TAIWAN FACE-OFF
Nancy Pelosi’s visit to Taiwan heightens tensions between the US and China and also appears to signal an end to the four-decade-long US adherence to the “one China” policy.
THE RECENT TAIWAN VISIT OF NANCY Pelosi, Speaker of the US House of Representatives, not surprisingly, triggered a strong reaction from the Chinese government. It ordered the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) to conduct “live fire” exercises in the Taiwan Strait for an unprecedented five days in a row. Air and maritime traffic were disrupted.
China had been warning for months that the visit of such a high-ranking American official would be detrimental to bilateral ties and a serious breach of the “one China” policy that the US had adhered to for decades. The House Speaker is second in the line of succession to the President after the Vice President. Pelosi is also a leading light in the Democratic Party, which controls both Houses of legislature in the US.
In 1997, Newt Gingrich, the Republican Speaker of the House, visited Taiwan. But at the time, relations between the two countries were good, and the US government was under the control of the Democrats. Gingrich had first visited China and then Japan before making a three-hour stopover in Taiwan. Unlike Gingrich, Pelosi stayed overnight in Taiwan and had high-profile meetings with Taiwanese President Tsai Ing-wen and leading anti-china politicians and dissidents from the mainland and Hong Kong. The visit also took place at a time of heightened tensions between the US and China over a host of issues, including the war in Ukraine.
Today, there is consensus among Democrats and Republicans that the US’ primary enemy is China. “The nature of bilateral relationship between China and the US has changed and the Taiwan issue has been used as an outpost and a pawn in Washington’s efforts to contain
China,” said Wang Yong, a professor at Peking University, writing in South China Morning Post.
The US and China only established full diplomatic relations after the former recognised Taiwan as an integral part of the latter. In 1979, President Jimmy Carter granted China full diplomatic recognition while acknowledging the one China policy of the Chinese government. After recognising the People’s Republic of China, the US severed formal diplomatic ties with the government in Taiwan. However, in the same year Congress passed the Taiwan Relations Act, which allowed the US to retain its existing military and economic relationship with the Taiwanese government. The Chinese Communist Party has always stressed that peaceful reunification with Taiwan is among its highest national priorities. After the establishment of diplomatic relations, the Taiwan issue was put on the back burner as the US was more interested in dismantling the Soviet Union and expanding the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO).
The Taiwan issue came in handy when it became evident that China was peacefully emerging as the next superpower. The anti-china move started during US President Barack Obama’s second term with “the military pivot” to the East. The US began serious efforts to rope countries such as India into a military alliance against China. While on the campaign trail, Donald Trump threatened to dump the one China policy. After being sworn in as President, he took the unprecedented step of talking to the Taiwanese President before making a call to his Chinese counterpart, Xi Jinping.
Trump was, however, quick to reiterate that the US remained committed to the policy. But in the last years of his term, he started a virtual new cold war with China and made it clear that his administration would prioritise competition instead of cooperation with China. Trump signed the Taiwan Travel Act, which allowed highly placed officials from the State, Commerce, and Defence departments to travel openly to Taiwan. Trump’s Secretary of State, Mike Pompeo, announced in 2020 that the “era of cooperation with the Chinese Communist Party was over”.
The Biden administration has continued with almost
The anti-china move started during US President Barack Obama’s second term with “the military pivot” to the East.