A shifting status quo

Abstract

‘China’s growing assertiveness, America’s declining deterrent capability, and Taiwan’s growing jumpiness, not least as it watches Hong Kong, have all made a stumble into catastrophic conflict across the Taiwan Strait more likely than for decades. Brendan Taylor credibly argues this is only avoidable - however unattractive “muddling through” might be to purists on all sides - by urgently building more robust crisis-management mechanisms. A sober and compelling analysis which policymakers will ignore at their peril.’

Gareth Evans, Former Australian Minister for Foreign Affairs and President Emeritus of the International Crisis Group

‘The cross-Strait balance of power is shifting, raising the risk of inadvertent and catastrophic great-power conflict. Brendan Taylor’s identification of this window of vulnerability and proposals for crisis-management advance our understanding of one of the most vexing national security problems of the next decade.’

Dr Mira Rapp-Hooper, Council on Foreign Relations

‘This is certainly a timely book addressing Taiwan’s forthcoming security challenges. Brendan Taylor provides an insightful and thought-provoking analysis regarding the threats Taiwan is facing and at the same time offers valuable suggestions in terms of how to manage this imminent crisis. This is worth reading by all interests.’

Andrew N.D. Yang, Former Minister of National Defense, Republic of China, Taiwan

Taiwan’s position looks increasingly precarious, and tensions threaten to grow into a major strategic crisis. Chinese President Xi Jinping has made reunification with Taiwan a central pillar of his vision for China, and has ramped up diplomatic and economic pressure on Taiwan. Its inhabitants are increasingly estranged from the mainland, and Tsai Ing-wen’s administration refuses to conduct relations with China on Beijing’s terms. Taiwan could take on renewed strategic significance amid the backdrop of the deepening rivalry between China and the United States, and find itself at the centre of a Cold War-style superpower confrontation.

While Washington’s support and military power has historically guaranteed Taiwan’s security, this is no longer a certainty. This Adelphi book argues that China’s military modernisation has changed the cross-strait military balance, and the ability of the US to prevail in a conflict over Taiwan may have evaporated by 2030. As China feels increasingly empowered to retake Taiwan, there is significant potential for escalation, particularly given the ambiguity of Beijing’s ‘red lines’ on Taiwan. Neither Beijing, Taipei nor Washington want such a conflict, but each is challenging the uneasy status quo. Taylor calls for the introduction of a narrower set of formal crisis-management mechanisms designed to navigate a major Taiwan crisis.

Notes

1 June Teufel Dreyer, ‘Understanding the Status Quo: Perception and Reality on China-Taiwan Relations’, RUSI Journal, vol. 152, no. 1, 2007, p. 48.

2 Ibid.

3 For a useful overview of Taiwan's early history, see Denny Roy, Taiwan: A Political History (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2003).

4 Richard C. Bush, Untying the Knot: Making Peace in the Taiwan Strait (Washington DC: Brookings Institution Press, 2005), p. 19.

5 Ibid., p. 17.

6 Roy, Taiwan: A Political History, pp. 152–79.

7 Bush, Untying the Knot, p. 25.

8 Election Study Center, National Chengchi University, ‘N.C.C.U., important political attitude trend distribution’, 10 July 2019, https://esc.nccu.edu.tw/course/news.php?Sn=166.

9 Stacy Hsu, ‘Growing number of Taiwanese willing to go to war against China: poll’, Focus Taiwan, 19 July 2019, http://focustaiwan.tw/news/aipl/201907190017.aspx.

10 Marie-Alice McLean-Dreyfus, ‘Taiwan: Is there a political generation gap?’, Interpreter, 9 June 2017, https://www.lowyinstitute.org/the-interpreter/taiwan-there-political-generation-gap.

11 Hsu Szu-chien, ‘A Political Profile of Taiwan’s Youth: Democratic Support, Natural Independence, and Commitment to Defense’, Global Taiwan Institute, 3 April 2018, https://globaltaiwan.org/2018/04/recording-a-political-profile-of-taiwans-youth.

12 ‘Taiwan’s unnerving president does it again’, Economist, 15 July 1999, https://www.economist.com/asia/1999/07/15/taiwans-unnerving-president-does-it-again.

13 Richard C. Bush, Uncharted Strait: The Future of China–Taiwan Relations (Washington DC: Brookings Institution Press, 2012), p. 16.

14 Ko Shu-ling and Charles Snyder, ‘Chen says NUC will “cease”’, Taipei Times, 28 February 2006, http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/front/archives/2006/02/28/2003294988.

