Nancy Pelosi is only the most recent in a long line of US congressmen and women to visit Taipei. A predecessor, Newt Gingrich, famously went in the 1990s. It’s a regular port of call for congressmen and women visiting the Asia-Pacific and Australia. US senators visited in June 2021 and again in May this year.
Pelosi is part of a very large, probably majority, Congressional group that supports Taiwan, wants to see it defended at all costs, and views China’s claims over the democratic state as fundamentally illegitimate — at odds with the view of successive US administrations that support a one-China policy and the retention of the status quo in regard to Taiwan.
It’s a long-standing tension, and not confined to Taiwan or China. Congress is often more hawkish than presidential administrations are — even when of the same party. Even Ronald Reagan was seen as too soft by Republicans on the Soviet Union when he was negotiating with Mikhail Gorbachev on nuclear missile reductions.
Pelosi’s visit to Taipei is thus not quite the inflammatory provocation or unprecedented insult that China or its Western supporters suggest.
But once her visit was mooted, and China reacted ferociously with threats of retaliation, both sides were locked in to a course of escalation. Pelosi couldn’t withdraw from the visit for either domestic political reasons (being seen to back down to China) or for sound foreign policy reasons (giving Beijing evidence that the US will back down might encourage further aggression). Beijing was locked into treating the visit as a major event, far in excess of its offended reaction when US senators make their periodic visits to Taipei.
While Beijing’s ostentatious wrath is manifesting itself in missile launches and naval exercises around Taiwan, it’s unlikely to lead to open conflict. But it’s exactly how conflict might start: both sides being unable to credibly back down in the face of provocations by the other, with a lack of off-ramps for the US or China to de-escalate without suffering humiliation.
The stakes would be significantly lower if Chinese President Xi Jinping hadn’t repeatedly indicated he is anxious to return Taiwan to tyranny as soon as possible — certainly ahead of the centennial of Nationalist forces fleeing to the island in 1949. And if Russia wasn’t engaged in a similar imperialist exercise of trying to occupy Ukraine, which the Putin regime regards as historically Russian as well.
The Biden administration line remains the same as that of previous administrations — it has not indicated whether it would commit military forces if China sought to invade Taiwan, merely that it would intervene militarily, which might extend only to logistics, arms and intelligence assistance.
The pro-Taiwan section of Congress has never liked strategic ambiguity. But it remains the formal US position. Like the overall tension with China, that tension won’t be going away. It’s an artefact of a democratic system — and thus possibly hard for Xi to comprehend.
Do you fear war is a possibility? Let us know your thoughts by writing to letters@crikey.com.au. Please include your full name to be considered for publication. We reserve the right to edit for length and clarity.
It has been for over 50 years the official position of all players, including Australia, the US and Taiwan (Republic of China) that Taiwan is part of China. Everyone has benefited from this arrangement, including Taiwan – most of whose trade is with the mainland. The US is seemingly determined to force a military confrontation with China – witness the increasingly bellicose posturing in the Taiwan Strait – and now it is hinting loudly it would recognise Taiwanese secession. Australia will suffer if this plays out the way it seems to be going. Less agitprop about tyranny and more willingness to engage in respectful talks are required.
Spot on. And I read recently that Taiwan is a major investor in China. .
Disclosure: I’m half Taiwanese. Generally speaking we are not hostile to China – given that many of us, including myself, have historic roots in what is now known as China. My dad’s side traces back to Gansu province during the Tang Dynasty, when no part of Taiwan was part of any of the Chinese powers that dotted the land mass that is today known as China. My dad’s side moved to Taiwan before Captain Cook landed in Australia; at the time, the Qing dynasty had control over some of the island, in competition with other powers including the natives that most resemble polynesians (eg Maoris) and have been there thousands of years.
Taiwan was ceded to Japan in 1895 and has not really been under mainland rule since. It is a melting pot of native Taiwanese, migrants from the mainland that fled the PLA in the civil war, and what we call “Taiwanese” such as my family which resemble Chinese and speak (apart from Mandarin) either Hakka or a dialect of Chinese called Taiwanese, which is similar to that spoken in Fujian province across the Strait.
