US alarmism over Taiwan and mainland China is truly alarming
- In typical American fashion, Xi’s reassurance to Biden over the island at the Apec summit is deliberately turned into a threat after news report
For as long as I can remember, Beijing has always said unification with Taiwan is non-negotiable but must be achieved through peaceful means and that force will only be used as a last resort. I can trace it at least back to the so-called 1992 consensus on “one China” between Taiwan under the rule of the Kuomintang (KMT) and mainland China under the Communist Party. It probably goes back further.
The ruling Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) has denied there ever was such a consensus, effectively repudiating one China, leading to charges of secessionism or secretly seeking independence.
But if there was no such consensus, as the DPP has claimed, it’s hard to understand why all sides, for a long time, had understood that the use of force would be purely defensive, as a last resort. In other words, the United States would only come to Taiwan’s defence if the island was attacked by the mainland first; and the mainland would only attack if the island tried to secede first. Through this implicit but mutual understanding, peace was preserved across the Taiwan Strait – until its recent disturbances. Why?
Because the DPP and its Washington backers – with the latter’s China containment agenda – now keep trying to undermine that mutual understanding under the 1992 consensus. That is the fundamental cause of the current tensions, behind all the threats and counter-threats between all three sides, and dangerously, involving some US allies as well.
You may challenge my understanding of the dispute. But my point is that what President Xi Jinping told his US counterpart Joe Biden during their summit last month in San Francisco was nothing new and merely a reinstatement of a long-standing policy. It was reiterated because Xi clearly felt the need to reassure the Americans that Beijing had no plan or reason to invade Taiwan any time soon.
NBC News broke the supposed scoop on the presidential conversation on Wednesday, and then all hell broke loose in Washington.
To be fair, while the story was hyped up, it was within the bounds of reasonable reporting.
“Chinese President Xi Jinping bluntly told President Joe Biden during their recent summit in San Francisco that Beijing will reunify Taiwan with mainland China but that the timing has not yet been decided,” it said. Why bluntly? The real sensationalism came from senior politicians and other news outlets that picked up the story.
Republican senator Lindsey Graham said: “This story as reported is beyond unnerving. I will be working with Democratic and Republican senators to do two things quickly. First, create a robust defence supplemental for Taiwan and second, draft pre-invasion sanctions from hell to impose on China if they take action to seize Taiwan.”
Seizing an opportunity to look “tough on China”, Republican presidential candidate Nikki Haley tweeted: “Xi Jinping told Joe Biden that China will take Taiwan, and Biden acted like it was business as usual.
“We need a president who will stand up to our enemies, not cower and pander to them.”
Actually Biden and his White House team responded reasonably to Xi’s remarks for once; Xi said nothing new, and was rightly interpreted as such.
Katie Boyd Britt, senior Republican member of the Senate Homeland Security Committee, tweeted: “Xi Jinping feels emboldened enough by President Biden’s weakness to tell him to his face that Communist China believes that it’s only a matter of time before they take Taiwan … It’s time to replace appeasement with deterrence.”
There are many others but I don’t have space to quote more. I love some of the headlines, though; they make me feel like an amateur: “Xi warned Biden he plans to take Taiwan – by any means necessary”; “Xi warned Biden during summit that Beijing will reunify Taiwan with China”; “Xi Told Biden To His Face That Beijing Will Reunify Taiwan With China.”
Washington may never learn, but the rest of the world should realise that cross-strait peace is a key stabiliser to the entire Asia-Pacific. Let’s not play fast and loose with it.
