Among the most complex foreign policy challenges facing President Donald Trump following his inauguration on 20 January will be relations with China and the US’s position relative to Taiwan.
Perhaps no better book informs political debate and public opinion than Kerry Brown’s The Taiwan Story: How a small island will dictate the global future (Viking, 2024). Brown is a prolific author of books on Chinese politics, currently based at King’s College, London, following a stint at the University of Sydney.
The Taiwan Story begins with the Chinese Civil War (1945–49), in which Mao Zedong’s communists ousted Chiang Kai-shek’s nationalists from the mainland and establish the People’s Republic of China. Chiang’s forces retreated to the island of Taiwan as the Republic of China. The US government sided with the Republic of China, with which it maintained diplomatic relations, not recognising Beijing.
The story evolves when the US switches recognition from Taipei to Beijing, following the 1972 visit to China by US President Richard Nixon and his national security advisor, Henry Kissinger. Thus began the US ‘acknowledgement’ of the one-China policy. According to the Shanghai Communique of 1972, ‘the United States acknowledges that Chinese on either side of the Taiwan Strait maintain there is but one China and that Taiwan is a part of China.’
Beijing’s insistence that Taiwan be united with the mainland has made the island Asia’s political flash point. A plethora of books have been published on Taiwan issues. What is most interesting about Brown’s is that he goes into the lives of the Taiwanese people and how Taiwanese politics, society and cultural identity have evolved quite differently to the mainland’s.
Chiang Kai-shek’s government on Taiwan was just as authoritarian as that of Mao Zedong on the Chinese mainland. But Taiwan democratised, holding its first presidential elections in 1996. Democracy is now firmly entrenched in Taiwan, as the presidency has alternated between the two leading political parties, the Kuomintang (the nationalists) and the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP).
The Economist Intelligence Unit ranks Taiwan as the most democratic place in Asia and 10th in the world. Democratisation means that Taiwan has aligned its values with the West and distinguishes itself from China, which has become ever more authoritarian. Taiwan also has a rich, open and free civil society, something that is very much lacking on the mainland.
Taiwan has also established itself among Asia’s technology leaders. Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company produces more than 90 percent of the world’s most advanced semiconductors. Under US pressure, the company will not supply them to Chinese customers.
While Taiwan may be diplomatically isolated, with only 12 countries recognising it as the Republic of China, much of the world economy is depends on its technological prowess. And over the generations, a distinct Taiwanese cultural identity has developed, with the vast majority of Taiwanese people identifying as Taiwanese, rather than Chinese or both Chinese and Taiwanese.
Meanwhile, there is a growing risk of military conflict involving China and Taiwan. Chinese leader Xi Jinping is increasingly impatient for Taiwan to be unified with the mainland. As China–US relations have deteriorated, high-level US support for Taiwan has grown, even though Washington maintains its policy of ‘strategic ambiguity’ concerning its willingness to defend Taiwan. Most Taiwanese prefer the political status quo of de facto independence, as do the current president and his predecessor (both from the Democratic Progressive Party). In response, Beijing has cut off all official contact with Taipei.
What future for relations across the Taiwan Straits?
Brown explores issues and risks of a military conflict over Taiwan. It would be massively risky and costly, not only for the countries directly involved but for the whole world economy. Brown sees no possibility of reconciliation between China and Taiwan. But he does argue that peace across the Taiwan Straits has been ensured for seven decades by accepting the status quo and that sticking with it is the only realistic option. This would involve all sides dialling down the tensions, however.
Brown notes that both China and Taiwan have undergone radical change over the past half a century or more. Looking further ahead, he argues that it is highly possible that continued radical change will throw up new ideas which could offer a longer term solution to the Taiwan problem.