At the end of world war 2, Japan surrendered Taiwan to the Nationalist government under Chiang Kai Shek. He and the nationalists fled to Taiwan at the conclusion of the civil war in 1949, and thus started the division. However, Taiwan was still comprised of the ethnic mix that I mentioned before – millions of families that have been Taiwanese since before the first Europeans arrived in Australia, that lived there through the dynastic changes and ebbs and flows across the mainland, and have been occasionally caught up in it.
Today we are a thriving democracy, having transitioned peacefully in the 1990’s. The vast majority of our people see themselves as Taiwanese much as former British subjects see themselves as Aussie (as I do; my other side is rooted in England). We understand the elements that are our Chinese heritage and there is much trade, tourism and engagement with the mainland.
We also observe the horrors of Tiananmen, Xinjiang, Tibet and Hong Kong. Of slave and reeducation camps, organ harvesting and the myriad of other atrocities, not to mention the overwhelming oppressive control of the CCP in China. Their adherence to one country two systems in Hong Kong transitioned to mainland dictatorship less than 20 years into the 50 year agreement of autonomy.
There may come a day when the 23 or so million citizens of Taiwan – most of whom have never, ever lived under the CCP – decide to become a part of China. I would hope it should* be up to us as to when or if it happens. Big power plays aside, can we not all agree with that?
*should is obviously chosen carefully, as opposed to “must”, so as not to appear monumentally naive about nations that live in the shadow of conquerors (like Ukraine)
Thanks for this background. I too see the wishes of the people of Taiwan as the only moral criterion … though let’s hope it’s not a case of “when elephants fight, the grass gets hurt.”
I think that metaphor is “when elephants fight, trees are broken but grass springs back” – ie the grass of Vietnam withstood the elephantine US and quickly throve afterwards.
How about Crimea, are we backing the wishes of those people here?
Fortunately they, and those in the Donblas, have an ally to assist – Taiwan might as well whistle for all the US will do.
Quite true, we should be very happy that the US has our back.
I’m assuming you are being facetious.
Thank you, Andy, for being the voice of reason. Warning: I suspect a lot of voices of unreason are going to take issue with your comment.
“There may come a day when the 23 or so million citizens of Taiwan – most of whom have never, ever lived under the CCP – decide to become a part of China.”
It’s amazing that this simple democratic desire is lost to apologists. That the inhabitants should decide for themselves really ought to be a basic principle anyone living in a liberal democracy would wish for others. It’s pathetic how many people are willing to cede that when it comes to the people off other countries.
It wouldn’t be allowed here either. No country just agrees to secession.
A) This happens quite frequently – to take one example, Montenegro in 2006 took an independence vote.
B) If any Australian state wanted to be it’s own country and voted out, I doubt the federal government would send in the military or do much at all beyond wish them luck and begin to work out the trade rules.
C) Even if counties don’t like succession, IS doesn’t imply OUGHT and we should stand up for populations to have the right of self-determination.
You clearly live in fantasy land. I live in the real world. Not going to happen either here in Australia or anywhere. No country agrees to secession.
There is an example staring you in the face – the former members of the USSR that separated from Russia.
The parent country dissolved. Very different thing.
Not really. Russia still claims those territories, and brutally stomped out independence movements in other territories in the 1990s to prevent further losses. It was a vacuum of power rather than a dissolution of the state that allowed some parts to break off without reprisal. The referendums gave those new states international legitimacy.
The USSR was never a country it was a bureaucracy and not a very good one at that.
It was ostensibly a union of republics, as the name suggested.
