Speaking at the opening the Chinese Communist Party Congress in Beijing, 69-year-old President Xi Jinping talked tough on Taiwan, looking more poised to win another five-year-term as leader of the Communist Party. Xi didn’t back down from his view of Taiwan, a territory of mainland China that, for the last 73-years, has operated independently of Beijing Xi wants that to change in the near future, where Taiwan can no longer count on the U.S. or its allies in Indo-China to defend the refuge sought by Gen. Chaing Kai-shek for Chinese nationalists during the 1949 Maoist Revolution. Xi is fully aware of 79-year-old President Joe Biden’s statement Sept. 18 committing U.S. troops to defending the Island of Formosa. Biden’s statement breaks with 43 years of State Department protocol about the 1979 Taiwan Relations Act that established Beijing as a one-China policy, signed by President Jimmy Carter.
Biden’s statement about committing U.S. troops to defending Taiwan from a Chinese Communist invasion eviscerated the “strategic ambiguity” regarding the U.S. role in defending Taiwan. Before Carter signed the 1979 Taiwan Relations Act, the U.S. operated under the 1954 President Dwight D. Eisenhower Sino-American Mutual Defense Treaty. All that changed when Carter signed the Taiwan Relations Act, recognizing only one China, the one in Beijing, and ending the Sino-American Mutual Defense Treaty. Biden’s commitment to send U.S. troops to Taiwan irked Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky who’s watched his country decimated by Russia over the last eight months of war, with the U.S. and NATO allies refusing to commit troops to Kiev.. Zelensky has asked repeatedly for U.S. and NATO troop, only to be told Ukraine is not a part of NATO, requiring membership for mutual defense.
Zelensky asked recently for fast-track application to NATO, only to be told by NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg that all 30 NATO members must have consensus to approve Kiev’s application. Watching Biden promise U.S. troops in Taiwan, Zelensky doesn’t understand the difference or the long history from WW II of the U.S. relationship to Taiwan. Xi made clear in the Chinese Communist Congress that the Beijing’s patience over unification of Taiwan is growing thin. Since House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) defied Beijing completed a formal visit to Taipei Aug. 2, China has sent warships and fighter jets into Taiwan Strait and airspace, letting Taiwan know that it considers Taiwan part of Mainland China. “That is what is profoundly disrupting the status quo and creating tremendous tension,” said 59-year-old Secretary of State Antony Blinken..
Former Secretary of State Condoleeza Ricem 67, said yesterday that if Beijing could not achieve unification by peaceful means, they’re prepared to use force to capture the territory for Beijing. Blinken said the U.S., in keeping with the Taiwan Relations Act, would provide Taipei with the means to repel any Mainland invasion. Blinken’s statements are heard loudly at the twice-a-decade Chinese Communist Congress. Xi said Sunday, at the opening of the Congress, that “complete reunification of our country must and will be realized,” telling Biden and the State Department that they tread on thin ice saying they would defend Taiwan. Defending Taiwan would put the U.S. into a war with Communist China, once thought unthinkable but now a reality under Biden. No one thought Biden, in defending Ukraine, would start a proxy war using Ukrainian troops to topple the Russian Federation.
Biden’s publicly stated views on committing U.S. troops to defend Taiwan would open another WW III front for the Pentagon, now embroiled in a proxy war with the Russian Federation. Xi isn’t bluffing when he said that at some future date Beijing will move to reunify Taiwan to Mainland China, over the U.S. and Taipei’s strong objections. “We will continue to strive for peaceful reunification with the greatest sincerity and the utmost effort, but we will never promise to renounce the use of force,” Xi told the Communist Party Congress Sunday. Deviating from the U.S. policy of strategic ambiguity, Biden let Xi know that he would have to go through the U.S. before taking over Taiwan. No one knows why Biden changed 43-years of Taiwan policy under the 1979 Taiwan Relations Act. Biden’s remarks about defending Taiwan with U.S. troops raised eyebrows in Kiev.
Xi has staked in next term as Chinese Communist Party leader on reunifying Taiwan with Mainland China. Biden’s remarks sets Beijing and the U.S. up for a future confrontation at some murky date in the future. How Biden thinks a peacetime U.S. government is supposed to fight two wars, one in Ukraine and the other in Taiwan is anyone’s guess. Any mobilization to defend Taiwan would no doubt require a new military draft, with the ranks of the Pentagon’s voluntary military too thin to handle both conflicts. Xi left no ambiguity over the fact that Beijing would eventually assert its rights over the Island of Formosa. Biden’s challenge gives Beijing no reason to pause but every reason to move ahead with reunification of Taiwan, with or without Taipei support. Taiwan’s President Tsai Ing-wen made clear that Taiwan would not surrender its independence without a fight.
About the Author
John M. Curtis writes politically neutral commentary analyzing spin in national and global news. He’s editor of OnlineColumnist.com and author of Dodging The Bullet and Operation Charisma.
