What's behind surging tensions in the Taiwan Strait?
Tensions are soaring in the strait that separates Taiwan from mainland China  just 130 km at its narrowest point  as Beijing continues to heap military, diplomatic and gray-zone pressure on Taipei. In recent months, China has ramped up its military activities near the island, sending warplanes on near daily sorties into Taiwans air defense identification zone (ADIZ). Beijing has deployed hulking commercial sand dredgers near islands and waters over which Taiwan claims jurisdiction, a move some have called tantamount to psychological warfare. And Chinas vice foreign minister has said that when it comes to reunification with the mainland, no option is excluded, a veiled reference to invasion. Taiwan has responded to Chinas dialed-up campaign by turning to its closest partners, the United States and Japan, in a bid to bolster its defenses and deter Beijing from a conflict that experts say would have catastrophic consequences for not only the region but the world. During an April leaders summit, Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga and U.S. President Joe Biden made headlines by highlighting the importance of preserving peace and stability in the Taiwan Strait  a rare public expression of leader-level concern over the situation and the first reference to Taiwan in a joint statement by the two countries since 1969. The geopolitical tension can be traced back to before World War II  from Japans colonial rule of the island from 1895 to 1945, and the Chinese Civil War, which ended in 1949. After Japans surrender in World War II, Taiwan was placed under the control of the Republic of China. The Chinese Civil War also resumed, fought between Chiang Kai-sheks Kuomintang and Mao Zedongs communist forces. With the communists overtaking control of the mainland, Chiang fled to Taiwan. While the Kuomintang and the communists agreed that Taiwan was part of China, each insisted they were its true government. Since then, the government in Beijing has viewed Taiwan as an inherent part of its territory, a renegade province that must be brought back into the fold  by force if necessary. Taiwanese military honor guards attend a flag-raising ceremony at Chiang Kai-shek Memorial Hall in Taipei in March 2018. | REUTERS  During the Cold War, much of the developed world, including the United States and Japan, had diplomatic ties with Taiwan. Things began to shift in the late 1960s, when U.S. President Richard Nixon hinted at the need to normalize ties with Beijing, culminating in his landmark 1972 visit to China and the release of the Shanghai Communique, which laid the foundation for the eventual normalization of relations in January 1979. During that time, the United Nations formally recognized the mainland communist government as the legitimate representative of China  leading to Taiwans expulsion from the international body. But while Washington switched recognition to Beijing as the sole legitimate government of China  and ended its security treaty with Taipei  it did so without acknowledging Chinese sovereignty over Taiwan. Instead, it merely acknowledged Chinas position that Taiwan is part of China, the so-called One China principle, while not taking its own position, a stance that endures today. Just three months later in 1979, U.S. lawmakers concerned about the decision  including Biden, a senator at the time  passed the Taiwan Relations Act. This set in stone Washingtons economic and security relationship with Taiwan, including a policy of selling arms of a defensive character to the island. It also cemented the U.S. policy of strategic ambiguity, which expresses a strong interest in Taiwans security while avoiding an outright promise to defend it. As for Tokyo, which had formal diplomatic relations with Taipei from 1952 to 1972, it quickly took Nixons cue, recognizing Beijing as the sole government of China shortly after the U.S. presidents visit and release of the Shanghai Communique. Though it does not have formal diplomatic ties with Taipei, Japan has seen its engagement with Taiwan flourish in recent years, especially during the administration of Prime Minister Shinzo Abe. As China has grown more powerful economically and militarily in recent years, it has asserted itself more boldly near Taiwan, apparently over worries that the islands leaders could declare formal independence. Since its democratization in 1988, Taiwan has elected pro-independence leaders such as Chen Shui-bian, who governed the island from 2000 to 2008, and its current president, Tsai Ing-wen. China has ratcheted up pressure on companies that dont list Taiwan as a part of China on their websites and lured away some of the handful of countries that had diplomatic ties with Taipei. It has also conducted scores of military exercises on its periphery, including around 380 sorties into Taiwans ADIZ last year  the most since 1996  according to the islands Defense Ministry. The crackdown on Hong Kong, where Beijing silenced pro-democracy protesters with a new national security law, has also unnerved Taipei, since China had proposed that Taiwan, like Hong Kong, could also have operated under its proposed one country, two systems principle. Compounding fraught Taiwan-China ties, Taiwan President Tsai Ing-wen has pointedly claimed that the island is already an independent country, therefore does not need to formally declare its independence. | REUTERS  Washington, concerned about its own eroding military and economic superiority in the Indo-Pacific region, has bolstered informal ties and arms sales with Taipei and secured allied support in pushing for