By Chester Cabalza
The Taipei visit of U.S. House of Representative Speaker Nancy Pelosi rattled Beijing despite a repeated warning that plausible brinkmanship may erupt. China’s Achilles heel is its own geography.
Despite being the fourth largest country in the world, it is encroached on all sides by 14 neighbouring countries, challenged in maritime and territorial claims and contained by two island chains at sea. Having achieved a gargantuan economic success seen as a global market next to the United States in the span of four decades, Taiwan remains China’s weakness in realizing a rejuvenated civilization-state.
Taiwan’s strategic sophism is sensitive to U.S.-China bilateralism pronounced in a “one-China policy” that creates more schism. Year 1979 marked the US recognition of the People’s Republic of China (PRC) as the sole legal government of China while disqualifying the Republic of China (ROC) in its claim of sovereignty. The American neutrality in the San Francisco Treaty of Peace of 1951, neither guarantees US position on the two China, despite President Richard Nixon’s preference of China’s annexation of Formosa and the Pescadores.
The commercial and strategic Taiwan Relations Act of 1979 favoured Washington’s continuous relations with Taipei that reduced to robust yet unofficial diplomatic ties. The shared democratic values and rules-based norms secured closeness of the U.S. and Taiwan while the self-governed island has gracefully transformed into a fully functioning democracy after it ended martial law in 1987 and enjoyed the right to suffrage in 1996.
While the Philippines at large is enjoying American strategic preference in Asia, still considered the oldest treaty ally in the region, Taipei sits just above Manila. Like Washington, the Philippines ceased to recognize Taiwan’s sovereignty in 1975 and replaced the Philippine Embassy in Taiwan to Manila Economic and Cultural Office (MECO) that became the unofficial link between the two neighbours.
But the inflamed triangular coalition of democratic US-Taiwan-Philippines may cause big fuss for China while Beijing sees Taiwan as a renegade province. The Pelosi factor fires up the shaky relations in the Taiwan Straits amidst the intensified U.S.-China power contestation in the Indo-Pacific region, grappled by instability of protracted Russia-Ukraine war. Nevertheless, China’s enraging vocal claim of Taiwan mooted a sabre rattling welcome to Representative Nancy Pelosi. In a probable provocative behaviour, Chinese warships and aircrafts touched the median line in Formosa to echo the threat.
The historic and surprise visit of the second in the line of succession to the U.S. presidency and the first American House Speaker to stopover in Taipei in 25 years as part of her Asian tour will capitulate tense moment subdued by convivial gesture of Taiwan’s President Tsai Ing-wen. Meanwhile, U.S. Secretary of State Anthony Blinken is set to meet with Philippine President Ferdinand “Bongbong” Marcos Jr. and his top diplomat on August 6 aimed to strengthen the alliance and fix Washington’s complicated friendship with Manila.
Tensions between China and Taiwan have spiked recently on arms race. The more it angered Beijing as it sees U.S. military posturing in the Indo-Pacific region with the formations of the QUAD and AUKUS while it accused Washington of arms deal with Taipei as a gross interference in China’s internal affairs.
Just when China dominates a geostrategic momentum in the contested South China Sea, after reclaiming long lost territories from colonial powers in Hongkong and Macau, its elusive quest of reunification with Taiwan becomes even harder. Fearful of Taiwan’s independence, the last vestige of China’s century of humiliation as remnants of the Opium War, hinders Beijing of a grandiose dream of becoming a superpower by 2049.
While the current global order places China in its prime show of force, the Taiwan and South China Sea conundrums posit geopolitical jigsaw puzzles of war hysteria. For countries like the Philippines, a Taiwan contingency has direct consequences as it impedes its own national security. Taiwan and the Philippines are geographically situated in the first island chain that surrounds both countries including Japan which China uses as a playground in its playful acts of grey zone strategy and anti-access/area-denial (A2/AD) force to deter American intervention on freedom of navigation operations.
If Beijing reclaims Taipei by force and Taiwan becomes part of Mainland China, Manila automatically becomes a buffer zone for China. This makes the Philippines and Taiwan both a geostrategic bullseye for competing superpowers trapped in crunchtime. The coinciding events and geopolitical importance are crucial to China’s President Xi Jinping as he tightens the grip of power for securing his third term as the General Secretary of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) in November. The conceivable future scenario can bleed the Philippine interests as Taiwan hosts numerous Overseas Filipino Workers (OFWs) and China financially aids the infrastructure programs of the Philippines. More so, these three stakeholders partake in a tug-of-war in the South China Sea.
Dr. CHESTER B. CABALZA is the President and Founder of the International Development and Security Cooperation (IDSC), a Manila-based think tank.
(The views expressed in this article belong only to the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of World Geostrategic Insights).