China Never Promised a Peaceful Resolution of the Taiwan Issue |
China Never Promised a Peaceful Resolution of the Taiwan Issue
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The United States and Japan risk moving the goalposts of their “one China” policies well outside of their previous agreements with China.
Taiwan is expected to be on the agenda during President Donald Trump’s summit with Chinese President Xi Jinping in Beijing in mid-May. Speculation has focused on Xi’s reported desire for Trump to specify that Washington “opposes” Taiwan’s independence, and on Beijing’s complaints about the Trump administration’s December announcement of an $11 billion arms sales package for Taiwan. But President Xi is also likely to raise Japan’s involvement with Taiwan in the wake of public statements last November by Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi suggesting that Tokyo might intervene militarily if China attacked the island.
At the time, President Xi raised the issue in a phone call with Trump, who then reportedly cautioned Takaichi about provoking Beijing. Since then, however, the Trump administration appears to have implicitly endorsed Takaichi’s position on the Taiwan issue. During her visit to Washington in March, the two sides reaffirmed their shared commitment to “peace and stability across the Taiwan Strait.”
Beijing has reacted vehemently to these developments, insisting that Washington and Tokyo are violating their historical “one China” commitments, and demanding that they stop aiding and abetting Taiwanese “separatism.” China also launched large-scale joint military exercises around Taiwan in December, shortly after Takaichi’s statements and the US arms sales announcement. For their part, Tokyo and Washington insist that they are upholding their “one China” policies and that Beijing is instead violating a prior agreement to resolve the Taiwan issue peacefully.
The US and Japanese “One China” Policy: A History Lesson
A brief reminder is in order of the relevant US and Japanese historical commitments to China. When Japan and China established diplomatic ties in 1972, Tokyo recognized Beijing as the “sole legal government of China” and affirmed that it “fully understands and respects” the Chinese position that “Taiwan is an inalienable part of the territory of the PRC.” When Washington normalized relations with Beijing in 1979, it only “acknowledged” the Chinese position that there is one China and Taiwan is part of it.
But the 1972 Shanghai Communique, signed during President Richard Nixon’s historic visit, had added that the United States “does not challenge that position.” Finally, in the 1982 US-China joint communique on the subject of US arms sales to Taiwan, Washington stated that it “has no intention of…pursuing a policy of ‘two Chinas’ or ‘one China, one Taiwan.’”
The East Asian regional security environment has evolved considerably since then. Taiwan democratized in the 1990s, and the expansion of China’s economic, diplomatic, and military clout has dramatically altered the equation. These trends have prompted both Washington and Tokyo over time to amend and reinterpret their “one China” policies—without, as they insist, “changing” them. For example, both the United States and Japan now assert that the sovereignty dispute between China and Taiwan should be resolved with the assent of the Taiwan people.
Perhaps the most important amendment, however, has been the inclusion of the notion that the dispute should be resolved peacefully. When........