The latest manifestation of the USA’s bad behaviour is what they call “The Taiwan-U.S. ‘Working Level Meeting’ on International Organisation Issues”, which was recently held in Taipei. This isn’t about international Organisation issues; it’s about giving more power to a Province of China.
We can liken the USA to a truculent child holding a finger an inch away from a sibling moments after a parent warned them not to touch each other; I’m not doing anything wrong says the kid, I’m not touching or a belligerent bully who gets his friends behind him and approaches a smaller group in the school yard to demand allegiance, then claims it’s right because everyone else in the school yard supports him, or a recalcitrant liar who says “dad said it was ok”, but dad is not there to agree or disagree. Any parent knows this happens everywhere, it’s part of growing up, experiencing all kinds of different behaviours and disciplinary problems.
No one expected that when they grew up, the most powerful nation in the world would continue doing the same thing but that’s exactly what the USA does. It did so in Eastern Europe after promising not one inch East, that there would be no NATO expansion and yet NATO expanded, it’s doing so in the South China Sea, gathering, or at least attempting to gather supporters to bully and goad China. It’s doing so in Tibet with more visits by leaders promising support for an independence movement that the spiritual leader of the people they want to support has clearly said he doesn’t want.
And they continue to do it in Taiwan. Both Blinken and Biden have reiterated, their stance on the one China policy has not changed, they assure the world that they have been consistent for decades and they do not seek independence for Taiwan. But evidence shows that this is a lie, their policy has changed.
Nixon said it first in February 1972, in the Shanghai Communique, both sides agreed to a normalisation of relations, a reduction of military conflict, that neither should seek hegemony and that neither will enter agreements or understandings with the other, directed at other states. Lawyers may argue what subsequent documents say, or how they are interpreted but it’s very hard to deny when Nixon signed a document which said:
“The government of the People’s Republic of China is the sole legal government of China; Taiwan is a province of China which has long been returned to the motherland; the liberation of Taiwan is China’s internal affair in which no other country has the right to interfere; and all US forces and military personnel must be withdrawn from Taiwan”
On December 15th Jimmy Carter made a speech announcing recognition of the government of the People’s Republic of China “as the sole legal government of China” Carter went on to say the two parties, the USA and China “reaffirm the principles agreed on by the two sides in the Shanghai Communique of 1972”. Wide interpretations have been made on the wording of “the Government of the United States acknowledges the Chinese position that there is but one China and that Taiwan is part of China. However, in the same speech he went on to say “recognising the People’s Republic of China that it is the single government of China” as a fact.
Then in August 1982, Ronald Reagan did the same in a Joint Communique, promising to reduce arms sales to Taiwan once again, the opening preamble contained the following words: “the United States of America recognized the Government of the People’s Republic of China as the sole legal Government of China, and it acknowledged the Chinese position that there is but one China and Taiwan is part of China” It’s hard to argue that!
So, when Blinken or Biden say, “our decades old policy has not changed”, this is not a mistake, or an interpretation issue, the policy has changed.
Salami slicing is a term that’s been used to describe what the USA has been doing to China in relation to Taiwan, they have approached each redline in the same way that the truculent kid approaches their sibling, close enough to say, I’m not doing anything wrong but clearly doing something that will annoy the other.
The meeting last week in Taipei wasn’t the first of such meetings, there was one in October 2022 as well. That one consisted of consultations in Washington on expanding Taiwan’s participation at the United Nations and in other international fora The two sides discussed assisting Taiwan to meaningfully participate in the United Nations system and other international organizations.
The more recent visit was even more of an insult, not to China but to the legacy of three former Presidents of their own country, because contrary to their own agreement of non-interference in the internal affairs of China, two Deputy Secretaries of State visited Taiwan and, according to the US State Department and Taiwan’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the two countries held a working-level meeting in Taipei on the 21st to exchange views on Taiwan’s substantive participation in international organisations. The US State Department explained that the discussion focused on “expanding Taiwan’s meaningful participation in the UN system and other international forums.
This country, the USA, which has three times, formally and publicly agreed there is but one China and Taiwan is part of it and they would now like the province of Taiwan to have a larger say in matters of international affairs, they would like the province of Taiwan to have the military capacity to defend itself from its own recognised government, which they agreed is in Beijing, and yet they continuously assert that their policies on China have not changed.
In an act of global, some might say childish disobedience, the USA has written a law in their own country, called the Taiwan Relations Act to subvert Agreements made by the United Nations through Resolution 2758, and the Agreements of three of their own Presidents from 1972, 1979 and 1982.
The US has agreed several times, Taiwan is part of China, and the reunification of Taiwan is an internal matter for China. Yet, they still attempt to interpret the wording of those Agreements so they can act in contradiction to the spirit in which they were entered.
Children can be disciplined, they usually grow out of their defiant periods and become good citizens as they age but it seems one country is having a lot of trouble showing the same degree of maturity.