peace and stability in the Taiwan Strait. Compounding the fraught ties, Tsai has pointedly claimed that the island is already an independent country, therefore does not need to formally declare its independence. China, in turn, has lambasted the U.S. and Taiwan for colluding toward formal independence  a red line for Beijing and the ruling Communist Party, which calls Taiwan its most important and sensitive issue. The moves have spotlighted a growing focus on the possibility of a Taiwan contingency that experts say could quickly spiral out of control, sucking in not only the United States, but Japan as well. There have been multiple crises over the island. In the 1950s, the U.S. military weighed a first-use nuclear attack on mainland China. And between 1995 and 1996, a showdown saw U.S. President Bill Clinton send two aircraft carrier battle groups to waters off Taiwan, after Beijing lobbed missiles near the island in a bid to intimidate pro-democracy, pro-independence voters. In the end, China backed down in the face of Americas show of force, but recent tensions have taken on a new dimension, especially as the Chinese are closing the gap in military strength with the United States. According to the head of the U.S. Indo-Pacific Command, the Chinese threat to invade Taiwan is serious and more imminent than many understand. Adm. John Aquilino told the Senate Armed Services Committee ahead of his confirmation on March 23, that Beijing considers recovering control over Taiwan its No. 1 priority and that the rejuvenation of the Chinese Communist Party is at stake with the issue, though he did not echo his predecessors comments that China could attempt to invade the island within six years. My opinion is that this problem is much closer to us than most think and we have to take this on, Aquilino said. Taiwanese domestically built Indigenous Defense Fighters take part in the live-fire, anti-landing Han Kuang military exercise, which simulates an enemy invasion, in Taichung, Taiwan, last July. | REUTERS  But these views are unlikely to change the U.S. policy of strategic ambiguity. Highlighting this, Avril Haines, the U.S. director of national intelligence, told Congress in late April that the Chinese would view such a shift as deeply destabilizing.  I think it would solidify Chinese perceptions that the U.S. is bent on constraining Chinas rise, including through military force, and would probably cause Beijing to aggressively undermine U.S. interests worldwide, Haines said during testimony before the Senate Armed Services Committee. Rather, the Biden administration is expected to focus on maintaining the status quo. Our goal right now is, frankly, to enhance deterrence, Kurt Campbell, the White Houses top official for Asia said on May 28, noting clear U.S. statements of purpose, private warnings and assurances, as well as efforts to bring other countries into the effort to maintain peace and stability in the strait. Japan, for its part, has watched Chinas moves near Taiwan with apprehension. For Tokyo, Taiwan provides a bulwark against potential security threats and economic coercion from Beijing. Facing both the disputed South and East China seas  and sitting just 111 kilometers from Japans southernmost island of Yonaguni and 509 kilometers from Okinawas main island, home to major U.S. military and Self-Defense Force bases  the island is effectively a giant aircraft carrier sitting off Chinas coast. Observers say Chinese domination of Taiwan would shake the military balance in the Western Pacific and also hand Beijing the potential to control sea lanes vital to Tokyos trade and energy supplies. During an April leaders summit, Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga and U.S. President Joe Biden made headlines by highlighting the importance of preserving peace and stability in the Taiwan Strait. | REUTERS  These fears have prompted Tokyo to speak out more vociferously in support of stability in the Taiwan Strait, including in the Biden-Suga joint statement, the first-ever reference to Taiwan in the joint statement with the EU and a planned mention in Japans annual defense white paper, another first. The government is also reportedly studying potential responses by the Self-Defense Forces if conflict were to erupt between the U.S. and China over Taiwan, including how it would operate in certain scenarios under the strict confines of the nations national security laws. Beijing has reacted furiously to the united front on Taiwan, singling out Japan in particular for portraying China as a threat and ganging up with a few others to pursue geopolitical confrontation.  Although some observers argue that taking Taiwan by force would be disastrous for Chinas ruling Communist Party, others believe the party, which has fanned a particularly fervent brand of nationalism, must do so to assuage questions of its legitimacy. Nobukatsu Kanehara, a former deputy secretary-general of Japans National Security Secretariat and former assistant chief Cabinet secretary in the Prime Ministers Office, wrote recently that while Tsai is hoping to preserve the status quo through her policy of balanced diplomacy, that is unlikely to satisfy China.  President Xi Jinping, who is determined to build a legacy rivaling that of Mao Zedong, has both the will and the means to subjugate Taiwan, Kanehara, now a special visiting professor at Doshisha University in Kyoto, wrote last week. It is only a question of timing. This is the daunting strategic reality that confers such significance on the reference to peace and stability across the Taiwan Strait in the April 16 Japan-U.S. joint statement.