Heritage Foundation Leadership for America

Ma Ying-jeou, inaugurated as Taiwan's new pres­ident on May 20, 2008, has pledged to strengthen Taiwan's economic and political relationships with China. At the same time, he has good reason to pre­serve Taiwan's separate identity, and the U.S. has good reason to support him.

Taiwan is one of Asia's most dynamic democra­cies and one of America's top 10 trade partners. It is also a significant security partner in the Western Pacific, and its location astride East Asia's sea and air lanes gives it considerable geostrategic importance. It is therefore self-evident that the United States can gain no long-term benefit and would likely suffer long-term costs if it were to consign this major Asian democracy to the gentle care of Asia's most powerful dictatorship: the People's Republic of China (PRC).

The problem is that China claims sovereignty over Taiwan—a sovereignty that it has threatened to protect even with nuclear war. The United States has demurred to China's claims of sovereignty on the grounds that the Taiwan issue was left "unset­tled" at the end of World War II.

Taiwan's "Unsettled" Status. "Unsettled" sov­ereignty status has advantages in the case of Tai­wan. Although the United States recognizes the PRC's "sole legal government," it has remained ambiguous on the issue of who actually owns Tai­wan. Calling Taiwan's status legally "unsettled" pro­vides a legal framework for treating Taiwan as separate from China and enables the United States to provide political and military support to this vibrant democracy.

However, interests in the U.S., Taiwan, and Asia—impelled by China—seek to settle the Taiwan issue sooner rather than later and in China's favor. As China's power and influence expand, its eco­nomic clout and new military might induce the United States to shy away from being too assertive in the Asia–Pacific region. Distracted by Iraq, Afghanistan, and a host of other crises, Washington asserts that China is very important to U.S. global foreign policy goals and has urged Taiwan to recon­cile with China by opening trade and transportation links. Many in Taiwan believe that only the Taiwan government's own restrictions on trade and invest­ment have prevented China's economy from swal­lowing Taiwan whole.

Over the past six years, American diplomats and national security officials have lost sight of Taiwan's unsettled status and have instead focused on assuaging China's angry outbursts regarding Tai­wan. Only in 2007, after the United Nations issued a quiet declaration that it considers "Taiwan for all purposes to be an integral part of the People's Republic of China," did American diplomats start becoming nervous. Some resuscitated the dormant doctrine of Taiwan's unsettled status and prodded the U.N. to recant. Yet U.S. policy toward Taiwan lacks coherence because it lacks a conceptual con­text for understanding America's interests in Asia, where China's rise is rapid and assertive.

What the Administration and Congress Should Do. To protect U.S. allies and U.S. interests in Asia, the Bush Administration must reaffirm its existing definition of Taiwan's undetermined status and the Taiwan Relations Act provisions that require the U.S. to treat Taiwan as an independent nation for purposes of domestic law. The Adminis­tration should:

• Promptly and publicly back away from the stance that "Taiwan is not a state" in the inter­national community. While current U.S. rela­tions with China make it impossible to declare that Taiwan is a state, nothing can justify the U.S. bureaucracy's assertion that Taiwan is not a state. In fact, under the 1933 Montevideo Convention, Taiwan possesses all the attributes of a state.
• Reaffirm Taiwan's unsettled status. Taiwan's territorial status may continue to be undeter­mined. The United States therefore does not accept the sovereign right of any third country to use any force against Taiwan.
• Reaffirm that Taiwan's future rests on the assent of the people of Taiwan. While current U.S. diplomatic formulae assert that the Taiwan issue is a matter for "the Chinese people on both sides of the Taiwan Strait" to resolve, the U.S. should clarify the context, giving prefer­ence to the people of Taiwan in determining their own future.
• Reaffirm the legitimacy of Taiwan's elected leaders. Taiwan's new president will immediately need to engage his counterparts in Beijing. It is essential to his credibility and self-confidence that the United States reaffirm that Taiwan's dem­ocratically elected leaders are the legitimate rep­resentatives of the people of Taiwan.
• View Taiwan as a "de facto entity with an international personality." If Administration officials must say something about Taiwan's status, they should at least describe Taiwan with some accuracy: It is in fact a "de facto entity with an international personality" within the context of the Taiwan Relations Act and Reagan's Six Assurances.
• Encourage U.S. allies to support the status quo on Taiwan's international status. Japan, Canada, Australia, the United Kingdom, and other key U.S. allies share the U.S. understand­ing that Taiwan's international status is unsettled, but they are unlikely to push the issue individu­ally. Washington should take the lead in assem­bling a consensus to maintain Taiwan's ability to function as an autonomous international actor.

Conclusion. Taiwan is on the front line of Amer­ica's Asia policy and has been a loyal U.S. ally for six decades, but a distracted Washington is allowing a laser-focused Beijing to shape the strategic agenda in the Pacific. America's democratic friends and allies in Asia, from Japan to Singapore to India to Australia, are anxiously watching America's new willingness to accept China's new preeminence in the region.

How the United States defends democratic Tai­wan's international identity in its current crisis will tell Asia and the world much about Washington's willingness to defend them against future chal­lenges from China. America's strategic posture in 21st century Asia rests on the collective decision of Asian democracies either to balance China or to bandwagon with it. Asia cannot balance without U.S. leadership.

John J. Tkacik, Jr., is Senior Research Fellow in China, Taiwan, and Mongolia Policy in the Asian Stud­ies Center at The Heritage Foundation.