Wednesday, August 3, 2022

Opinion Today: Will this be the spark that flares a U.S.-China confrontation?

Inside the growing tension around Taiwan.

By Dan Martin

Senior staff editor

Imagine the American Civil War never really ended.

The Union Army triumphed on the battlefield, but the Confederacy, instead of surrendering, fled to Florida and dug in across a militarized panhandle, and a lengthy stalemate ensued.

It's an imperfect analogy to apply to the seven-decade rift between Taiwan and China, but it has some value in helping to fathom the intensity of the blood-and-soil passions underlying the dispute.

Those passions are threatening to erupt into open conflict between China and the United States. China has intensified military, diplomatic and economic pressure on Taiwan in recent years as part of a long-term strategy to isolate and someday reclaim the democratically ruled island. President Biden has responded by pledging that the United States would militarily defend Taiwan in the event of a Chinese attack.

And now Nancy Pelosi, the speaker of the House, has thrown more potential fuel on the fire with a trip to Taiwan, meant to reinforce U.S. support. China has responded with plans for military drills near the island.

We assess these tensions in a pair of contrasting essays. Bonnie Glaser and Zack Cooper, experts on China, argued last week that Pelosi's trip would raise the risk of a superpower confrontation and should be postponed. They urged the Biden administration to lower temperatures by crafting a clear U.S. policy on Taiwan based on a commitment to a peaceful solution.

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In a guest essay this week, Senator Robert Menendez, the chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, takes a different tack, arguing for stronger U.S. security cooperation with Taiwan.

The rift between China and Taiwan dates to 1949, when China's previous Nationalist government fled to the island and established itself there after losing a civil war to the Communists. President Xi Jinping appears more intent than ever to reabsorb Taiwan, which could not only trigger a China-U.S. war but also, if Xi is successful, douse the island's vibrant democracy and upend security in East Asia.

I've spent time on both sides of this divide.

I moved to Taipei in the 1990s to study Chinese, working nights as an editor at a local English daily newspaper. Taiwan was obsessed with China, and each day's paper featured a banner headline for even the most insignificant developments in the dispute. Back then, many in Taiwan still clung to the fantasy that Taiwan's government would someday reconquer China after the inevitable Communist collapse. It hasn't quite worked out that way.

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Later, I reported for a decade in China and was consistently struck by how strongly the country's people insisted that the rupture with Taiwan was a gaping national wound, like losing a limb. Memories last in an ancient culture.

Going back to the U.S. Civil War analogy: Would the United States stand by while a foreign power — let's say China, for argument's sake — sold weapons to Florida, pledged to protect it from the United States and took actions that implicitly encouraged its independence? Or would it provoke America?

Let's hope cooler heads prevail.

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