Wrangling with Beijing over 'One China' is coming to a head; Plus four scenarios for a rocky US-China future -- China Boss News 1.26.24

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What happened

In an interview with China.table last week, Reinhard Bütikofer, an influential Green Party EU parliamentarian and chair of the Delegation for Relations with the People's Republic of China, pushed for greater German engagement with Taiwan. Bütikofer made it clear that he thinks a stronger - not weaker - relationship with Taiwan is key to “stabilize the situation and prevent a war,” according to Michael Rudinski who interviewed him with Felix Lee.

Rudinski and Lee asked the MEP if he thought Taiwan's recent election of Lai Ching-te, a staunch opponent of the China’s ‘One China policy,” was a “setback for Beijing.”

“It is a severe setback for Beijing. The people in Taiwan were not influenced by misinformation, economic coercion or military threats from China. This shows that Beijing simply does not understand how democratic societies function. This was also the case with us when China imposed sanctions against members of the EU Parliament and other individuals. Beijing thought it would intimidate us, but it only derailed the Comprehensive Agreement on Investment (CAI).”

Bütikofer also made clear that China’s ‘One-China’ policy and the West’s position on the same were at odds:

“[Germany’s] One-China policy states that there is only one government representing China. That is the government in Beijing. But no claims on Taiwan can be derived from it. Our policy does not diplomatically recognize Taiwan. Still, it does not rule out recognizing the reality of Taiwanese democracy, quite the opposite,” he said.

Why it matters

‘Disagreeing to disagree’ no longer tenable

The U.S., like Germany, does not accept China’s one-China principle, something that stings China’s national pride and challenges the reputation of its military.

In response, Beijing often complains that '“Washington’s inconsistent stance on ‘one China’ is a betrayal of the foundation of diplomatic ties” established “when it normalized relations with China in the 1970s.”

Last April, for example, China’s former top envoy to the US, Cui Tiankai, “accused Washington of changing the ‘status quo’ on Taiwan by strengthening military and diplomatic ties with the self-ruled island.”

“Today, the United States always says that it ‘opposes unilateral changes to the status quo’, implying that we are changing the status quo …[however] originally, the United States promised to only have economic, trade and cultural exchanges with Taiwan. But now it has military and official involvement. Doesn’t this change the status quo?,” Cui asked.

And last week Zhou Bo, senior fellow at Tsinghua University’s Center of Strategy and Security and retired officer of the People’s Liberation Army, told CNBC that the “‘One China’ policy is being hollowed out because the United States is providing more and more military assistance to Taiwan.”

Beijing’s misrepresentations

Cui and Bo are right - but not in the way they’d like you to note.

In a 2020 CSIS policy brief, Ivan Kanapathy wrote that the “favoring [of] U.S.-China engagement over U.S.-Taiwan security cooperation for more than two decades,” has cost the U.S. “its own future security,” and resulted in a “ever deepening . . . deterrence deficit” for ignoring China’s military buildup and commitment to annexing Taiwan.

“Perversely, ‘avoiding provocation’ in past years has dramatically increased the likelihood and danger of major conflict today,” he said.

But others might say the real issue began when China’s current leader, Xi Jinping, took a baseball bat to Washington’s unchanged position of maintaining peace in the Taiwan Strait.

The latter was formalized during the Carter Administration as the Taiwan Relations Act of 1979 and made it abundantly “clear that the United States decision to establish diplomatic relations with the People’s Republic of China rests upon the expectation that the future of Taiwan will be determined by peaceful means.”

Unfortunately, Xi seems to revel in openly refusing to adhere to that condition by vowing to never to renounce the use of force in Taiwan’s reunification - a crucial distinction in China’s policy that, both, he and other Chinese officials threaten with some frequency.

Yesterday, China lambasted the US for sailing through the Taiwan Strait in its first transit “since presidential and parliamentary elections on the island,” according to Reuters.

Chinese Defense Ministry spokesperson Colonel Wu Qian told reporters that "U.S. warships and planes have caused trouble and provocation on China's doorstep, and carried out large-scale, high-frequency activities in waters and airspace around China.”

“China's military will ‘continue to organize relevant military operations’ around the Taiwan Strait on a regular basis as part of its training,” Wu said, without elaborating on why the nation’s army was training near Taiwan in the first place.

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FOUR SCENARIOS FOR A ROCKY US-CHINA FUTURE THAT EVERY BUSINESS MANAGER SHOULD KNOW: A new report summarizing "compiled theories from former senior Obama and Trump Administration officials retired researchers from the Chinese people's Liberation Army, and academics on both sides" says US-China relations "look grim" for the foreseeable future, Business Insider said.