*I’m* living in fantasy land?! I literally gave you an example. There’s even a Wikipedia article about all the different referendum votes and whether they were accepted or not. It’s not 0%…
It isn’t as accepted as much as it should be, but they do get accepted. In any case, what does it matter if any country with a traditional claim wants to claim sovereignty now? What is the map of the world where borders became fixed and the inhabitants lose the right to challenge it? 2000? 1975? 1950? 1900? 1800? 1500? Tell me how disputes can be resolved by appealing to history. For example, Finland voted for independence from Russia in 1917 – and some Russians are still sore about it considering the land a part of Russia (including those in the Russian government). How do you look at history as a means of deciding? Is it only because Finland used the Russian revolution as a chance to break free that they should have sovereignty now? Or is there some other criteria that says Finland gets to be independent despite once being a part of Russia. Or do Sweden have claims because it was a part of Sweden before that? Does the military conquest settle all?
Having a tanty aren’t we? Real Politik trumps singing Kumbyah around the campfire. That is reality like it or not.
Hi Kel, try to not feed the trolls. Unfortunately we just have to go elsewhere if we want a reasonable and balanced discussion on anything to do with China or Russia.
Thank you for this very clear account.
You were doing Ok until this part:
“We also observe the horrors of Tiananmen, Xinjiang, Tibet and Hong Kong. Of slave and reeducation camps, organ harvesting and the myriad of other atrocities, not to mention the overwhelming oppressive control of the CCP in China. Their adherence to one country two systems in Hong Kong transitioned to mainland dictatorship less than 20 years into the 50 year agreement of autonomy”.
Tiananmen – read a different analysis including some photo’s of actions taken by the Rioters
https://johnmenadue.com/the-tiananmen-square-massacrethe-one-sided-story/
Xinjiang – read about the ETIM. UN Designated Terrorist Group that committed terrorist attacks in China for years until stopped.
https://www.un.org/securitycouncil/sanctions/1267/aq_sanctions_list/summaries/entity/eastern-turkistan-islamic-movement
Tibet – traditionally part of China
Hong Kong – Doing quite well since all the foreign interference has been removed and the Rioters prosecuted. HK has never, ever been a Democracy and under the British they had no say whatsoever. All they have done is to ensure that only candidates that will pledge allegiance to China are eligible to run for office. Didn’t we just require all our pollies to swear allegiance to Australia? No different. HK has far more Democracy than they have ever had before.
Slave and re-education camps? Please provide some actual, unbiased serious evidence rather than anything that has come from the BBC.
Organ Harvesting was what did it for me. That is a common BS claim by Falun Dafa/Gong which has a very strong presence in Taiwan and particularly in the Epoch Times. Are you Falun Gong/Dafa?
You also failed to mention the 28,000 Indigenous Taiwanese murdered by the Kuomintang after they took possession of Formosa.
The media only ever shows what China allegedly does to Taiwan and never what Taiwan does to China. Taiwan also sends its fighters into Chinese airspace etc.
Both are as bad as each other in other words. The Chinese Civil War has never ended and this is nothing more than the continuation of same. It can end either by discussion and agreement or it will end in bloodshed (which nobody wants).
Taiwan is a chip making giant, now that the CPC has started ramping up development and production of its own will eventually make Taiwan much less relevant, they may indeed with to rejoin the winning team on their own accord.
If China, very quietly, slows then stops the export of cheaper chips for the US auto industry the howls from the manufacturers will be heard on the moon. There are so many widgets & small items, not even high value, that China has been supplying to the flabby West which would really disrupt normal life if they were to be cut off.
Far more than that. Nothing that you buy, and I mean nothing aside from food obviously, does not contain parts made in China. “Made in Germany” means assembled in Germany from parts made everywhere else.
Also the entire Australian housing industry would stop if China no longer supplied all the tiles, white goods, plumbing, electrical, fastenings and hardware.
The last white goods manufacturer, EMAIL in Orange, closed after 70yrs serving the country. It’s such a shame that we lack the raw materials to make tiles, joists, wires, tools … or, apparently, anything else.
I take it the raw materials are the people who make the products. Where does everyone work today?
Baristas, Uber and Deliveroo drivers, apparently, not forgetting other essential industries such as eyebrow sculpting & nail salons.
