Closer Taiwan-U.S. Ties Are Stabilizing the Region, Not the Opposite

Those who’ve been reading the news in the past few weeks could be forgiven for thinking we are on the precipice of war in the Taiwan Strait. Not only do some analysts argue that this is “a phase of preparation for war”, but senior U.S. officials are telling the media that China’s President Xi Jinping looks to be “prepared to take more risks”.

As Taiwanese public opinion has moved ever further away from unification with China, Beijing has also increased its economic coercion of Taipei, and sought to further limit the already-small space that it occupies on the international stage. Taiwan’s successes in dealing with Covid-19 have made China’s efforts to isolate Taiwan more difficult, though China continues to exclude it from the World Health Assembly.

The U.S. has gone beyond past practice in assisting Taiwan to retain its few remaining diplomatic partners, which China is constantly looking to poach.

The Biden administration has maintained this momentum by dispatching U.S. navy vessels to make a symbolic transit through the Taiwan Strait, and by not revoking former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo’s decision in the final days of Trump’s presidency to loosen the restrictions on meetings between U.S. and Taiwanese officials.        

Taiwan also ranked as one of the top three concerns raised by President Joe Biden in his first phone call with Xi.

The U.S. has also gone beyond past practice in assisting Taiwan to retain its few remaining diplomatic partners, which China is constantly looking to poach. Following reports that China had offered to provide Covid-19 vaccines to Paraguay in exchange for breaking its diplomatic ties with Taiwan, Secretary of State Antony Blinken called Paraguay’s president to reiterate “the importance of continuing to work with democratic regional and global partners, including Taiwan”.

Last week the U.S. representative in Palau accompanied Palau’s president on a visit to Taiwan to launch a travel bubble, a symbolic and unprecedented show of support for the Taiwan-Palau relationship.

In a sense, every time Beijing has upped the bet, Washington has called it. This carries significant risk, particularly of a miscommunication or an accident that escalates in the Taiwan Strait. But this balanced escalation could also be stabilising. If China is testing U.S. resolve, Beijing appears to have – to some extent – an answer.

China’s ambitions are not constrained by these displays of solidarity for Taiwan. But while the U.S. approach will not lead China to compromise, it may encourage caution. After floating the idea of passing a “unification law” for Taiwan in advance of last month’s “Two Sessions” of the National People’s Congress and Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference – which could have been a signpost not dissimilar to Hong Kong’s national security law – China ultimately stuck to boilerplate language.

For now, China’s goal appears to be preventing Taiwan from declaring independence, rather than forcing unification. And Taiwan’s Tsai Ing-wen has moderated any push for more pro-independence policies in her party, while leaning in to a national security agenda and seeking high-level U.S. support. Taiwan’s representative in Washington attended Biden’s inauguration, another first in the relationship.

Taiwan’s President Tsai Ing-wen (Taiwan Presidential Office/Flickr)

China’s calculation about Taiwan’s future will shift as the confidence of the PLA grows. This situation is made more dangerous by what appears to be a looming gap in perception, as China sees itself as becoming more powerful while the U.S. is in terminal decline.

In this context, it would be possible for U.S. support to cross an invisible line in Beijing’s eyes. Some have called for the U.S. to change its approach to Taiwan from “strategic ambiguity”, where it remains unknown whether the U.S. would defend Taiwan if attacked, to “strategic clarity”, where the U.S. makes explicit it would respond to any use of force against Taiwan. This change risks undermining decades of successful deterrence, and carries a high risk of escalation, where China’s leaders would no longer see time as on their side.

But without any change in Beijing’s views towards Taipei – which seems unlikely if not impossible – the close ties between Taiwan and the U.S. are an appropriate response to China changing the status quo. The U.S. is ensuring that its commitment to Taiwan is a constant factor in Beijing’s thinking, rather than preparing for war. This makes the region more stable, not less.

Natasha Kassam is Director of the Lowy Institute’s Public Opinion and Foreign Policy Program. She is a former Australian diplomat, researching Australia’s Indo-Pacific strategy, China’s domestic politics, Taiwan, and Australia-China relations. She is also a Fellow of the ANU National Security College’s Futures Council for 2020-21. Natasha is a regular contributor to Australian and international media outlets including CNN, BBC, Bloomberg, CNBC and the New York Times.

This article appeared originally at Lowy Institute's the interpreter.