An 82-year-old Nancy Pelosi, a senior Democrat and the first woman Speaker of the US House of Representatives, recently accompanied a delegation of seven other Democratic Congressmen across the Pacific, in an effort to further cement ties with America’s allies in eastern Asia. Amidst visits to Singapore, Malaysia, South Korea, and Japan, Pelosi found time to touch down at Taipei Songshan Airport on 2 August 2022, in a US Air Force transport plane, for an impromptu two-day trip to express American solidarity with the Republic of China (ROC). She met with President Tsai Ing-wen, of the ruling Democratic Progressive Party, and was invested with the Order of Propitious Clouds (with Special Grand Cordon) in the capital city of Taipei. Pelosi, the first high-ranking elected US official to visit Taiwan since Newt Gingrich, then Speaker of the House of Representatives, made his way in April 1997, is largely being seen as symbolic gesture, and by some as a cynical legacy-boosting move at a somewhat inopportune moment, just as her political career is heading to its logical conclusion. Pelosi’s “provocative” action appears to contradict, but not in her own opinion, an American policy of “strategic ambiguity”, as defined by the Taiwan Relations Act of 1979, the US-China Joint Communiques (established in 1979), and the Six Assurances of 1982.
The visit evoked a predictable response from the People’s Republic of China (PRC). Without further delay, the Eastern Command of the People’s Liberation Army embarked upon live-fire naval and air exercises- the largest -ever military exercises to be conducted across the Taiwan Strait. Over four days, from 4 to 7 August 2022, land-based ballistic missiles and batches of drones were dispatched from mainland China in the direction of Taiwan and its offshore islands, while naval destroyers sailed to six exclusion (No-Fly, No-Sail) zones around the island. The median line of the Taiwan Strait was reportedly breached by Chinese warships, just as military helicopters and fighter jets crossed into Taiwan’s airspace. According to China’s official Xinhua News Agency, the joint operations by the navy, air force, rocket force, strategic support force, and logistic support force involved “blockade, sea target assault, strike on ground targets, and airspace control”. These actions were interpreted by some military experts as a dress-rehearsal for an air and sea blockade of Taiwan in the event of any future attempts at foreign military intervention in the region. The blockade disrupted busy shipping lanes in the Taiwan Strait, leading to rerouting of container ships conveying oil and goods. This show of military might was further complemented by cyber-attacks on the websites of Taiwanese government agencies.
On 5 August 2022, the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs cut off dialogue with the US in eight specific areas, with “countermeasures” putting a hold on collaboration on certain military matters, counternarcotics initiatives, cross-border crime surveillance, repatriation of “illegal” immigrants, as well as crucial talks on climate change. Nancy Pelosi and her immediate family members were subjected to sanctions “in accordance with the relevant laws of the People’s Republic of China”.
The western Pacific island of Taiwan, approximately 245 miles north-to-south and 90 miles across at its widest point, is separated from the south-eastern coast of mainland China by the 110-mile-wide Taiwan Strait, which links the South China Sea with the East China Sea. Apart from the main island, the Republic of China has political jurisdiction over a number of offshore islands, numbering 22 in the Taiwan group and 64 in Penghu (Pescadores) archipelago to the west. Two “frontline islands”, Matsu and Quemoy, lie just off the coast of China’s Fujian province and have in the past been the scene of much sabre-rattling by both parties in the dispute. Taiwan has also laid claim to several islands in the East and South China Seas, all of which are disputed by its immediate neighbours. Taiwan’s location, within the “first Indo-Pacific island chain”, which includes Indonesia, the Philippines and Japan and is meant to help contain the PLA’s seaward access, makes it a defensive priority in the 2018 US Strategic Framework for the Indo-Pacific and of great geopolitical significance for China’s own territorial ambitions in the East and South China Seas.
Taiwan was once a self-governing island, independent of Mainland China, before coming under partial Dutch control between 1624 and 1662. After an interim period under Zheng Chenggong (aka Koxinga), China’s last dynasty, the Manchu Qing dynasty took over from 1683. Qing rule ended in 1895 with the cession of the island to Japan under the Treaty of Shimonoseki, following China’s defeat in the First Sino-Japanese War (1894-1895). Japan’s “model colony” reverted to Chinese control in 1945, and thus was not part of the Republic of China that was formed in 1912 after the Qing Dynasty’s downfall. Following Communist victory in the final episode of the Chinese Civil War between the Chinese Nationalist Party (Kuomintang, KMT) and the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), from 1946 to 1949, and the establishment of the People’s Republic of China (PRC) in 1949, the Nationalist government, under Chiang Kai-shek, and its army fled the Chinese mainland for Taiwan, accompanied by 1.5 million refugees. The post-Civil War ethnic Han settlers dominate Taiwan’s political institutions and are collectively referred to as Mainlander Chinese, as opposed to the Taiwanese Chinese, also Han Chinese, who arrived over the preceding centuries, mainly from the island- facing provinces of Fujian (Hokkien) and Guangdong (Hakka) in southern China. A small minority of aboriginal inhabitants, descended from Austronesian-speaking people and sometimes referred to as yuan-chu-min, account for the remainder of Taiwan’s inhabitants.
Taiwan has transformed itself politically from an authoritarian state under Kuomintang (KMT) rule into a liberal democracy, holding its first multi-party elections on 2 December 1989. Economic transformation has made Taiwan a leading player in global supply chains, particularly through outsourced contract manufacturing. Industrialisation began with light industry (textiles, small appliances, including toys) before progressing to electronic devices. A petrochemical industry was also built around imported petroleum products. Taiwan’s economic transformation has depended on a symbiotic relationship with the People’s Republic of China, which is Taiwan’s biggest trade partner and a major source for key raw materials, including sand (silicon), germanium, and gallium arsenide for integrated circuits used in semiconductor chip production. Taiwan indeed supplies 65 per cent of the world’s semiconductor chips, with production dominated by the Taiwan semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC).
Taiwan’s unique status quo is a product of the outcome of the Chinese Civil War, which ended in 1949 with the proclamation of the PRC and the reinstatement of a rump ROC government on the island. Although Taiwan meets the criteria for a sovereign state under the 1933 Montevideo Convention on the Rights and Duties of States, with a defined territory, a permanent population, a government, a constitution, and the capacity to establish diplomatic relations with foreign states, it is only recognised by fourteen sovereign states, including the Vatican. The de facto One-China policy, subscribed to by the UK, US, and most other nations, means that the People’s Republic of China, which considers Taiwan a province, is recognised as the sole legal government of China, preventing formal diplomatic relations with Taiwan. The Anti-Secession Law, adopted at the Tenth National People’s Congress in 2005, confirms that any change in the status quo will be strongly resisted by China.
In an increasingly tense world, the Taiwan status quo must be respected to uphold the peace. In recent years, both the PRC and ROC have toned-down their rhetoric. Regaining control of the Mainland has long ceased to be a ROC priority, while the PRC appears to desire “peaceful unification” rather than forcible annexation. Third-party intervention seems inadvisable at a time when many Taiwanese appear to be ambivalent of their political status vis a vis the PRC, just as they enjoy their economic and political freedoms under the current regime. Taiwan has become increasingly and inextricably linked economically with PRC, in keeping with the latter nation’s preferred ‘one country, two systems’ political model. Judicious de-escalation rather than ill-conceived and provocative posturing seems the best way forward.
Ashis Banerjee