15 J. Michael Cole, Convergence or Conflict in the Taiwan Strait: The Illusion of Peace? (Abingdon: Routledge, 2017), p. 24.

16 Austin Ramzy, ‘When Leaders of Taiwan and China Meet, Even Tiny Gestures Will Be Parsed’, New York Times, 4 November 2015, https://www.nytimes.com/2015/11/05/world/asia/china-taiwan-xi-jinping-ma-ying-jeou-protocol.html.

17 Cole, Convergence or Conflict in the Taiwan Strait, pp. 32–33.

18 See Richard C. Bush, ‘Tsai’s inauguration in Taiwan: It could have been worse’, Order from Chaos, Brookings Institution, Washington DC, 23 May 2016, https://www.brookings.edu/blog/order-from-chaos/2016/05/23/tsais-inauguration-in-taiwan-it-could-have-been-worse.

19 Bush, Uncharted Strait, p. 12.

20 Bush, ‘Tsai’s inauguration in Taiwan: It could have been worse’.

21 Charlotte Gao, ‘Was it Wise for Tsai Ing-wen to Reject the “1992 Consensus” publicly?’, Diplomat, 4 January 2019, https://thediplomat.com/2019/01/was-it-wise-for-tsai-ing-wen-to-reject-the-1992-consensus-publicly.

22 Taiwan, Mainland Affairs Council, ‘Summarized Results of the Public Opinion Survey on the “Public’s View on Current Cross-strait Relations”’, August 2018, https://ws.mac.gov.tw/001/Upload/297/relfile/8010/5658/744da024-98b2-443d-82ad-8ba78ba59f9f.pdf.

23 See Fang-Yu Chen, Wei-ting Yen, Austin Horng-en Wang and Brian Hioe, ‘The Taiwanese see themselves as Taiwanese, not as Chinese’, Washington Post, 2 January 2017, https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/monkey-cage/wp/2017/01/02/yes-taiwan-wants-one-china-but-which-china-does-it-want.

24 Richard C. Bush, ‘Taiwan’s local elections, explained’, Brookings Institution, 5 December 2018, https://www.brookings.edu/blog/order-from-chaos/2018/12/05/taiwans-local-elections-explained.

25 Grossman, ‘No Smiles Across the Taiwan Strait’.

26 ‘NSC rolls out “one country, two systems” response measures’, Taiwan Today, 12 March 2019, https://taiwantoday.tw/news.php?unit=2,6,10,15,18&post=151159.

27 Joseph Yeh, ‘China’s state-run newspaper “sucks”: foreign minister’, Focus Taiwan, 19 May 2019, http://focustaiwan.tw/news/aipl/201905190007.aspx.

28 ‘Tsai’s moves will only backfire’, China Daily, 9 August 2018, http://globalchinadaily.com.cn/201808/09/WS5b6b78eaa310add14f384b54.html.

29 Charlie Lyons Jones, ‘Taiwan: Tsai Ing-wen’s battle to discipline the DPP’, Interpreter, 8 January 2019, http://www.lowyinterpreter.org/the-interpreter/taiwan-tsai-ing-wen-battle-discipline-dpp.

30 Stacy Hsu, ‘Tsai wins DPP primary, beating Lai by 8.2 points’, Focus Taiwan, 13 June 2019, http://focustaiwan.tw/news/aipl/201906130005.aspx.

31 China, Taiwan Affairs Office and the Information Office of the State Council, ‘The One-China Principle and the Taiwan Issue’, White Paper, 2000, http://en.people.cn/features/taiwanpaper/Taiwan.html.

32 Ibid.

33 For further reading on the first Taiwan Strait crisis of 1954–55, see Robert Accinelli, Crisis and Commitment: United States Policy Toward Taiwan 1950–1955 (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1996). On the second Taiwan Strait crisis of 1958, see Robert L. Suettinger, ‘U.S. “Management” of Three Taiwan Strait “Crises”’, in Michael D. Swaine and Zhang Tuosheng, eds, Managing Sino-American Crises: Case Studies and Analysis (Washington DC: Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, 2006), pp. 268–76.

34 For an excellent analysis of the evolution of China's Taiwan policy under Mao, see Jing Huang with Xiaoting Li, Inseparable Separation: The Making of China's Taiwan Policy (Singapore: World Scientific Publishing Co., 2010), pp. 11–87.

