The passing of the Taiwan Travel Act (TTA) is symbolic rather than substantive. If the United States President Donald Trump had not signed it on March 16, the bill would have passed into law without his signature anyway.
Moreover, the high-level exchanges the act allows were a prerogative of the US government and have taken place in the past, most notably in 1996, when the former Taiwan president Lee Teng-hui visited the US in the same year, provoking retaliatory missile tests by Beijing in the Taiwan Strait.
All the same, Trump’s signature does matter. It is yet another signal to China that its vociferous, sometimes petulant, demands for special treatment on the global stage are no longer yielding up the milquetoast pliancy they have in the past.
A statement issued by the Chinese embassy in Washington called the TTA a violation of the One-China Policy, adding: “China is strongly dissatisfied with that and firmly opposes it.”
An earlier op-ed published by Beijing’s mouthpiece tabloid, the Global Times, on Feb. 13 called the TTA “China’s red line.” It warned that were the act to be passed “the foundation of Sino-US relationship [would] be shaken and damage to the ties will be immeasurable.”
Expect further, more strident remonstrations in the days ahead.
Trump’s TTA signature is headline news on the self-ruled island. In recent months, ahead of the elections of Xi Jinping and Wang Qishan to president and vice-president respectively – and possibly for life – Beijing has been surreptitiously nudging Taiwan into a carrot-and-stick corner. And Taiwan is desperate to receive any sign that its situation is not going unnoticed.
Relations with Beijing have soured since the 2016 inauguration of President Tsai Ing-wen, whose party platform does not endorse claims that Taiwan is Chinese territory.
Formal communications have been shut down and Taiwan finds itself, more than ever before, internationally isolated, its diplomatic allies reduced to a paltry 20, and its last remaining European ally, the Vatican, appearing poised to pivot to Beijing.
More recently, and in an altogether more threatening concert of moves, Beijing has been insidiously asserting its expansive territorial claims by bringing the so-called “salami-slicing” effect it has previously used in the South China Sea to bear on Taiwan airspace.
Ahead of the Lunar New Year this year, China attempted to unilaterally open its own flight routes to Taiwan. Nearly 200 flights were canceled. Taiwan maintained the new routes contravened a 2015 agreement and overlapped with airspace used by the island’s passenger and military planes amid an uptick in Chinese military drills that encroached on Taiwan airspace.
Taiwan’s biannual defense review, released in late 2017, documented 16 People’s Liberation Army (PLA) drills carried out in the vicinity of the island in that year, calling them an “enormous threat,” the South China Morning Post reported.
Arguably, Beijing’s “stick” encirclement of Taiwan is business as usual, perhaps making it no surprise that it was a “carrot move” by China that has elicited the island’s most salient recent groundswell of angst.
The so-called “31 Incentives” announced by Beijing’s Taiwan Affairs Office in late February this year aim to “improve the rights of Taiwanese studying, working, living or starting a business” in China.
While Taiwan media have focused on scrambled government countermeasures to the incentives, few on the island really believe that China is genuine in trying to win hearts and minds, even with pocketbook sweeteners.
All appearances suggest that Beijing is resigned to having to take Taiwan by force eventually, and procedurally it is bound to offer the island favors as a prelude to throwing up its hands in a theatrical show of regret and taking the all-else-failed route to unification.
In short, the Taiwan Strait is polarized beyond meaningful rapprochement and Beijing makes no secret of the fact it is determined to assert its claim. To argue that, for the US, better relations with Taiwan, however tenuous, equal hostility to China, threatening regional stability, or that better relations will come at a severe cost to trade, is to ignore that the mainland is assertively undermining regional stability.
It has also never complied with WTO regulations by providing a level playing field for trade and routinely threatens a vibrant democracy with military force.
The TTA may be little more than a symbolic nod to Taiwan’s legitimacy. But as recently as October last year, when the Washington Post reported that the Chinese Embassy sent an “unusual” letter calling on the US House and Senate’s foreign relations and armed services committees to block the bills, few thought it would pass at all.
Its passing does not necessarily make Taiwan safer, but it sends a clear message to Beijing that Taiwan – a rare model of US-inspired democratic values – has not been forgotten and that bully-boy tactics can lead to pushback.
Would the US be willing to precipitate a head on clash with China over Taiwan? It will try to needle China, demanding for trade concessions every now and then. The game is over for the US in Asia.
