Opinion | 'Provocation Diplomacy': Understanding the Taiwan Strategy

By Tom Fowdy

Lithuania's government appears to be at loggerheads with itself. Since the Baltic State taken the controversial decision to open a "Taiwan Representative Office" in its capital Vilnius last year, the country has received a huge backlash from Beijing of which has seen its diplomatic ties downgraded, whilst an unofficial economic embargo regarding trade from China has been placed on the country.

The pressure placed on Vilnius has induced government infighting, with some having reported to Reuters that the country was contemplating "renaming" the office, whilst reports also circulated in the Financial Times that US diplomats had also urged them to back down. This is whilst Lithuania's own President had publicly acknowledged the move as a "mistake" whilst a recent public opinion poll also found not even 20% of the country's public supported the decision.

Whether the government actually will change course, however, remains to be seen, but either way it is intrinsically evident that China's response has been harsher than expected, and there has not been an anticipated rallying of support for Vilnius as many who backed the move assumed. This begs the question, is this the "High tide" of Taiwan's strategy of "Provocation diplomacy"- that is the push to entice others to push against China's red lines with the goal of procuring greater support for itself? China has clearly and much to many people's underestimations, drawn the line that what it details as the "One China Policy" will not be violated.

Under Tsai ing wen and the "Democratic People's Party" (DPP), Taiwan has sought to reject the premise of reunification with mainland China and advocate an informal agenda of independence, rejecting the "1992 consensus" of "One China". As a small island with little political leverage of its own, it has sought to do so by facilitating a strategy of exploiting opposition to China overseas with the goal of procuring greater support for itself with the view of expanding its own political and economic space. It is termed as "provocation diplomacy" precisely because it seeks to deliberately stoke, amplify and incur Beijing's antagonism against it in order to market itself as a victim, a similar tactic of which the Hong Kong rioters employed in 2019, whilst also conducting a public relations blitz in favor of itself.

In doing this: Taiwan has frontloaded visits of western politicians to the island, has been pro-active on Twitter, such as how Tsai ing wen tweeted to manic anti-China basketball player "Enes Kanter Freedom", their leaders frequently pen op-eds in western newspapers, launched a "Taiwan can help" campaign, openly proposed itself as an alternative to China on trade and investment, bought commodities and goods China sanctioned from other countries, as well as conducting a series of other diplomatic stunts such as deliberately applying to join CPTPP the day after the mainland did. Effectively, Taipei follows Beijing around and seeks to cause publicity induced trouble to its own benefit.

As a part of such, Taiwan ultimately has sought to encourage where it can, other countries to push against China's red-lines, believing that Beijing's angry reactions will expand its support and that apart from making threats, the mainland has no answer to it and thus the goalposts are slowly moved and the One China policy is "hollowed out". It was this calculus which seen them urge Lithuania to open up the "Taiwan representative office"- a move which did not press against a red line for China, but crossed it. It is evident that both sides underestimated the scope of Beijing's response. In particular, Taiwan has long been delusional in pitching itself as an economic alternative to China proper, and failed to appreciate the importance of the country in global trade, commerce and investment.

The withering outcome of Lithuania as a result is bad news for Taipei as it now clearly spells out the costs at play for attempting to cross China's red lines and undermining the "One China Policy", which will cap their attempts at future diplomatic outreach. It also demonstrates the visible limitations of this "public relations" focused diplomacy to the world, and that reminds us that China has the physical power and capabilities to force other countries to take its position seriously. American backing of course is also culpable as a factor in affirming Taiwan's clear confidence to try and take on China and push back against the politics of reunification, yet it also seems DPP politicians had overestimated the scale of support they offered amidst this controversy. On the other hand, China is likely to start pushing back against Taiwan even further, seeing the impending U-turn in Lithuania as a vindication its own strategy is working. Taipei of course will continue shouting loudly, continue inviting politicians, making a noise on Twitter and pitching itself as god's gift to the world, but this doesn't mean it can necessarily change the outcomes in the process. When China says "Taiwan independence" is a "dead end", it means it.

The author is a well-seasoned writer and analyst with a large portfolio related to China topics, especially in the field of politics, international relations and more. He graduated with an Msc. in Chinese Studies from Oxford University in 2018.

The views do not necessarily reflect those of DotDotNews.

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