35 Ibid., pp. 106–07.

36 Ibid., p. 41.

37 Susan V. Lawrence and Wayne M. Morrison, ‘Taiwan: Issues for Congress’, Congressional Research Service Report, 30 October 2017, p. 39.

38 Huang and Li, Inseparable Separation, p. 276.

39 ‘Interview with Wen Jiabao’, Washington Post, 23 November 2003, https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/politics/2003/11/23/interview-with-wen-jiabao/1d04cdb0-9b08-4a94-b33a-b978c591525e.

40 Embassy of the People's Republic of China in the United States of America, ‘Anti-Secession Law (Full text)’, 15 March 2005, http://www.china-embassy.org/eng/zt/999999999/t87406. htm.

41 Denny Roy, Return of the Dragon: Rising China and Regional Security (New York: Columbia University Press, 2013), p. 205.

42 Teddy Ng, ‘Xi Jinping says efforts must be made to close the China–Taiwan political divide’, South China Morning Post, 7 October 2013, https://www.scmp.com/news/china/article/1325761/xi-jinping-says-political-solution-taiwan-cant-wait-forever.

43 See Bates Gill and Linda Jakobson, China Matters: Getting it Right for Australia (Carlton, Victoria: La Trobe University Press, 2017), p. 17.

44 Cited in Michael Mazza, ‘Is a Storm Brewing in the Taiwan Strait?’, Foreign Affairs, 27 July 2018, https://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/asia/2018-07-27/storm-brewing-taiwan-strait.

45 Philip Wen and Ben Blanchard, ‘Xi warns Taiwan will face “punishment of history” for separatism’, Reuters, 20 March 2018, https://www.reuters.com/article/us-china-parliament-taiwan/xi-warns-taiwan-will-face-punishment-of-history-for-separatism-idUSKBN1GW07X.

46 General Wei Fenghe, State Councilor and Minister of National Defence, China, ‘Address to the 18th Asia Security Summit, The IISS Shangri-La Dialogue’, 2 June 2019, https://www.iiss.org/events/shangri-la-dialogue/shangri-la-dialogue-2019.

47 China, State Council Information Office, China's National Defense in the New Era (Beijing: Foreign Languages Press Co. Ltd, 2019), p. 5.

48 Lawrence Chung, ‘Donald Trump’s call to Xi Jinping “a relief” for Taiwan’, South China Morning Post, 11 February 2017, https://www.scmp.com/news/china/diplomacy-defence/article/2069872/taiwan-touch-us-trump-call-xi-jinping.

49 Richard C. Bush, ‘A One-China Policy Primer’, East Asia Policy Paper, no. 10, Center for East Asia Policy Studies at Brookings, March 2017, pp. 6–8, https://www.brookings.edu/wp-content/uploads/2017/03/one-china-policy-primer.pdf.

50 Bush, Untying the Knot, p. 17.

51 Man-houng Lin, ‘Taiwan’s sovereignty status: The neglected Taipei Treaty’, in Kimie Hara, ed., The San Francisco System and Its Legacies (London: Routledge, 2015), p. 117.

52 Michael J. Green, By More than Providence: Grand Strategy and American Power in the Asia Pacific since 1783 (New York: Columbia University Press, 2017), p. 274.

53 John Lewis Gaddis, The Cold War (London: Allen Lane, 2005), p. 42.

54 Suettinger, ‘U.S. “Management” of Three Taiwan Strait “Crises”’, p. 257.

55 ‘Mutual Defence Treaty Between the United States and the Republic of China, 2 December 1954, available at http://avalon.law.yale.edu/20th_century/chin001.asp.

56 Roy, Taiwan: A Political History, pp. 150–51.

57 Bush, ‘A One-China Policy Primer’, p. 10.

58 Reproduced in Alan D. Romberg, Rein In at the Brink of the Precipice: American Policy Toward Taiwan and U.S.–PRC Relations, 3rd ed. (Washington DC: The Henry L. Stimson Center, 2003), p. 234.

59 Ibid., p. 238.

60 Steven M. Goldstein and Randall Schriver, ‘An Uncertain Relationship: The United States, Taiwan and the Taiwan Relations Act’, China Quarterly, no. 165, 2001, p. 151.

61 Taiwan Relations Act of 1979, Pub. L. No. 96–98, https://www.congress.gov/bill/96th-congress/house-bill/2479.

62 ‘Joint Communique of the United States of America and the People’s Republic of China (the 1982 Communique)’, 17 August 1982, available at https://web-archive-2017.ait.org.tw/en/us-joint-communique-1982.html.