Only a much much stronger China can deter the meddlesome Americans.
great
"It has also never complied with WTO regulations by providing a level playing field for trade and routinely threatens a vibrant democracy with military force"??
China is fully compliant with all its WTO commitments, a treaty which the USA took 12 years to ratify.
Who will deter a meddlesome China when they become much stronger? Be careful what you wish for.
I’m glad there was unanimous support from both parties to support this bill. And I’m pleased Trump signed it into law. This is one issue that is of utmost importance to safety in East Asia-support for democracies like Taiwan.
Richard Wright I wish that the ”Petrodollar” to come to an end,and no regrets of any kind about this wish.
"We are resolved to fight the bloody battle against our enemies … with a strong determination to take our place in the world,"
— Chinese President Xi Jinping, 03/19/2018
Best to quote him after you have blooded your troops. At that point you will find the statement foolish. By the way, Ching Chong Chang, faceless Facebook warrior; how are you getting past that VPN blocker your nation installed to preclude your countrymen access to the internet?
Mr. Wright, the word is not deter; its annihilate and the answer is the United States, India, Australia, Japan, Vietnam, South Korea, England and France. Be at ease, my faint hearted fellow American.
Good. Who do the Chinese think they are; sending a letter to our Congress with any demands whatsoever. The United States will form alliances with any nation we choose. If China doesn’t like it, they can always come get a bloody nose.
Tsina bulliying small country that no capable to fight,try ur own size then go to ur bloody war,u must talk peacefully no treat a war,if war is happen who will benefit?war may total destruction of our planet,think about that not ur self!!
Taiwan is an intergral part of China and it will not be compromised. China should meet the US head on in even to the extent of war. The US would have to make a choice between China and Taiwan. If her choice is Taiwan then war is imminent.
To Niu Chang from Astoria New York, are you planning on coming back to China to enlist in a fight for her cause? Or are you just a propaganda wumao who’s out to collect his daily earnings?
Taiwan is not an intergral part of China. They are an independant nation. You’re also confused upon the principle that will bring the United States into destruction mode of China… its not that we love Taiwan, its that we hate petty dictators that connot seem to stay within their territorial boundries. Anyway, Malaysian; what do you care? Don’t you realize your nation is in the scope of China as well?
Have you not heard of M.A.D.:mutually assured destruction? Not that it really applies in this case; China doesn’t have the resources to annihilate the Untied States… conversely the United States has that power, ten times over. So the war will be conventional; and in that regard, the United States has the Chinese outmatched. Its like comparing an house cat to a Lion. Do not let your hair trun grey over this issue, my pinoy amigo. Your President has taken steps to ensure the Philippines stays out of the fight, by ceeding your traditional territories as a peace offering to the bullying nation.
If China take TaiwN by force, by means of war do you think countries that have territorial dispute with China will just sit and watch? It will have a effect and wikl further invite more US involvement in the region by those countried affected
God has decided, who ever is war monger, who is accountable for killing millions of men, women and children, will become a third world country.
Notice how people always ask “is the US willing to…” ?
Its almost as if thats going to discourage the US GOVERNMENT (notice the caps?) from doing whatever it wants to just like the chinese government will do whatever it wants to do.
The difference is the US allows freedom of press so the displeasure of its citizens is well known and apparent whereas the other side… ????♂️
Roger Foo: If China attacks Taiwan, I have no doubt that US, Japan, Australia, India and NATO and even ASEAN countries will go to war as a coalition against China, apart from Taiwan itself. Each of these countries has an ax to grind with China, with China claiming practically every drop of waters washing their shores in South China Sea. Taiwan will not declare independence openly, that’ll be too telling in provoking China. But Taiwan will take steps to impress China that it is independent, like this TTA, more military, economic and high-level diplomatic contacts with US. China doesn’t like all these acts by Taiwan and want war? If China attacks first, it’s China that’s provoking war. I’m sure US will have no qualms about hitting China hard if war breaks out. Russia will not intervene. South China Sea is not its problem, beside Russia too wants that Sea to be a freely navigated international waters not controlled by any country, least of all by China…
Im sorry my friend, but since the new strategic plan released by pentagon of us of a, the special treatment of china recieved from international government is the indication that it is over. As you can see, Russia is already feel the weight of it’s actions..
U.S do not have ally.