By Tom Fowdy
On Sunday, a group of US Senators arrived in Taiwan in a visit that was unannounced. Boarding a US military plane, the trip came off the heels of Nancy Pelosi's highly controversial and outrageous visit to the island which proceeded to dramatically escalate tensions between Washington and Beijing, provoking a series of heated military actions from China in the bid to shore up its position regarding "The One China Policy".
As you might have expected, Beijing's reaction to the saga hasn't changed anything, not least because it is the way of the United States, as well as for that matter the DPP leaders on the island, to deliberately make a point that it hasn't. Despite engaging in what is blatant provocations in undercutting America's commitment to the "One China Policy" (which really doesn't mean anything at all at this point) the United States instead accuses China of "undermining" the status quo and threatening regional stability.
In the unipolar era, since 1991, American foreign policy is not built on a willingness to compromise on matters related to core strategic interests, at all. Instead, it runs with the strategic premise that as the hegemonic state, the United States should strive to continually maximize its political advantages at all costs in the bid to maintain that position. Therefore, negotiating or compromising on matters with a perceived enemy, which may give them an increase in power or status, is seen as unacceptable. Hence the US will never accept a nuclear North Korea and quickly eschewed the idea of compromising with Iran.
Under no circumstances does the US bargain its positions purely out of the prospect of peace, unless the subject is deemed strategically irrelevant altogether (such as for example the Taliban in Afghanistan). Rather, policymaking centers around the logic of simply "how much does the US need to escalate?" in order to hold its position. The biggest contemporary example of this is that it saw the outbreak of a major war in Europe as a preferable alternative than to compromising in any sense with Putin's Russia. The pursuit of maintaining unilateral power at all costs takes priority, especially when it is striving to reassert control over allies.
Given this, even a show of force by China on the matter of Taiwan is not going to alter the American calculus. The premise that the US would back down and compromise over Taiwan in order to avert a major conflict is completely wrong, as the Ukraine example shows. Rather instead, the US will continue to hold their foreign policy position, irrespective of China's reactions, and will continue to accuse Beijing as the one undermining the peace and changing the status quo, whilst of course doing so themselves. The only "peace" America is ultimately willing to accept, is peace in the name of their own military domination and hegemony.
The US sees Taiwan as an indispensable aspect of its "Indo-Pacific strategy" and footpad to sustaining maritime dominance, and losing it would be deemed a massive strategic defeat at the hands of China. However, Beijing at the same time has placed its political stakes firmly on the matter of reunification, and sees the US as backtracking on its bilateral commitments regarding the island. As a result, the Middle ground on Taiwan is completely collapsing as neither side is willing to accept a political compromise of sorts. This means with each provocation; the situation is growing ever more dangerous.
Taiwan itself believes that by continually inviting foreign politicians to visit the island, it is increasing its international support and pushing back mainland China, of which it deems to be "bluffing in its military threats." Given such, the status quo of the "One China" consensus, as vague as it was, established in the 1970s, is effectively collapsing as strategic and political interests collide.
But as the new White Paper released last week shows, China is not messing around, and as the room for compromise shrinks, the probability of punitive action intensifies. The Taiwan issue is reaching its endgame, and we were naïve to suppose that this unresolved, frozen issue could be prolonged forever, when the tug of war from both sides is thoroughly and relentlessly intensifying.
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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