63 For further reading, see Richard Bush, ‘The US policy of dual deterrence’, in Steve Tsang, ed., If China Attacks Taiwan: Military Strategy, Politics and Economics (London: Routledge, 2010), pp. 30–45.

64 Cited in Pan Zhongqi, ‘US Taiwan policy of strategic ambiguity: A dilemma of deterrence’, Journal of Contemporary China, vol. 12, no. 35, 2003, pp. 388–89.

65 For further reading, see Shirley A. Kan, ‘Taiwan: Major U.S. Arms Sales Since 1990′, Congressional Research Service Report, 29 August 2014, https://fas.org/sgp/crs/weapons/RL30957.pdf.

66 Matt Yu and Evelyn Kao, ‘Taiwan welcomes reported shift in U.S. arms sales policy’, Focus Taiwan, 5 June 2018, http://focustaiwan.tw/news/aipl/201806050026.aspx.

67 Dennis Hickey, ‘Taiwan’s Security in an Era of Uncertainty’, in Shelley Rigger, Dennis V. Hickey and Peter Chow, eds, ‘U.S.-Taiwan Relations: Prospects for Security and Economic Ties’, Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, April 2017, p. 11, https://www.wilsoncenter.org/sites/default/files/ap_us-taiwan_relations.pdf.

68 Andrew Scobell, ‘Show of Force: Chinese Soldiers, Statesmen, and the 1995-1996 Taiwan Strait Crisis’, Political Science Quarterly, vol. 115, no. 2, Summer 2000, p. 237.

69 J. Michael Cole, ‘The Third Taiwan Strait Crisis: The forgotten showdown between China and America’, National Interest, 10 March 2017, https://nationalinterest.org/feature/the-third-taiwan-strait-crisis-the-forgotten-showdown-19742.

70 For further reading on the 1995–96 crisis, see Nancy Bernkopf Tucker, United States–Taiwan Relations and the Crisis with China (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2009), pp. 213–50.

71 David E. Sanger, ‘U.S. would defend Taiwan, Bush says’, New York Times, 26 April 2001, https://www.nytimes.com/2001/04/26/world/us-would-defend-taiwan-bush-says.html.

72 Huang and Li, Inseparable Separation, p. 276.

73 Ibid., p. 277.

74 Ibid., p. 280.

75 Anna Gearan, Philip Rucker and Simon Denyer, ‘Trump’s Taiwan phone call was long planned, say people who were involved’, Washington Post, 4 December 2016, https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/trumps-taiwan-phone-call-was-weeks-in-the-planning-say-people-who-were-involved/2016/12/04/f8be4b0c-ba4e-11e6-94ac-3d324840106c_story.html.

76 Mark Landler and Michael Forsythe, ‘Trump Tells Xi Jinping U.S. Will Honor “One China” Policy’, New York Times, 9 February 2017, https://www.nytimes.com/2017/02/09/world/asia/donald-trump-china-xi-jinping-letter.html.

77 David Brunnstrom, ‘Trump signs U.S.-Taiwan travel bill, angering China’, Reuters, 17 March 2018, https://www.reuters.com.article/us-usa-taiwan-china/trump-signs-u-s-taiwan-travel-bill-angering-china-idUSKCN1GS2SN.

78 TS staff, ‘The 2019 National Defense Authorization Act: Key Sections on Taiwan and China’, 27 July 2018, https://sentinel.tw/the-2019-national-defense-authorization-act-key-sections-on-taiwan-and-china.

79 See, for example, Richard C. Bush, ‘The problem with inviting Taiwan’s Tsai Ing-wen to speak to a joint meeting of Congress’, Order from Chaos, Brookings Institution, 8 February 2019, https://www.brookings.edu/blog/order-from-chaos/2019/02/08/the-problem-with-inviting-taiwans-tsai-ing-wen-to-speak-to-a-joint-meeting-of-congress/; and Gerrit van der Wees, ‘Why Speaker Pelosi Should Invite President Tsai Ing-wen Before Congress’, Diplomat, 9 February 2019, https://thediplomat.com/2019/02/why-speaker-pelosi-should-invite-president-tsai-ing-wen-before-congress.

80 Joseph Yeh, ‘Tsai, Pelosi phone call no mention of possible US trip: FM’, Focus Taiwan, 1 April 2019, http://focustaiwan.tw/aipl/201904010010.aspx.

