A dangerous flirtation with Taiwan

China

Ling Shengli

Global Times

The U.S. is treading perilously close to a “radical change” in its relations with Taiwan, said Ling Shengli. The U.S. House of Representatives has already passed the Taiwan Travel Act, which encourages high-level diplomatic visits between America and Taiwan, and the Senate will soon vote on the legislation. If that bill becomes law, it would represent a “serious deviation from the ‘One China’ policy,” under which the U.S. has formal ties with China rather than the breakaway island of Taiwan. From 1949 until the 1970s, the U.S. recognized the impostor government in Taiwan instead of China’s true government in Beijing, a historical error that must never be repeated. Even after the U.S. opened diplomatic relations with China in the ’70s, it continued to test Chinese resolve over Taiwan, selling advanced weaponry to the island. But no U.S. administration has gone as far as that of President Trump, who actually “tried to make the ‘One China’ policy a tradable good between Beijing and Washington,” as if China’s core interest in Taiwan could ever be up for negotiation. If the U.S. passes this law and sends a top official to Taiwan, Beijing will be forced to take “all possible countermeasures”—including uniting China and Taiwan “by military force.”