Current situation differs from three prior crises

Once More Unto The Breach - Current Taiwan-Strait crisis differs markedly from the three previous historical examples

Swaran Singh

The year 2022 saw Taiwan once again become the focal point of US-China contestations. As part of their ongoing technology and trade war, August 2022 saw a rather melodramatic visit to Taipei by US House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, to which Beijing responded with brinkmanship, threatening a regional crisis of sorts. The visit was melodramatic because it was not officially confirmed until Pelosi landed in Taipei. The news of her visit appeared to have been leaked to the media in order to gauge the response from Beijing, but this came at the cost of raising regional anxieties.

For China, the visit provided a perfect excuse to unleash its largest-ever military exercise across the Taiwan Strait, showcasing a virtual four-day blockade that included at least a dozen missiles fired toward the island, five of which landed within Japan’s exclusive economic zone (see Figure 1 on page 51). While the Beijing authorities were issuing their third White Paper on Taiwan, the US Congress was initiating the review process for its Taiwan Policy Act 2022. The latter marked “the biggest overhaul of Washington’s policy on Taiwan in nearly 40 years,” according to Matt Fulco, a Taipei-based freelance journalist, referring to the historic Taiwan Relations Act of 1979. This episode has been dubbed the Fourth Taiwan Strait Crisis, though this remains a contested formulation. Tensions have since subsided—thanks partly to the continuing Ukraine crisis and the lingering effects of the COVID-19 pandemic—yet it has left an indelible impact not just on the trilateral Taiwan-China-US relationship, but on other regional stakeholders as well. Chinese President Xi Jinping in October formalized his third term in office and is now expected to reinforce his increasingly assertive Taiwan policy, describing Taiwan’s integration into China as an “unstoppable … historic mission,” requiring “all necessary measures” including “the use of force,” according to Beijing’s White Paper.

Before making any judgments on whether this August 2022 episode of Chinese brinkmanship can indeed be called the Fourth Taiwan Strait Crisis, or on what its regional implications will be, it is important to briefly recall the essential elements of the last three Taiwan Strait crises.

The first crisis of 1954-1955 was a continuation of the fervor of Communist China’s “liberation” and consolidation of control over what had been Republic of China (ROC) territory on the mainland. It involved nine months of intense shelling of the offshore islands. This happened just a decade after the United States dropped two atomic bombs on Japan, and Washington was threatening to do the same to China if they refused to negotiate an end to the Korean War. As pointed out by China analyst Gordon Chang, despite this tough talk, thenPresident Dwight Eisenhower was labeled a “weak president” for pushing back against his advisors who wanted to use the Taiwan Strait Crisis to precipitate a war with China.

A US Air Force F-15C and two F-16s from the 65th Aggressor Squadron break formation after a dogfight against members of the AirForce Weapons School over Nevada Test and Training Range.

photo: Matthew Bruch

This crisis saw China seizing several islands, including the Tachens and Yijiangshan, while the US Seventh Fleet evacuated 30,000 civilians and soldiers from these islands to the ROC redoubt on Taiwan. The US Congress passed the 1955 Formosa Resolution authorizing the president “to employ the Armed Forces of the United States as he deems necessary for the specific purpose of securing and protecting Formosa and the Pescadores against armed attack.” It has never been invoked, however.

Second chances

The Second Taiwan Strait Crisis of 1958 saw the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) resume bombardment of Kinmen (Quemoy) and Matsu islands. This crisis is often linked to Beijing’s disastrous Great Leap Forward and to Mao Zedong’s bravado, which put off Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev and contributed to the Sino-Soviet split in late 1950s. Nevertheless, the White House “refused to issue a public statement indicating that it would defend Quemoy,” while the military was proposing “atomic strikes” as a possibility, according to RAND’s Morton Halperin, who authored a now-declassified study on the 1958 crisis.

The Third Taiwan Strait Crisis took place well after the US-China entente of the 1970s. The leadership in Beijing was triggered by Taiwan’s first democratic elections, as well as by ROC President Lee Teng-hui’s June 1995 visit to the United States, where he addressed 3,000 alumni at New York’s Cornell University, his alma mater. Beijing was furious that Washington had allowed a sitting ROC president to set foot on American soil, even while several US Congressmen were pressing then-President Bill Clinton to allow President Lee to make another visit, this time to attend a conference in Alaska in September 1995. China’s president at the time, Jiang Zemin, issued angry statements and authorized missile tests and forward deployment from Fujian province facing Taiwan. The United States responded by deploying its largest force to the region since the days of the Vietnam War.

The difference between these past events and the current period is the relative state of military capability. Years of double-digit defense-budget growth, and the development of anti-access and area-denial strategies, has arguably enabled China to stand up to US forces. Politically, many countries—including the United States—have switched official recognition from the ROC to the People’s Republic of China (PRC), and the unprecedented rise of China has since continued unabated. The tensions of August 2022, therefore, took place at a time when China has come to be the world’s largest trading nation (and has been for over a decade), and is on its way to becoming the world’s largest economy, which will happen by 2030 according to some economists’ predictions. This means that tensions between the United States and China—the world’s largest and second-largest economies and defense spenders—have implications way beyond the Taiwan Strait.

Military leaders from Japan and the United States discuss operations during exercise Keen Sword 23.

image: Braden Anderson

A Chinese People’s Liberation Army Air Force H-6K Bomber operates in the Western Pacific.