Pelosi has always been a hawk
This stupidity is for domestic consumption.
Dems are in trouble.
Industrial military complex to save the day for them?
Extra judicial killings continue.
We need to divorce ourselves from the US.
Wouldn’t have anything to do with building some cred for the mid term elections I suppose?
Far from the first time, Bernie, you (as usual) have the wrong end of the stick. This topic is not about a Joan of Arc charging
into the northern Asian region to rescue those in peril of autocracy. It is about the changing hegemonic characteristics of the planet with regard to trade, diplomacy and military capacity.
During the Soviet era the economies of USSR or the PRC (China) were of negligible magnitude to that of the USA. Nowadays the USA can be given a run for its money in all three arenas (military, diplomatic and economic). The proof is the gnashing of teeth expressed by the West by the cheque-book diplomacy of the PRC in Africa and the Pacific region. Take a look at the IMF publication as to China’s influence in Africa. You will see that the document is positive taken on the whole.
I was in Hong Kong during the events of 2019. The PRC played a long game. Carrie Lam has been “retired” and her successor hasn’t put a foot wrong. To be candid, for the moment, *I* am unable to anticipate subsequent actions from the PRC but I can tell you that they will have been (1) well thought out and (2) very long term. The clear loss of uni-power (or top-dog) status by the USA is what it is all about to the point that the probability of a 3rd world war within the next decade is low but not zero. The USA has about 280 military bases in about 85 countries. As an exercise make a tally of Chinese military bases. (You will find that the number is one (viz. 1)).
Because today is my last day of my subscription, I’ll take the trouble to extend your horizons with regard to the Ukraine which,
you will come to see, is germane to Taiwan. The action in the Ukraine did not begin on the 24 of February this year. Its origins reside with the NATO Bucharest Summit Declaration2 of the 3 April 2008. For Russia this summit was tantamount to the Cuban Missile event of 1962 for the USA when the USA installed missiles into Turkey. It is not a matter of concurring or disagreeing but recognising that this is how Russia perceives such an extension of NATO. Personally, along with Pilger and a few others, Putin overplayed his hand by invading but the invasion is a fact of life to which there is no unified response from either NATO, collectively, or the recent G20 finance ministers meeting in Indonesia (google ‘no communique from G20 meeting Indonesia’)
Inasmuch as Russia has declared a policy of no further expansion of NATO China (the PRC) established a policy at the 19th
Congress (Oct. 2017) that concerned (1) the South China Sea, (2) Tibet and (3) Taiwan. The similarity of the expressions, from Russia and China, establishes the reality of a multi-polar world or, rather the decline to the ultimate absence of the 75 to 90 year hegemony of a uni-polar world with the USA at the apex.
Returning to the USA, given my last vist in 2018, one could not find a more politically polarised country. The Supreme Court is acting like a second Senate making decisions as to what the law ought to be whereas its principal task is to determine what the law *is* and leave the mights and coulds to the politicians and the clergy. As to freedom, per se, just where would one begin? Mike Moore and others have ridiculed the social and welfare structure. Goggle the NYT and you will find Putin’s popularity at about 60% and much higher for Xi (who is almost assured of a 3rd term). The politics of Warran and Sanders does’t get to first base in a Dem environment. Biden is more or less the prozac version of Trump.
The political view in Taiwan is by no means homogeneous and the place has acquired democratic practices only very recently. While taking the KMT up, recently – just prior to the speech at the Brookings Insititute – Eric Chu (chairman of Taiwan’s KMT) must have forgotten to mention the “White Terror”. As for Xinjiang send some of your reporters there or send me and I’ll show them about. Yes, its a security Provence (a foreigner needs to carry a passport – not compulsory but having it in one’s possession does save administrative time) but Xinjiang is also a very nice and pretty Provence. I witnessed no mistreatment of anyone and the signage is in at least three languages. However, the rules are (no exceptions) (1) no proselytism and (2) demonstrations. As an aside, during decade of teaching senior high school / university I did not encounter one student who had any sympathy for those who were killed at Tiananmen Sq. The typical comment takes the form of “they bought it upon themselves after numerous warnings”
Scan the archives Bernie. I have made it clear that the PRC has a legitimate (i.e. entirely historical) claim on Tibet and Taiwan. These locations were never distinct or separate. Taiwan is about 90% Han. HK was only ever leased; the PRC are correct : HK was never a colony.
