Letters | Mask diplomacy gives Taiwan delusions about its international status

Name: China warns US of ‘strong response’ regarding Taiwan, saying island’s independence is 'dead end'
Uploaded: 2020-07-15T23:10:05.000Z
Duration: 2 min 47 s
Description: China warns US of ‘strong response’ regarding Taiwan, saying island’s independence is 'dead end'

The Taiwanese government remains misguided about its geopolitical position and has failed to discern the limitations of its ‘Taiwan Can Help’ strategy, leading to unrealistic goals and an inability to devise pragmatic foreign policy

Reading Time:2 minutes

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Workers collect surgical masks from a production line at a factory in Taoyuan, Taiwan, on April 6. The Taiwanese government has engaged in a campaign of ‘mask diplomacy’ in recent months in an attempt to raise its international standing. Photo: Reuters

Letters

Published: 7:10am, 16 Jul 2020Updated: 7:10am, 16 Jul 2020

With its success in fighting Covid-19, the Taiwanese government has pushed forward a new campaign of mask diplomacy characterised by the slogan “Taiwan Can Help”. However, this both failed to help Taiwan gain entry into the World Health Assembly in May and revealed a geopolitical reality the government refuses to acknowledge.

Being helpful to the international community cannot aid the self-ruled island in surviving in international politics. In other words, being helpful does not guarantee survival in an era of great power competition.

Maintaining Taiwan’s status quo relies predominately on US defence commitment to its strategic allies in East Asia. Yet, Taiwan is not one of those countries. Rather, it appears to be more like a bargaining chip for the US when negotiating with China, and vice versa.

Scholars such as Charles Glaser have recommended the US end its commitment to Taiwan in exchange for a grand bargain with China over disputes in the South and East China seas. He sees the only major cost to the US as potentially undermining the credibility of defence commitments to its East Asian allies, such as Japan and South Korea, which could be compensated for by various initiatives such as deepening joint US-Japan military planning.

The success of Taiwan’s transition from authoritarianism to democracy has been a helpful example in the US case against China. Yet, Taiwan is far from being an indispensable partner to the US in East Asia. In fact, it is increasingly possible Taiwan’s status quo could be jeopardised in light of a US-China detente.

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China warns US of ‘strong response’ regarding Taiwan, saying island’s independence is 'dead end'

Unfortunately, the Taiwanese government remains ignorant of its geopolitical position and has failed to discern the limitations of “Taiwan Can Help”, leading to unrealistic policy goals. More importantly, the government’s failure to grasp its geopolitical reality has hindered its ability to devise pragmatic foreign policy that brings about concrete results.