How an increasingly assertive China is pushing Taiwan closer to the US

President Xi Jinping’s China is more confident with the outward expression of its strength than it has ever been since the founding of the People’s Republic in 1949. Xi himself solidified his hold on power recently when the National People’s Congress removed the term limit on the office of president. However, there is one item on China’s agenda for “Socialism with Chinese Characteristics for a New Era” that is steadily drifting away, even if Beijing is trying to convince the world to the contrary: Taiwan. 

Cutting inbound tourists, increasing military activity around the island and imposing unilateral changes to commercial flight routes in the Taiwan Strait are just some of the measures Beijing has opted for to punish Taiwan for electing a president and a legislative majority from the Democratic Progressive Party that opposes China’s claim to Taiwan. None of those measures made Taiwan’s government flinch. 

Taiwan’s defiance stems from both the pride the Taiwanese take in their democratic development and Taiwan’s relations with the United States that is experiencing significant momentum. Just as Xi was confirmed as China’s president, his American counterpart Donald Trump signed the Taiwan Travel Act. 

Trump’s signature concluded the bill’s journey of over a year through both the Senate and House. Last summer, China tried to derail the bill by sending the US Congress a threatening letter, but to no avail. The act passed with unanimous support in Congress. 

Mutual high-level visits were not explicitly forbidden, nor were they ever in contradiction to the US’ “one China” policy, defined by the Taiwan Relations Act and Six Assurances. Instead, the absence of high-level visits has been the result of self-imposed limitations reinforced over several decades by bureaucratic inertia. When visits of a Taiwanese official to the US happened in the past, it was usually in transit via US territory on the way to Central and South America.