal diplomatic channel plans to open an elegant new complex in Taiwan’s capital.

“It looks like the Trump administration is playing the Taiwan card for whatever purpose — to put pressure or to seek concessions,” said Willy Lam, an adjunct professor at the Chinese University of Hong Kong.

Chinese officials are showing signs of annoyance, and raising accusations that the United States is interfering in what Beijing considers one of its redline issues. “It is horrible that the present situation of the two sides of the Taiwan Strait will probably be turbulent,” said a commentary earlier this month on Huaxia, a Beijing-controlled news service on Taiwan issues.

Oklahoma Senator James Inhofe the second-ranking Republican on the Senate Armed Forces Committee after Arizona’s John McCain, is in Taiwan this week, leading a large delegation of House and Senate committee members and staff.

They have been meeting with President Tsai Ing-wen and her senior ministers, a dialogue likely to offend Beijing officials. Mr Inhofe endorsed continued US support for Taiwan, including a bill pending in the Senate that would encourage senior administration officials to visit the island. The bill has already passed the House.

“With China becoming more aggressive and intent on expanding its influence globally, the United States-Taiwan security relationship is now more important than ever,” the senator said.

“By ensuring they have the ability to defend themselves, Taiwan will continue to be an important part of promoting regional stability.”

Mr Trump signed separate legislation in December, bitterly opposed by Beijing, that included a provision encouraging mutual port calls by naval vessels from Taiwan and the US.

The president has long had the authority to order port calls and dispatch senior officials, so both measures are somewhat symbolic but nonetheless irritate China, said Richard Bush, a former head of the American Institute in Taiwan.

President Xi Jinping has put more emphasis than his recent predecessors on China’s goal of eventual political unification of Taiwan with the mainland.

During his 205-minute speech last October at the start of the Communist Party’s twice-a-decade national congress, Mr Xi received his loudest, most enthusiastic applause — particularly from army generals in uniform among the delegates — when he declared: “We will never allow anyone, any organisation, or any political party, at any time or in any form, to separate any part of Chinese territory from China.”

Mr Xi conspicuously failed to say, as past Chinese leaders sometimes have, that unification should be achieved by working with the people of Taiwan.