China, the US and the paradox of tension in the Taiwan Strait
Emanuele Scimia says Taiwan’s newly elected president Tsai Ing-wen appears determined to maintain good relations with Beijing, but that might change in the coming months, leaving Washington to play the role of peacemaker
Though she is the chairwoman of a pro-independence political force, the Democratic Progressive Party, newly elected Taiwanese president Tsai Ing-wen appears determined to maintain the status quo across the Taiwan Strait. In Tsai’s view, the self-governed island and mainland China share a common interest in nurturing peaceful and stable relations.
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Tsai’s manifest cooperative approach to cross-strait affairs should not only calm China’s fears of the emergence of a potential independence-leaning leadership in Taipei, but also the fears of the United States.
There is widespread conviction in Washington that a closer economic relationship between Taipei and Beijing may be more helpful in advancing a Pacific coexistence in the Taiwan Strait than military deterrence.
Chinese leaders could be suspicious of Tsai, who does not accept the “one-China” policy, the principle that Taiwan is a part of China. Beijing has been considering Taiwan a breakaway province since 1949, when the KMT lost the Chinese civil war to the communists and fled to the island, founding a de facto state entity.
China has often threatened to take the island back, with force if needed. Relations between Beijing and Taipei deteriorated in particular between 2000 and 2008, when then Taiwanese president, Chen Shui-bian of the DPP, strived to move the island toward de jure independence.
Ma’s political and economic overtures to the mainland eliminated, at least temporarily, a point of friction between the US and China. With Tsai’s election victory, the balance across the strait again becomes precarious.
