Dr. Radhika Desai, author and professor in the Department of Political Studies and Director of the Geopolitical Economy Research Group at the University of Manitoba in Canada pointed out that until 1972, Washington's 'one China policy' meant recognition of Taiwan as the sole sovereign authority over mainland China, a dominion that Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek's Nationalists never held even before the 1949 revolution, including occupying the United Nations Security Council seat reserved for China.
"That one China policy meant that the United States recognized the government of Taiwan," Desai said. "Now, if you've ever looked at a map, you can see how tiny Taiwan is and how big the People's Republic of China, mainland China is. The US recognized the government of Taiwan as the rightful government of all of China, including the mainland. Now, how ridiculous was that?"
The change in that policy under disgraced president Richard Nixon was merely an attempt to "drive the wedge deeper between between the People's Republic of China and the Soviet Union, that at the time of the developing Sino-Soviet split," the academic argued.
Since then, Washington has formally recognised Chinese sovereignty over Taiwan, although it is "now shifting its discourse."
But in contrast to the US drive towards military confrontation over Taiwan, including supplying hundreds of millions of dollars worth of arms deploying military trainers to Taipei, China does not seek to resolve the situation through arms.
"China does not wish to use force to unite China and Taiwan," the academic stressed. "The fact of the matter is economic relations between China and Taiwan are deepening all the time."
"As time goes on, as China and and Taiwan get increasingly integrated, at some point, a line will be crossed where most people in Taiwan will say, hey, we're already part of China economically, so what's the big deal? Let's become part of China in every other way politically as well," Desai added. "But the US build-up of weapons and the attempt to constantly try to get the Taiwanese leadership to rattle sabers against mainland... is actually endangering a peaceful process of unification."
Ironically it is now the Kuomintang (KMT), Chiang Kai-shek's party that founded the rival Chinese state in Taiwan, that wants to step back from Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) President Tsai Ing-wen's US-backed moves to declare independence — and looks set to win the 2024 presidential election. That could derail US foreign policy in the Pacific.
"It's quite possible that this DPP government, that opposes good relations with China, will be turfed out of Taipei," Desai observed. "The new government is not going to rattle sabers against the mainland, but I think it's more than that. The United States is having difficulty delivering weapons to Ukraine, and the Taiwanese have also been complaining that ... the weapons that had been promised before have also not been delivered."
That strategy of arming a proxy force to fight a rival superpower has already been proven doomed to failure — at enormous human cost.
"As we are finding out in Ukraine, it doesn't matter how many weapons the US pumps [there], the tiny [actors] are not going to win against these giant neighbors — not Ukraine against Russia and not Taiwan against China," Desai said. "What the United States is doing is simply endangering the lives of ordinary people in Taiwan by increasing the likelihood of a war. It has no real solutions, but it seems to be quite happy to keep generating problems."
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