Opinion | Did the US just blink over Taiwan?

By Tom Fowdy

Just over a year ago, in Donald Trump's last week of office, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo commissioned U.S Ambassador to the United Nations, Kelly Craft, to visit Taiwan. The visit sought to wrap up a belligerent effort to reshape American foreign policy against China and sabotage (successfully) that of the incoming Biden administration, which would also see Pompeo lift all official "restrictions" on conducts with Taiwan authorities. However, the proposed visit by Craft was U-turned in the most abrupt fashion possible at the latest possible moment, with the outgoing flight turning around in the air and going home. It was widely reported that the administration had decided the risks of such a move were too great.

History might have just repeated itself. Yesterday, reports began to circulate in Taiwan and Japanese media that U.S House Speaker Nancy Pelosi had prepared an unconfirmed trip to the island scheduled for Sunday, which she had sought to keep under the radar. The reports drew a furious response from Beijing who warned of "forceful measures" if the proposed trip went ahead. The Global Times speculated it could cause "another Taiwan strait crisis" like in the 1990s. Although it is not unprecedented for a U.S House Speaker to visit the island, with Republican Newt Gingrich having done so in 1997.

However, one critical difference to that visit was that Gingrich was an opposition politician to the Democrat Clinton Presidency, therefore the White House had no control or responsibility for it. On the other hand, Nancy Pelosi is a Democrat politician who is an ally of the President and would not have done such a trip without the White House's approval, showing Biden's culpability. But to everyone's surprise, just like the Kelly Craft visit last year, the visit was suddenly "postponed" with the claim that Pelosi had in fact tested positive for COVID-19. More cynical people might highlight that it all seems too much of a fanciful coincidence, which leads us to question: Did the US just blink?

Taiwan's "Provocation Diplomacy"?

Emboldened by the US, Taiwan's leadership under the DPP has a very clear strategy in order to push for formal independence and undermine commitment to the "One China Policy" in the West, that is to seek as much attention for itself as possible in the view to procuring more support and provoking a negative reaction from Beijing, which then transforms itself into a wedge issue to damage relations with China as a whole. I describe this strategy as "provocation diplomacy". In doing so, Taiwan calculates it can gradually shift the goalposts by exploiting anti-Chinese sentiment and putting itself in the picture, believing that Beijing will not truly ignite a forceful response against it because of the consequences.

As some examples of this strategy, Taiwan sought to exploit Anti-China sentiment stemming from the COVID-19 pandemic to weaponize a "Taiwan can help" campaign, framing itself as an exemplary and publicizing a false claim that it alerted the World Health Organization (WHO) first. It then used this to try and damage the WHO's commitment to the One China Policy by demanding it participate in the World Health Assembly and soon found sympathy from fanatical anti-China US politicians, including in the administration itself. From here, the island began formulating a tactic of inviting Anti-China western politicians and legislators to visit the island, and frontloaded the process in 2021. This has included a number of delegations, as well as former Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott.

The pinnacle however of Taiwan's "provocation diplomacy" is based epitomized by having successfully convinced the Baltic nation of Lithuania, a hard-line anti-Communist country, to open a "Taiwan representative office" in its capital city last year. The office provoked a strong response from China who argued it was an effective violation of its commitment to the One China Policy, downgrading ties with Vilnius and soon imposing trade sanctions against it. Taiwan of course succeeded in using the controversy to further sour sentiment towards China in the EU, provoke support for Lithuania and therefore disrupt the bloc's relationship with Beijing as a whole. Although pressure was building on Vilnius to change course, the Russia-Ukraine war has essentially now made this untenable.

Did America blink?

It is course inevitable that in pursuing this strategy, Taiwan deliberately and inevitably sometimes pushes too far and creates unnecessary risks, after all it is trying to "goad" countries into a trap of confrontation against China using itself. The proposed visit of Nancy Pelosi would have undoubtedly been an enormous provocation which would have forced China's hand in some way. The US is very happy of course to go along with this "shifting the goalposts" strategy of hollowing out the One China Policy, but above all the Biden administration is also cautious in taking extreme risks too.

It seems evident on one hand that the US is happy to ramp up Taiwan tensions in order to turn the western narrative further against China in the heat of the Ukraine war, but on the other a step too far could be catastrophic for all parties involved. The visit of course may simply be rescheduled for a time that is seen as more politically astute to hurt China, but for now the question stands "Did America blink?" or is this all a massive coincidence? Only time will tell.

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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