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THREAD The Chinese Communist Party does not have agency. That now seems to be the going argument among analysts arguing against strengthening US-Taiwan relations. I consider three recent pieces in my article for today's @globaltaiwan Global Taiwan Brief: http://globaltaiwan.org/2020/10/vol-5-issue-20/#MichaelMazza10212020
The thesis goes like this: if Taiwan moves too far along the path to permanent separation from China (just how far isn't made explicit), Beijing will be forced to send the PLA into action. Beijing will have no choice in the matter, so Taiwan and the US must act accordingly.
Some pushback in response to developments in US-Taiwan relations was to be expected. Yet much as Beijing might wish foreign counterparts believe that PRC actions regarding TW are predetermined—indeed, that they are out of China's control—such arguments are deserving of scrutiny.
First up, Ted Galen Carpenter in @RStatecraft: https://responsiblestatecraft.org/2020/09/22/how-far-is-the-u-s-willing-to-go-to-defend-taiwan/
Carpenter explicitly blames rising cross-Strait tensions on what he describes as “the DPP’s continued political control.” Such “control,” it should be noted, is due to the DPP performing exceptionally well in the last two national elections. No matter.
That “political control” has “impelled the PRC to redouble its efforts to poach Taipei’s small number of remaining diplomatic partners and ratchet-up confrontational rhetoric against the island [and] it has led to an increasingly menacing military posture.”
For Carpenter, China isn't responsible for its decision to use diplomatic, rhetorical, & military pressure—indeed, there was no decision at all to be made in the halls of Zhongnanhai. Taiwan’s people voted—shame on them—and the laws of cross-Strait physics took over from there.
A similar argument appears in a Paul Heer article for @TheNatlInterest, which appeared just a few days after Carpenter's https://nationalinterest.org/feature/inconvenient-truth-about-taiwan%E2%80%99s-place-world-169659
Heer, a former intelligence official, offered this assessment on current cross-Strait dynamics: "The good news is that, contrary to the prevailing wisdom, Beijing is not in fact looking for excuses or an opportunity to attack Taiwan: it is looking for reasons not to do so...
"...The danger is that Chinese leaders currently do not perceive Washington and Taipei to be providing those reasons."
Like Carpenter, Heer denies Beijing any agency in setting China’s approach to Taiwan.
Like Carpenter, Heer denies Beijing any agency in setting China’s approach to Taiwan.
TW and the United States are apparently moving closer to forcing Beijing to order the PLA into action—not because they are plotting military action against China or even moving definitively toward a declaration and recognition, respectively, of Taiwan’s independent statehood...
...but because the US is adjusting and updating (per A/S David Stilwell) its “One-China Policy” and because “Beijing suspects Taipei as having withdrawn from the ‘One-China’ framework.”
China might not like these developments, but it should have options to respond beyond pummeling, invading, and occupying Taiwan. Heer does not see things that way:
"But we should be extremely cautious about dismissing Beijing’s perspective on TW, or underestimating how deadly serious the issue is to Chinese leaders. It represents the unfinished business of the Chinese Civil War and thus involves the legitimacy & the survival of the [CCP]."
Of course, DC & Taipei should take seriously Chinese views on TW. Leaders in both capitals should understand how those in Beijing define & prioritize their interests. Unification is, indeed, an issue on which the CCP has staked its legitimacy.
Within the Party, it is surely not a political winner to advocate a softer approach to Taiwan. Heer fails to question, however, why that must be so.
The same goes for @JohnCulver689 , also a retired American intelligence officer, who recently wrote for @LowyInstitute about the “unfinished Chinese civil war.” https://www.lowyinstitute.org/the-interpreter/unfinished-chinese-civil-war
Culver shares valuable insights on the potential shape of a war that begins in the Taiwan Strait, but like other pieces of the genre, the article prioritizes Chinese over Taiwanese perspectives and denies agency to the PRC. Indeed, Taiwanese perspectives are entirely absent.
Does Taiwan consider itself to be in an unfinished civil war? Although Taipei remains preoccupied with the Chinese military threat, it is not at all clear that people in Taiwan see themselves as being in a continuing state of war with the PRC.
If not, does that affect how Culver’s hypothetical war might come about and how it might be fought? Perhaps not, but highlighting Taiwanese views would at least put China’s perspective in a more complete context, allowing for better foreign engagement with it.
As w/ Carpenter & Heer, Culver is careful to avoid assigning any responsibility to China for a hypothetical conflict. “If military conflict comes to the Taiwan Strait in the next few years,” Culver writes, “the past will not serve as prologue for China’s modes, means, and goals.”
It is difficult to imagine a scenario in which Beijing is not the first to use force, but for Culver, war is something that just happens, rather than something China chooses to set in motion.
Like Heer, Culver argues that the CCP would see such a conflict as being “about its legitimacy and survival, and the return of China as the dominant power in East Asia.” And like Heer, Culver does not see the CCP as having choices to make:
“Not contesting probably would not be an option for the CCP—indeed, it seems convinced that it has an asymmetrical interest in the outcome compared to the United States.”
Culver never makes clear what exactly the CCP would be “contesting” in this hypothetical scenario—but again, it seems likely he is presuming a Chinese use of force when there is no military threat to China. This would be neither defensive, nor preemptive, nor preventive.
Yet Culver and others—along with the CCP—want us to believe China will have no choice but to attack should Taiwan, as Heer put it, continue to withdraw from the “One-China” framework.