Westerners are no longer accustomed to living with consequences for their actions. The politicians are coated in Teflon and
one (as occurred recently in NZ) can be given home detention for driving over and killing two teenage pedestrians while on ice. I have never felt unsafe when living in either Russia of Asia.
Erasmus! Don’t go! We need your wisdom.
What I find fascinating in all this hysteria is that the media in the West can only come up with a militaristic response to China. For its part, China is ostensibly playing that card as well and I can’t blame them for an issue that is in their back yard and is akin to having the Chinese navy parked in Bass Strait should they take umbrage at something we want. We wouldn’t be too pleased with that nor are the Chinese chuffed at having the US piss on them in their part of the world.
However, the Chinese are a very patient people, unlike us here in the West, and play the long game with commendable skill. Therefore, in my opinion, the best way the Chinese can hurt the US is not by playing the militaristic role the US wishes them too but to crash the US economy which is shaky to say the least what with a monstrous debt level mainly owed to China, appalling social conditions and a totally deluded political class.
I have heard from some in the know that in this area China has all the aces while the US is playing with an empty deck. If this is the case and China does whack the US economically then we, with all our ‘all the way with the USA’ attitude will be royally rooted as well.
Mind you, as the sanctions on Russia are proving, the US has given Europe a near fatal gut shot while shooting themselves in the foot in the process so maybe China won’t need to do a thing to hurt the US as the US is already doing a sterling job on itself and its allies and this latest is but another step to US hegemonic irrelevance.
I agree with lexusaussie, Erasmus, DON’T GO!!!
“I agree with lexusaussie, Erasmus, DON’T GO!!!”
Agreed.
Can’t expect Crikey to be across all the subtleties of complex foreign affairs (too small an entity).
But one of the benefits is that it has a fairly informed readership. And – it demonstrates a greater degree of objective analysis than any of the other media I’ve read (generally speaking).
And objective, non partisan, independent analysis is a rapidly dying art in poor old Oz. Wish Albo would take a broom and dustpan to the poor old (geriatric, LNP stacked) ABC.
Imagine if China were to announce the sale of chunk of the $2Trillion of US Treasury Bonds it has accumulated this century.
Not even do so – that would flood and destablise the markets – but just as a reminder of where the money is. Or is not.
As Iran found in 1979, Iraq in 1990 & Russia this year – plus sundry individuals & organisations like Wikileaks – when the USA decides that you cannot access the international banking system, or even retrieve your own funds placed with the Gnomes of Zurich for (relative) safety from seizure, then the rest of the soi-disant Free West ™® obeys with hesitation.
Erasmus instead of leaving consider a writing spot on Crikey, I’m sure Crikey could give a few lightweights the flick to fit you in. Find out who you have to sleep with to get onboard. Cheers.
Great idea!
He’s often made that offer in the past – sending in considered pieces – without so much as the courtesy of a rejection email.
That’s disgraceful and and intellectually dishonest of Crikey.
If that is a surprise then you must be new here.
This site regularly publishes utter rubbish then, when posters point it out, deletes ALL comments and shuts down further discussion – see the two articles on the FINA swimming ruling in June.
It has also banned numerous posters permanently or subjects them to automatic premoderation which never lets them out, such as Jack Robertson.
Read & copy this quickly before it is disappeared down the memory hole!
I can’t help wondering what the US would do if China sent high level diplomats to offer support to Venezuela or Cuba. Along with offering military support as well. Shouldn’t be too hard to guess after seeing the response to China’s economic support for the Solomon Islands and the response that generated.
Remember they still follow the Monroe Doctrine. They would be apopleptic!