SNA (Tokyo) — Western nations have recently taken up a mantra that claims they will never allow “changes to the status quo by force,” but when it comes to the dangerous crisis in the Taiwan Strait, it’s not entirely clear that all Western commentators even understand what the diplomatic “status quo” is all about.

While it is possible to see influences from earlier history, the standoff in the Taiwan Strait traces back to 1949 when the Chinese Nationalist army under Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek withdrew its forces to the island of Taiwan to make a last stand against the advancing Chinese Communist Party in the Chinese Civil War.

But the final resolution of the civil war never took place: US President Harry Truman intervened after the outbreak of the Korean War in June 1950, declaring the “neutralization of the Straits of Formosa” and sending in the US Seventh Fleet to prevent fighting between the two sides.

This created an odd situation in which the People’s Republic of China in Beijing and the Republic of China in Taipei both claimed to be the legitimate government of a single Chinese nation. There was no reunification. Instead, Washington and its allies recognized the Chiang Kai-shek regime in Taipei as the government of the whole of China.

It wasn’t until the Richard Nixon administration two decades later that the main policy elements of the “status quo” as we know it today was laid down. Nixon’s rapprochement with the Chinese Communist Party involved some uneasy compromises to meet the minimum needs of all sides, and to maintain peace between the nuclear-armed nations (Beijing had joined the nuclear weapons club in October 1964).

This was the birth of the US “One China Policy”–Washington shifted diplomatic recognition from Taipei to Beijing. In the words of the February 1972 Shanghai Communiqué:

The United States acknowledges that all Chinese on either side of the Taiwan Strait maintain there is but one China and that Taiwan is a part of China. The United States Government does not challenge that position. It reaffirms its interest in a peaceful settlement of the Taiwan question by the Chinese themselves. With this prospect in mind, it affirms the ultimate objective of the withdrawal of all US forces and military installations from Taiwan.

The other major document establishing the “status quo” was the Taiwan Relations Act passed by the US Congress in January 1979. Unlike the Shanghai Communiqué, this was not an agreement with Beijing, but rather a unilateral act by the US legislature.

Among other things, the Taiwan Relations Act terminated official use of the term “Republic of China” in favor of the “governing authorities on Taiwan.” The act authorized de facto diplomatic relations with Taiwan’s governing authorities as well as the maintenance of a de facto embassy in Washington DC. On military matters, the Act stated that “the United States will make available to Taiwan such defense articles and defense services in such quantity as may be necessary to enable Taiwan to maintain sufficient self-defense capabilities.”

Crucially, the Taiwan Relations Act was worded in such a way to make it unclear what the United States would actually do should war break out between Beijing and Taipei. This was the policy of “strategic ambiguity.” It was instituted to achieve two objectives–to deter Beijing from an invasion of Taiwan and to deter Taipei from triggering a war by declaring independence from China.

The Drift in the “Status Quo”

Since the Shanghai Communiqué and the Taiwan Relations Act defined the fundamental diplomatic status quo between Washington, Beijing, and Taipei in the 1970s, two major changes have taken place.

First, in the late 1980s and 1990s, the political system in Taiwan transformed from the White Terror era of the dictatorial regimes of Chiang Kai-shek and his son Chiang Ching-kuo into a flourishing democracy. In the early 21st century, Taiwan has become one of the most liberal, attractive, and democratic societies in Asia.

Second, Beijing–while it hasn’t liberalized its political system at all–has become a phenomenal success when it comes to economic achievement. The Chinese Communist Party can boast that it has successfully lifted more people out of poverty than any nation in all of human history. Indeed, China appears to be on track to surpass the United States as the largest economy in the world by the end of this decade. The eighty-year period in which the United States has ruled the world without peer will likely be terminated within just a few more years–barring some unforeseen cataclysm.

Taken together, these are the main factors behind what might be called the “drift in the status quo.” It’s not that the diplomatic agreements and settlements of the 1970s–which have been the basis of peace for half a century–have been formally overturned, but rather, the way they are being portrayed in the Western media and interpreted by even some senior policymakers is very different from their original spirit.

