By Gerrit van der Wees
On Monday, the New York Times published an analysis piece by Stanford University academic Oriana Skylar Mastro, titled “This is what America is getting wrong about China and Taiwan.”
Regrettably, Skylar Mastro herself got some fundamentals wrong.
Skylar Mastro is right that a delicate balance of deterrence and reassurance has been upset, but her solution of “easing China’s concerns” is headed in the wrong direction. Her faulty recipe stems from a fundamental flaw in the agreements made in the 1970s in the process of normalizing US-China relations.
In her article, she quotes from the 1972 Shanghai Communique that the US “reaffirms its interest in a peaceful settlement of the Taiwan question by the Chinese themselves” and that China still views this arrangement as binding.
The problem with the arrangement was that it excluded the Taiwanese themselves, as the issue was perceived as a contest between the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) of Chiang Kai-shek (蔣介石) and the Chinese Communist Party of Mao Zedong (毛澤東).
Taiwanese were clearly not consulted and certainly did not accept it.
In the 1980s, Taiwan underwent a transition to democracy, and from the early 1990s onward, there was a very different situation in which “Taiwan” did not claim to rule China anymore, instead morphing into a full and free democracy that wanted to claim its rightful place as a member of the family of nations.
The problem was that the policies of the US and other Western nations did not adjust to the new situation, remaining stuck in the 1970s.
As democratic Taiwan increased its quest for international space — particularly after President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) was elected in 2016 — the US and other Western nations tried to push the envelope, gradually broadening and deepening informal ties with a democratic and vibrant Taiwan.
This is running into a strong headwind from Beijing, which sees democracy in Taiwan as a threat to its authoritarian existence, and still perceives the struggle for control of Taiwan as an unfinished tail-end of its civil war with the KMT, which ended 74 years ago.
Beijing also fails to understand that Taiwanese value their own history and do not want to be ruled by an authoritarian China that snuffed out freedoms in Tibet, East Turkestan — known in China as Xinjiang — and Hong Kong.
In her prescriptions, Skylar Mastro argued that the US needs to reassure China by reiterating that it “does not support Taiwanese independence or oppose the island’s peaceful unification with China,” and that it should move away “from attempts to create international space for Taiwan.”
These formulas are at odds with the basic US principles of democracy and self-determination, as they deny Taiwanese any voice in their own future.
Anyone who has eyes and has witnessed China’s actions in Tibet, East Turkestan and Hong Kong would understand that “peaceful unification” is a contradiction in terms.
Taiwanese have fought long and hard for their democracy, and they are not going to let their freedoms be taken away by a strongly authoritarian regime in Beijing. If the US were to let that happen, then its credibility in Asia as a defender of democracy would quickly go down the drain.
One other important aspect is that Skylar Mastro presents her case as if the US and China can decide the fate of Taiwan between themselves only. There are other countries in the region — Japan, South Korea and the Philippines — that also have a vested interest in keeping Taiwan free and democratic.
A Taiwan controlled by China would represent an undesired sea change for those countries.
Instead of adding to the confusion with yet another communique — without the input and consent of Taiwanese — the US needs to emphasize to China that peaceful coexistence as two friendly neighbors is fundamentally the only peaceful solution that would work in the long run.
Beijing needs to accept Taiwan as it is, and the international community needs to work harder to bring Taiwan into the family of nations, from which it has been excluded unfairly and unjustly.
Gerrit van der Wees is a former Dutch diplomat who teaches Taiwan history at George Mason University in Fairfax, Virginia, and US relations with East Asia at the George Washington University Elliott School for International Affairs in Washington.
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