Opinion | How Taiwan fell victim to US congressional posturing

By Tom Fowdy

Over the weekend, another US official delegation visited Taiwan, the 3rd since Pelosi's controversial visit in early August. This time, it was headed by Republican Senator Marsha Blackburn of Tennessee, another notorious and rabid anti-China voice of the US Congress. Proclaiming her support for the island, Blackburn insisted it was an "independent country" and without a clear spec of any local knowledge or history, proceeded to visit the Jiang Kai Shek memorial in Taipei, who she ignorantly proclaimed as President. It of course did not dawn on her at all that Jiang was once the leader of all China, was authoritarian, and of course a staunch advocate of national reunification, but that doesn't that say it all?

Blackburn is one of the most unpleasant China hawks in the US Congress, not least because she embodies the more hateful, ignorant, nationalistic and vulgar aspects of the Republican Party, being a huge backer of Donald Trump. Whilst some senators are neo-Conservative zealots and fantasists, such as Marco Rubio, to describe Blackburn as such would be to imply that she has principles at all, which she doesn't. Despite the fact that she was lovingly embraced by Tsai ing-wen, who will get whatever attention from the US she can, Blackburn has a history of making obscene racist remarks in regards to China, including dismissing its whole civilizational history as "stealing and cheating", a comment so offensive it infamously provoked China Daily EU chief Chen Weihua to brand her a "lifetime bitch" on Twitter.

In this case, it has to be said that Marsha Blackburn and her politics have no redeeming features whatsoever. Despite knowing nothing about China or Taiwan region apart from deep prejudices, Blackburn nonetheless dove headfirst into a geopolitical flashpoint for her own personal political gain, revealing a significant problem in the motivations and actions of the US congress in respect to this issue. They are doing this not out of a show of support, but purely for scoring political points back home, as well as for donations from the respective Taiwan lobby in Washington for their own campaigns. It is pure and unbridled opportunism.

This phenomenon has long worked in recent times to make the Congress of the United States more aggressive and more hawkish than the Presidency, leading to many occasions whereby Congress has undermined the foreign policy of the executive body in certain ways. China itself will point out that a key example of this was the passage of the Taiwan relations act in 1978. But there is also more, such as when Congress took a lead in enabling the Hong Kong protesters in 2019, with Nancy Pelosi again positioning herself as one of the primary culprits. Whilst the administration sought to avoid the issue at the time, Congress was passing sanctions bills whilst inviting key figures such as Joshua Wong to Washington.

Therefore, even though the theoretical intention of the US political system is described to implement "checks and balances" here we see the opposite. Congress is not a moderating influence on US foreign policy in any way, but merely encourages it to be more aggressive. The only time Congress actually did a proper job of restraining US foreign policy was when it passed the war powers act of 1973 and capped the privilege of the executive in how much military action, he can use without needing congress's constitutional approval.

Nowadays, Congress simply does everything it can, often motivated by domestic political opportunism, in order to make US foreign policy more hawkish, and has little sense of reason in respect to it. This includes of course attempting to undermine the foreign policy of Presidents of the opposite party who may be accused of being weak. For example, one may note how John McCain visited Syria in order to try and embarrass Obama. Or on the other hand, whipping up fear and antagonism towards designated enemies, such as China or Russia, in the bid to capitalize on drama and confrontation. Compared to Presidential politics, congressional politics is loud, abrasive, self-interested and far more confrontational.

Given this, Blackburn's visit is only demonstrative as to how US politicians see Taiwan as an opportunity for their own "political resume" so to speak. In doing so they have transformed visiting into a highly provocative form of political correctness which allows them to demonstrate that they are "tough" on China and win votes from that constituency. Beijing's inevitable response and the escalation of tensions only serve their narrative forward, and what can the Biden administration do regarding such a situation? The answer is nothing, they are a headless chicken as relations continue to deteriorate over this critical flashpoint.

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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