81 White House, National Security Strategy of the United States of America, Washington DC, December 2017, p. 47, https://www.whitehouse.gov/wp-content/uploads/2017/12/NSS-Final-12-18-2017-0905.pdf.

82 See James Mattis, ‘The United States and Asia-Pacific Security’, address to the 16th Asia Security Summit', IISS Shangri-La Dialogue, 3 June 2017, from https://www.iiss.org/-/media/images/dialogues/sld/sld-2017/documents/first-plenary-session-as-delivered.ashx; and James Mattis, ‘US Leadership and the Challenges of Indo-Pacific security, address to the 17th Asia Security Summit’, IISS Shangri-La Dialogue, 2 June 2018, https://www.iiss.org/-/media/images/dialogues/sld/sld-2018/documents/james-mattis-sld18.ashx?la=en&hash=020D1562882D7460CDA17BC67B0037BFE1DDE748.

83 Cited in Chiang Chin-yeh and Joseph Yeh, ‘Chinese military provocations won’t win Taiwanese hearts: Bolton’, Focus Taiwan, 2 April 2019, http://focustaiwan.tw/news/aipl/201904020004.aspx.

84 United States, Department of Defense, Indo-Pacific Strategy Report: Preparedness, Partnerships, and Promoting a Networked Region, 1 June 2019, p. 30.

85 Mike Yeo, ‘US State Department OKs license for submarine tech sales to Taiwan’, Defense News, 9 April 2018, available from https://www.defensenews.com/naval/2018/04/09/us-state-department-oks-license-for-submarine-tech-sales-to-taiwan.

86 Chris Horton, ‘Taiwan Set to Receive $2 Billion in U.S. Arms, Drawing Ire from China’, New York Times, 9 July 2019, https://www.nytimes.com/2019/07/09/world/asia/taiwan-arms-sales.html.

87 Edward White and Kathrin Hille, ‘US agrees $330m arms sale to bolster Taiwan defences’, Financial Times, 25 September 2018, https://www.ft.com/content/43a80396-c05c-11e8-95b1-d36dfe1b89a.

88 Keoni Everington, ‘China cries foul at deployment of US soldiers at AIT in Taiwan’, Taiwan News, 8 April 2019, https://www.taiwannews.com.tw/en/news/3675448.

89 Teng Pei-ju, ‘The new Taiwan-U.S. initiative not an act to provoke Beijing: AIT Director’, Taiwan News, 19 March 2019, https://www.taiwannews.com.tw/en/news/3661417.

90 Matthew Strong, ‘Taiwan and U.S. National Security chiefs meet for first time since 1979′, Taiwan News, 25 May 2019, https://www.taiwannews.com.tw/en/news/3710564.

91 John Power, ‘US warships made 92 trips through the Taiwan Strait since 2007′, South China Morning Post, 3 May 2019, https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/geopolitics/article/3008621/us-warships-made-92-trips-through-taiwan-strait-2007.

92 ‘US warship sails through strategic Taiwan Strait amid period of heightened military and economic tension with China’, South China Morning Post, 25 July 2019, https://www.scmp.com/news/china/diplomacy/article/3019995/us-warship-sails-through-strategic-taiwan-strait-amid-period.

93 Primrose Riordan, ‘Navy frigate tested China’s nerve in Taiwan Strait transit’, Australian, 18 October 2018, https://www.theaustralian.com.au/national-affairs/defence/navy-frigate-tested-chinas-nerve-in-taiwan-strait-transit/news-story/5c54ce300d6a2c5b5c2b732fbcc20c3c.

94 Ankit Panda, ‘Making sense of China’s reaction to the French Navy’s Taiwan Strait Transit’, Diplomat, 27 April 2019, https://thediplomat.com/2019/04/making-sense-of-chinas-reaction-to-the-french-navys-taiwan-strait-transit.

95 Nathan Vanderklippe, ‘Canadian warship sails through Taiwan Strait’, Globe and Mail, 19 June 2019, https://www.theglobeandmail.com/world/article-canadian-warship-sails-through-taiwan-strait.

96 ‘China changing “status quo”, US official warns’, Taipei Times, 24 March 2019, http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/front/archives/2019/03/24/2003712071.

97 Flor Wang and Wen Kui-hsiang, ‘Tsai warns China against altering the status quo’, Focus Taiwan, 1 April 2019, http://focustaiwan.tw/news/aipl/201904010014.aspx.