In other words, we are being faced with a sustained campaign of gaslighting which aims to obscure the true nature of the “status quo” and works to unfairly demonize the Chinese government on charges for which it is not guilty.

There are several major considerations in regard to this drift from the status quo.

To start with Beijing, its rapid economic growth has been attended by a rapid expansion of its military capabilities. This means that a Chinese invasion and conquest of Taiwan is a more plausible scenario than it has been since at least the 1950s, and perhaps ever. It also means that in a conventional war between China and the United States, it’s no longer a given that the US military would prevail. The deterrent effect of the 1979 Taiwan Relations Act has consequently eroded quite significantly.

The Xi Jinping regime has been consistent about where its “red lines” lay. It maintains its One China Principle (not to be confused with the US One China Policy) which asserts that there is only one sovereign state called China, it is based in Beijing, and that Taiwan is an inseparable part of China. At the same time, its objective is to achieve a “peaceful reunification.” Military force, it contends, will only be employed in the case that Taiwan “separatists” attempt to create an independent nation.

Pressure on the status quo is also coming from Taiwan itself, where the ruling Democratic Progressive Party and the Pan-Green Coalition desires precisely that Taiwan become independent. Younger generations of Taiwanese in particular dread the notion of coming under the thumb of the repressive Chinese Communist Party. There has also been a rise in appreciation for the indigenous elements of Taiwanese history and culture which are distinct from mainland China.

If Taiwanese had no fear of Beijing, the democratic majority would almost certainly be in favor of independent nationhood, though a sizable minority wants to remain part of China.

Perhaps most dangerous of all, however, is the United States, which is psychologically unprepared for a world in which it is no longer the dominant superpower calling all the shots.

Historians have long understood that there is little in international relations more irrational and prone to mass violence than an empire in decline. Even as such great states lose capacity to wield hard power over other states, they remain in denial, rolling the dice against ever-longer odds in a desperate attempt to preserve accustomed status.

It is through that prism the current Taiwan Strait crisis is most usefully understood.

Nancy Pelosi’s Neoconservative Crusade

It is not entirely clear to what degree US House of Representatives Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s visit to Taiwan (and the things which she said on her Asian tour) should be regarded as her own diplomatic freelancing and how much it was quietly winked at by the Biden administration.

The proper message was delivered by National Security Council Coordinator for Strategic Communications John Kirby on August 4:

I want to reiterate, as I’ve been saying all week: Nothing—nothing —has changed about our One China Policy… We said that we oppose any unilateral changes to the status quo from either side. We’ve also said we do not support Taiwan independence and that we expect cross-Strait differences to be resolved by peaceful means. We’re also maintaining communication with Beijing.

Taken on its own, this statement of US policy would appear to be unequivocal. But it comes in the context of other statements made by US President Biden himself which seemingly abandoned the status quo policy of strategic ambiguity. For example, while on a visit to Tokyo, Biden had the following exchange at a press conference:

Reporter: You did not want to get involved in the Ukraine conflict militarily for obvious reasons. Are you willing to get involved militarily to defend Taiwan if it comes to that?

Biden: Yes.

Reporter: You are?

Biden: That’s the commitment we made. That’s the commitment we made. We are not–look–here’s the situation: we agree with the One China Policy. We’ve signed onto it and all the attendant agreements made from there. But the idea that it can be taken by force, just taken by force, is just not appropriate. It will dislocate the entire region and be another action similar to what happened in Ukraine. And so it is a burden that is even stronger.

Observers were not quite sure what to make of Biden’s comments. Were they a clear-cut abandonment of strategic ambiguity? Were they deliberate “misstatements” intended to send a sharp message to Beijing, but only to be walked back later by preordained design? Was it that Biden doesn’t understand the policy of his own government? Has Biden simply gone senile?