Photo: Japan Ministry of Defense

The first marker of US-China animosity over Taiwan in 2022 is that their relationship has moved from one of general rapprochement to one on the verge of confrontation. In the midst of the Ukraine War, in which Russia has begun issuing nuclear threats, the US National Security Strategy of October 2022 mentioned China 55 times, calling it “America’s most consequential challenge.” This is because, in addition to its unprecedented economic growth, China’s rapid military modernization has resulted in the PLA fielding the biggest navy in the world by number of hulls, including two aircraft carriers deployed in the region, making Washington all the more cautious.

Since then-President Barack Obama’s Pivot to Asia policy, US naval deployments in the region have increased substantially. Of the 149 US Navy ships operational around the world, 59 are in the IndoPacific region. December 2016 saw then-presidentelect Donald Trump making an unprecedented direct phone call to his ROC counterpart Tsai Ing-wen. This was followed by visits to Taipei by senior officials in the Trump administration, including the US health secretary. This is where the visit by Pelosi—third in line for the US presidency and with a history of calling out the Beijing regime for its many human rights violations—was bound to trigger a reaction in Zhongnanhai.

US Navy MH-60R and MH-60S Sea Hawks attached to Naval Air Facility Atsugi conduct flight operations near Mt Fuji, Japan.

Photo: Ange Olivier Clement

Unshakable commitment

The last such visit to Taipei by a US House Speaker was by Newt Gingrich in 1997. This visit, held in the aftermath of Third Taiwan Strait crisis, was not only well publicized, but preceded by a three-day visit to Beijing—a Beijing whose leadership at that time was very different than it is today. In the late 1990s, the PRC government was far more concerned with growing the economy and joining the international fraternity of nations than reclaiming what are perceived to be lost territories. In contrast, the ascendency of Xi Jinping has precipitated a growing sense of revanchism and a new, hardline “wolf warrior” style of diplomacy, all backed by the economic and military might that Xi inherited. Outlining his vision of the future at the 20th Party Congress on October 16, Xi mentioned Taiwan 21 times, calling the annexation of Taiwan a “historic” and “unshakable” commitment to China’s complete “reunification” and to “give firm support to patriots in Taiwan who desire reunification.”

This was followed by US President Biden slapping further restrictions on semiconductor exports to China; not only of its advanced chips used in supercomputers and artificial intelligence, but the whole range of advanced equipment needed to make them, as well as any knowledge from US citizens, residents, or green card holders. This is aimed at regaining the technological lead against China’s cutting-edge research and innovative technologies, from pharmaceuticals to defense research. Clearly, the nature and tools of international conflict are no longer the same as they were before.

“The growing complexity in US-China tensions will continue to raise anxieties for Taiwan.”

For instance, in attempting to dwarf the PRC’s advancement in technologies, Biden’s restrictions on semiconductor exports to China empower Taiwan against its would-be attacker. Taiwan accounts for 63 percent of the global market share in semiconductor manufacturing and more than 90 percent of the world’s most advanced semiconductors, including five-nanometer chips. This gives the whole world, including the United States, a stake in ensuring peace and stability across the Taiwan Strait. Taipei remains especially dependent on America for chip designs and advanced manufacturing technologies, however.

US Marines aboard the USS New Orleans prepare to board an MV-22B Osprey.

photo: Desmond Parks

US and Japanese naval forces operate together in the Philippine Sea.

Photo: Justin Stack

This not only alludes to a new sense of caution on the part of the United States, but it also redefines the opportunities and challenges for all other regional stakeholders, depending on their relations with China and the United States. China’s passiveaggressive brinkmanship does not follow the template set by the three previous Taiwan Strait crises, and may not mark a clear beginning and end. It appears to represent a new normal of our times. As the post-pandemic debate on economic decoupling from China has shown, the economies of the United States and the PRC remain too tightly intertwined, characterized by a multi-vectored and complex interdependence.

The growing complexity in US-China tensions will continue to raise anxieties for Taiwan. The recent past has seen a rise in PLA infringements into Taiwan’s Air Defense Identification Zone—one that Beijing has yet to even recognize. Based on a military assessment report that was presented to the Legislative Yuan on the eve of China’s 20th Party Congress, ROC Minister of National Defense Chiu Kuo-cheng predicted that the PRC would be capable of mounting a “full-scale” invasion of Taiwan by 2025.

Recognizing that fact at Stanford University’s Hoover Institution on October 17, 2022, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken, in reply to a question about US policy on Taiwan, opined that “Beijing was determined to pursue reunification on a much faster timeline.” While he indicated US support for Taiwan’s ability to defend itself, he felt the need to reiterate his government’s commitment to the “one China” policy in the same sentence. This surely marks a drift from the days when Washington used wording of the sort found in the Formosa Resolution, or even the Taiwan Relations Act.

On the face of it, the August 2022 tensions in USChina relations bear little resemblance to any of the earlier episodes discussed. Nevertheless, given the increasingly global nature of the US-China rivalry, their episodic bouts of conflict—which are increasingly passive aggressive and relatively imperceptive—carries implications way beyond Taiwan, which remains the epicenter of US-China friction. b

About the author

Dr. Swaran Singh is a professor of diplomacy and disarmament at Jawaharlal Nehru University in New Delhi, India and is currently a visiting professor at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver, Canada.