THE TAIWAN IMBROGLIO

Abstract

Maintaining peace and tranquility in the Taiwan Strait is of utmost importance to neighbouring countries and all interested parties, though it remains fragile. The US policy of deterrence has helped maintain the status quo by deterring China from threatening to annex Taiwan while assuring China that the US would not support Taiwan’s independence. However, the status quo of maintaining peace in the island nation is shifting due to several factors. While China’s ‘One China Policy’^[1] asserts that Taiwan is an inherent part of its territory, Taiwan’s growing self-identity as a distinct democratic society rejects the ‘One Country, Two Systems’^[2] stance. At the same time, Taiwanese are increasingly concerned about regional security with their neighbours and in the Asia Pacific region. In this context, achieving true peace in the region remains ambiguous. This paper makes an attempt to visualise multiple scenarios that could shape the Taiwan Strait to maintain peace over the next few decades.

^[1] This policy has its roots in the Cold War, when Chiang Kai-shek asserted that he would not coexist with Mao’s China (Shattuck, 2020). Taiwan, officially known as the Republic of China (ROC), was recognised as the only legitimate Chinese government until the United Nations General Assembly passed Resolution 2758 in 1971 (Hsieh, 2009; Shattuck, 2020). After being deprived of its seat in international organisations like the UN, Taiwan stands in a vacuum to many foreign states. It was creating a vague concept for many nations. Even today, Taiwan has diplomatic allies with 15 countries, whereas 180 countries maintain such ties with the PRC (Shattuck, 2020), though many countries maintain strong economic ties with Taiwan. Further, in 2016, seven countries shifted ties from Taipei to Beijing, followed by Solomon Islands in 2019, which had diplomatic relations with Taipei for 36 years, because Beijing was actively pressuring those nations having diplomatic allies with Taipei, whereby the Tsai administration accused it of chequebook or dollar diplomacy, which Beijing lured them away by reducing Taipei’s allies with them (ibid). Beijing used its diplomacy by flooding the country with financial assistance through loans, contracts and aid, to suppress allegiance to Taipei. This is how scholars observed that Beijing tries to demoralise Taipei to accept the ‘one country, two systems’ principle. It can be viewed that this is not a setback for Taipei alone but poses challenges to Washington’s regional diplomacy.

^[2] The reunification model proposed by Deng Xiaoping. Initially designed for Taiwan, it was implemented in Hong Kong first upon its return to China from Britain in 1997. However, the model identified a problem in Hong Kong, as seen in the scenarios from 2010 to 2020 (Taiwan News Agency, 2020).