Whatever the reason, Beijing was not amused. Foreign Ministry Spokesperson Wang Wenbin responded:

We urge the US side to abide by the One China Principle and the stipulations in the three China-US joint communiqués, honor its important commitment of not supporting “Taiwan independence,” speak and act with prudence on the Taiwan question, and avoid sending any wrong signal to the “Taiwan independence” separatist forces, lest it should seriously undermine peace across the Taiwan Strait and China-US relations. China will take firm actions to safeguard its sovereignty and security interests. We mean what we say.

From its perspective, Beijing was correct to react sharply. The strategic ambiguity policy, as we have seen, had two separate objectives. The one which the media always focuses upon is the objective of deterring a mainland Chinese attack on Taiwan. But the other key objective–as highlighted by Wang–is to “avoid sending any wrong signal to the ‘Taiwan independence’ separatist forces” that they have carte blanche to do as they want and then still expect that the US military will fight at their side.

Since the Biden administration came to office, it has been the main objective of Asia policy tsar Kurt Campbell to built a ring of alliances around China. This has manifested in the reinvigoration of The Quad, the establishment of AUKUS, and in a whole host of smaller actions. It has been a containment policy in all but name.

It has also been a very dishonest policy, pretending not to be what it clearly is–it has revived Cold War policies while claiming that there is no new Cold War; it is trying to divide the Asia-Pacific region into spheres of influence while using the slogan of a “Free and Open Indo-Pacific”; and it claims to seek to preserve the “status quo” while quietly shifting the current situation in US favor by means of introducing US special forces trainers into Taiwan (probably violating the terms of the 1972 Shanghai Communiqué) and, yes, indirectly telegraphing support for Taiwan independence.

For its part, Beijing has not been fooled by these maneuvers, even if a large section of Western public opinion has indeed lost the plot.

And then came Nancy Pelosi’s visit to Taiwan this past week. When asked by a reporter about her thoughts on democracy and China-Taipei relations, she stated,

Your question comes in the context of, right now, a struggle between autocracy and democracy in the world. We cannot back away from that… That’s one of the purposes of our trip–to show the world the success of the people of Taiwan. Their courage, their courage to change their own country to become more democratic, to become more democratic. Their respect for people and the rest, and quite frankly, a model in this region.

Pelosi’s statements are out of tune with the entire basis of the past half-century of peaceful relations between Washington and Beijing. They are also inconsistent with the maintenance of the status quo in the Taiwan Strait, which the US government claims to be its main objective.

Diplomatic relations in East Asia are certainly not based on “a struggle between autocracy and democracy in the world.” Indeed, this is an example of the kind of neoconservative ideology which was used for years to justify the Iraq War. This is crusade language–not about preserving the status quo, but heralding an intent for aggressive expansion at the ideological level. Pelosi confirmed this fact by speaking of Taiwan as “a model in this region,” much as former US President George W. Bush used to claim that occupied Iraq would become a model for democratization in the Islamic world.

China, again, understands the game, and Pelosi was called out in acid comments from Foreign Ministry Spokesperson Hua Chunying:

What she has done is definitely not about upholding or defending democracy, but a provocation and infringement on China’s sovereignty and territorial integrity… The kind of democracy Pelosi refers to is nothing but an ornate robe with lice crawling all over it–it might look magnificent from a distance, but can’t stand up to close scrutiny. From the Capitol Riot, the death of George Floyd, the Robb Elementary School shooting, and America’s over a million Covid deaths, we see the hypocrisy and cold-bloodedness of the kind of democracy Pelosi refers to. We see the empty pledge and so-called strength of this type of democracy from what the US military has done in Iraq and Syria, and from its retreat from Kabul.

It is the United States and its allies which are attempting to sacralize the “status quo” and to ordain it as some kind of holy tool by which to demonize its rival superpower as an alleged “rule-breaker.” This is a gaslit version of reality. While naturally there is a kernel of truth in all of the best lies–there are indeed very legitimate concerns about the future of Taiwan as a democracy living in the shadow of its powerful autocratic neighbor–the policies of the Biden administration and the provocative actions of Speaker Pelosi are not increasing the chances for peace, but rather bringing us much closer to a disastrous and irrational war.

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