Review of World Affairs (RWA):
By Shashi P.B.B. Malla
Before starting with the actual analysis, it is useful to clarify certain concepts as used in International Relations.
A crisis is a perceived critical turning point in the relationship between state actors. Thus the Cuban Missile Crisis in October 1962 was a potential turning point in strategic relations between the United States and the Soviet Union during the original Cold War [which started after WW II].
The diffusion of the crisis led to a brief period of détente [a relaxation of tension in the previously strained relations] between the two superpowers.
Conflict is a social/political/economic condition that arises when two or more state actors pursue mutually exclusive or mutually incompatible goals.
Conflict behaviour can be observed as war – both as a threatened outcome and as an existential reality – and also as bargaining behaviour short of violence.
Thus, the United States and China or India and China or Pakistan and India find themselves in a state of conflict, but not war.
The Cold War was a state of confrontation and antagonism – the ‘state of neither war nor peace’ [as popularized by American journalist Walter Lippman].
The Cold War was characterized by adversarial diplomacy, arms race, courting of allies, brinkmanship, ideological antagonism, assertive interventionism. However, it was not a period of unrelieved hostility, rivalry and tension, since there were also time-frames of détente.
Taking all this into account, it can safely be said that the two antagonist superpowers – the U.S. and China – are in a state of the ‘New Cold War’ [to distinguish it from the previous one]. Thus, we had the previous Soviet-American Cold War and now the currently raging Sino-American Cold War.
Confrontation is the generic term of meeting face to face in hostility or defiance.
It is possible to envisage ‘confrontation’ as the first stage in hostile relations. It is followed by ‘conflict’. If this reaches a critical phase of hostility, there is a crisis in the relationship.
The United States-China relationship is at the stage of “conflict”. If something serious happens, for instance in or near Taiwan, it could escalate into a “crisis situation”, which if not diffused could lead to armed engagement/offensive/hostility, i.e. warfare. In such a case, the entire world can only hope that it will be restricted to conventional means.
As things now stand, the rhetoric and actions of both sides do not indicate that a bilateral détente is in the offing.
Chinese Standpoint
Last week, China’s President Xi Jinping vowed to achieve peaceful “unification” with Taiwan, which the People’s Republic of China (PRC) considers an integral part of the national mainland. Xi said: “Compatriots on both sides of the Taiwan Strait should stand on the right side of history and join hands to achieve China’s complete unification.
Xi was speaking at an event to commemorate 110 years since the Revolution of 1911 overthrew the last imperial Manchu Qing dynasty and established a republic.
Previously, to make his point clear, nearly 150 warplanes were flown into Taiwan’s air defence identification zone (ADIZ), occasionally crossing the median line of the Taiwan Strait, the unofficial maritime border.
The View from Taiwan
The island of Taiwan is not recognized as an independent country by the majority of the world’s sovereign states.
However, in response to Xi’s speech, Taiwan’s “presidential” office underscored the territory’s sovereignty insisting that its future “rests in the hands of Taiwan’s people” (population: 24 million).
It added that Taiwan’s people had clearly chosen to reject China’s offer of unification under a “one country, two systems” arrangement similar to that functioning in Hong Kong, and instead supported “defending our democratic way of life”.
Chen Ming-tong [former minister of Taiwan’s Mainland Affairs Council], chief of intelligence [National Security Bureau] has told local lawmakers that the probability of armed conflict across the Taiwan Strait remains “very low” (Newsweek, Oct.20).
“Barring any contingent event, nothing will happen,” said Chen. “It’s my view that nothing will happen for the remainder of President Tsai Ing-wen’s term.”
Previously, Chiu Kuo-cheng – currently Taiwan’s serving defence minister – had described cross-strait relations as the “most severe” he has experienced in his four decades in the military.
Chinese and Taiwanese officials have not held high-level talks since 2016 because the former demand that Taiwan first accepts its position as a province of China, while the latter insist on political parity and no preconditions.
United States’ Perspective
US President Joe Biden has conceded that he has spoken personally with Xi about Taiwan and agreed to “abide by the Taiwan agreement”.
Since the establishment of diplomatic ties with the PRC in 1979, the U.S. has “acknowledged” – but not officially recognized – China’s position that Taiwan is an integral part of China [the prevailing “One China Policy”].
At the same time, the U.S. has maintained “unofficial” relations with and militarily supported Taiwan.
From Beijing’s perspective, U.S. manoeuvres since the Trump administration can only be seen as hostile. Trump suddenly slapped economic sanctions on China and disrupted bilateral trade relations. On top of that, the explosion of the Covid-19 pandemic has had repercussions on international trade – so much so that now even the U.S. is facing bottlenecks in the worldwide supply chain. Despite this, Biden has not seen fit to lift the sanctions.
In fact he has upped the ante of what can only be regarded as a confrontational policy vis-à-vis China started by Don Trump.
Already during the Obama administration, the groundwork was laid for the so-called “pivot to Asia”. Simultaneously, Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe orchestrated the concept of the Quadrilateral Cooperation among the U.S., Japan, Australia and India [the latter two very lukewarm participants then].
This all came into being because China was conceived as a rising power and an immediate and growing major threat to U.S. national security. It was inconceivable and intolerable for the American elite establishment to consider China as an equal super-power.
For international consumption, China was also presented as a threat to the prevailing rules-based world order.
From the ‘pivot to Asia’ came the concept of the “Indo-Pacific region – the littoral and buffer states bordering the Indian Ocean and Western Pacific — encompassing all the periphery states south of China. The resulting master plan vis-à-vis China was the Indo-Pacific Strategy. This was nothing more and nothing less than a game plan to contain China.
At the same time, the U.S. and various allies, including Britain regularly send ships through the strait, claiming that it demonstrates a commitment to a “free and open Indo-Pacific” and freedom of navigation on the high seas (Al Jazeera, Oct.17).
Two weeks back, the U.S. and Canada each sent a warship through the Taiwan Strait.
Of course, China sees such naval activity as a provocation. The Chinese military condemned the action saying the North American nations were threatening peace and stability in the region.
[Just imagine how much outcry it would generate in Canada and the U.S. if Chinese warships suddenly appeared beyond territorial waters off Nova Scotia and the Statue of Liberty, New York!].
In the latest war of words, Biden categorically said at a CNN forum that the U.S. was committed to coming to Taiwan’s defence if it were attacked by the PRC. This was stretching the principle of “strategic ambiguity”.
View of Prospective US Ambassador to China
President Joe Biden’s choice to be US Ambassador to China [probably the most important diplomatic posting, given the current dismal state of US-China relations] Nicholas Burns has called for a continued commitment to the longstanding “One China Policy” [acknowledging China’s claim of sovereignty over Taiwan] but defended the United States’ right to increase security assistance to Taiwan amid Beijing’s robust actions towards the island.
Burns is a former undersecretary of state for political affairs and US ambassador to NATO and Greece. He served in the National Security Council and was the spokesman in the Department of State. He rose to be the third highest-ranking career official in the Department.
After retirement, he made a second career in the academic field. He was a professor of diplomacy and international politics at the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard.
“Beijing’s recent actions against Taiwan are especially objectionable,” Burns said. “The United States is right to continue to adhere to its one-China policy. But we’re also right to support the peaceful resolution of disputes in this region and to oppose unilateral actions that undermine the status quo and undermine the stability of the region” (CNN, Oct. 20).
Opinions of Foreign Policy/National Security Pundits
There has been a lot of apprehension regarding Taiwan in leading media platforms and academia.
In May, The Economist of London called the Taiwan Strait the most dangerous place on earth.
Germany’s leading news magazine Der Spiegel points to growing militarization in the Western Pacific with Taiwan as the centrepiece in the triangular relationship of tensions between the US and China and China and Taiwan [“The U.S. and China Face off in the Far East”, Oct. 15].
Council of Foreign Relations President Richard Haass, writing for Project Syndicate pleads for the classical middle path [ as does Nicholas Burns above ], i.e. preservation of the status quo.
Haass rejects a harder US posture by crossing Beijing’s red lines and backing Taiwanese independence. He advocates building up US military capabilities and warning Taipei to act cautiously.
Furthermore, “As much as China’s leaders want Taiwan, they also want to maintain power and the Communist Party’s political monopoly,” he elaborates. “A costly war of choice to conquer Taiwan could jeopardize this. But if Taiwan were to declare independence or the US were to recognize Taiwan as sovereign, many on the mainland would view an invasion of the island as a war of necessity. The goal of US policy should be to deter the former and avoid the latter” (“The Taiwan Triangle”, Oct. 18).
The “Powell Doctrine”
In this connexion, the foreign policy doctrine of restraint bequeathed by the late Gen. Colin Powell, the most prominent soldier-statesman of his generation, is still relevant today.
Powell set criteria to be considered before force is used. He saw war as a last resort.
He argued that extremely pertinent questions be asked before military force be employed:
- Are there important, clear-cut objectives that military forces could best accomplish?
- Would the likely benefits exceed the expected costs?
- How would the initial use of military force change the situation and what would be the consequences?
The Powell Doctrine has an eminent bearing on the gathering storm in the ‘Asia Pacific’ [which is a more precise regional term than the ‘Indo-Pacific’].
The Asia Pacific Turning into a Powder Keg
The astute pundit Van Jackson [ senior lecturer in International Relations at Victoria University of Wellington in New Zealand] has brilliantly analyzed the troubling geopolitical developments in the Asia Pacific – the proliferation of advanced missile technology, expansive nuclear modernization efforts, the rolling back of ‘democratization’, the waning of US economic influence – and how the U.S.’s inordinately militarized approach to these complex and vexing trends has exacerbated them [Foreign Affairs, Oct. 22.].
The Inevitability of Great Power Competition?
The neo-realist theoretician Professor John J. Mearsheimer at the University of Chicago has argued that great power [or superpower] strategic competition is inevitable [ Foreign Affairs, Nov./Dec. 2021 ]. His narrative is such that it nearly takes on the role of a self-fulfilling prophecy.
In fact, the dismal state of planet earth harassed by the Covid-19 pandemic and awesome climate change points to the necessity of cooperation instead of confrontation.
Panch Sheel to the Rescue
With a better government, Nepal could play a more positive and dynamic role in South Asia and the greater Asia Pacific. The basic tenets of an enlightened foreign policy should be governed by the universal principles of Pancha Sheel – the “Five Principles of Peaceful Coexistence” – first enunciated by the great Chinese statesman Zhou Enlai, formed the basis of the Non-Aligned Movement [NAM] and was unanimously adopted in 1957 by the UN General Assembly.
The Pancha Sheel states the following principles as the basis of relations between states [thus the abiding rules of international relations]:
- Mutual respect for each other’s territorial integrity and sovereignty
2. Mutual non-aggression
3. Mutual non-interference in each other’s internal affairs
4. Equality and cooperation for mutual benefit
5. Peaceful co-existence.
The Pancha Sheel could be a genuine basis to diffuse the escalating Sino-American Cold War. As another great statesman, then Indian Prime Minister Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru astutely formulated: “If these standards were generally approved in the common relations of all states, then certainly there would barely be any hostility and absolutely no conflict.”
The writer can be reached at: shashipbmalla@hotmail.com
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