Sponsored by:
9/18/20 9:00am-10:00am
Yu-Jie Chen: “One China” Contention in China-Taiwan Relations: Law, Politics and Identity
9/18/20 10:00am-11:00am
Jarrod Hayes: Security and “One China”: Reconfigurations of Self and Other in the United States
Nominally, the United States’ policy toward China and Taiwan is governed by the “One China” conceit. This concept drives formal policy and diplomatic structures—formal recognition of China but informal ties with Taiwan, for example—and as a consequence appears foundational to overall U.S. policy regarding the Sino-Taiwanese relationship. The emergence and observation of “One China” corresponded with the American focus on engagement with China. Over time, the discursive constructions of China and Taiwan have changed, with ramifications for present and future policy. Drawing on securitization theory, this paper examines security discourses across multiple U.S. presidential administrations (Bush, Obama, and Trump) to assess the trajectory of socio-political constructions of China and Taiwan. Focal points include the 2004-2005 Taiwanese ‘defensive referendum’ and the Chinese response, 2008 Taiwanese referendum to join United Nations as ‘Taiwan,‘ 2016 election of Taiwanese President Tsai Ing-wen, the passage of the Taiwan Travel Act in 2018, and a series of de-recognitions of Taiwan by Central American countries. Securitizing moves in these cases suggests substantial challenges for the One China Policy and points to the potential outlines of U.S. policy in future crises. Specifically, discourses of ‘engagement’ have lost ground, and China is increasingly constructed as a direct threat to the United States. In this context, Taiwan is increasingly constructed as akin to the American self, serving as an identity proxy that highlights the otherness of the PRC and reinforces the construction of threat.
9/18/20 11:00am-12:00pm
Dalton Lin: “One China” and a Cross-Taiwan Strait Commitment Problem
This paper argues that Beijing’s insistence on the one–China principle and Taiwan’s democratization have transformed the cross-strait dispute from an issue of indivisible sovereignty to an issue of a commitment problem. The PRC worries that any concessions on its one–China principle would enhance Taiwan’s international legitimacy and enable the island to re-launch its push for de jure independence with an improved standing. In contrast, Taiwan worries that concessions to the one–China principle would enhance China’s claim over the island and allow Beijing to resume its push for unification with fewer concerns about an international backlash. This paper argues this is a quintessential commitment problem in international politics, and the two sides of the Taiwan Strait need to find ways to circumvent the commitment problem to reach a middle ground.
9/18/20 12:00pm-1:00pm
Scott L. Kastner, Margaret M. Pearson, Laura Phillips-Alvarez, Guan Wang, and Joseph Yinusa: Taiwan and the “One China” principle in the age of coronavirus: assessing the determinants and limits of Chinese influence
During the current global coronavirus crisis, Taiwan has portrayed itself as both an example for other countries to follow and as a country willing to assist others in their own efforts with the virus. Taiwan has also renewed efforts to participate in the World Health Organization (WHO), an organization from which it is currently excluded. Although some countries have supported Taiwan’s efforts to participate in the WHO or have praised its coronavirus reponse, others have been silent or even critical, sometimes citing commitments to a “one China” principle. In this paper, we use newly collected data to explore cross-national variation in support for Taiwan during the current pandemic. We find that a country’s level of economic development, level of democracy, and security ties with the US are generally correlated with support for Taiwan; a country’s economic ties to China, on the other hand, appear to have little effect.
9/25/20 9:00am-10:00am
Mikulas Fabry: One–China Policies of Foreign States and the International Status of Taiwan
This paper argues that even when formally noncommittal with respect to the competing cross-strait claims concerning Taiwan’s position vis-à-vis mainland China, One China policies of foreign states have, over time, eroded Taiwan’s global standing. Designed in most cases to accommodate the inescapable importance of mainland China, these policies have congealed into an international normative framework steadily marginalizing Taiwan legally, politically and institutionally, turning it into a de facto state with only a limited set of rights. Still, adhering to the notion of One China is Taiwan’s most viable option for maintaining its de facto independence, the short- and medium-term goal of nearly all Taiwanese political forces. Any act of the Taipei government that would be internationally interpreted as a unilateral attempt to alter Taiwan’s international status – for years fervently opposed by even the closest partners of the Taipei government – can be expected to result in Taiwan facing mainland China alone. This is not simply because of the latter’s power and geopolitical weight: International society has been exhibiting overwhelming opposition to unilateral changes of statehood, even when the contending parties are weak and of relatively marginal importance, for 60 years. It is improbable that the case of Taiwan would deviate from that highly consistent global record. As paradoxical as it may seem, One China – today and for the foreseeable future – is both a straitjacket and the best means of protection for Taiwan. Given this reality and given the fact that the main Taiwanese factions have yet to agree on what the final status of Taiwan ought to be, the most favorable path forward for Taiwan is a comprehensive long-term bargain with mainland China that would expressly define and thus institutionalize and stabilize what is at the root of cross-strait antagonisms: the lack of an agreed-upon One China framework between the two sides.
9/25/20 10:00am-11:00am
Adam P. Liff: Japan’s Relations with Taiwan: Past, Present, and Future
This study draws extensively on Chinese, Japanese, and Taiwanese sources previously untapped in existing English-language scholarship to analyze Japan’s relations with Taiwan since Tokyo moved in 1972 to establish diplomatic relations with the People’s Republic of China while maintaining unofficial ties with Taipei—a playbook from which Washington borrowed heavily six years later. Drawing clear and often-overlooked distinctions between the PRC’s “One China Principle” and Japan’s “One China” policy on the one hand, and the differential approaches adopted by Tokyo and Washington to the allies’ respective “One China” policies on the other, this study is divided into two parts: First, it examines the post-1972 history of Japan-Taiwan relations and how they have affected China-Japan relations (and, by extension, U.S.-China relations) over the past half-century. It unpacks the logic informing Japan’s policy decisions and discusses how they differed from that shaping Washington’s policy choices. Second, it examines how that logic—and the policies Tokyo has adopted toward Taipei—has evolved in a post-Cold War context, including up to the present. Beyond their relevance to important theoretical debates regarding “One China,” related issues carry significant implications not only for Japan-Taiwan relations but also for relations among the world’s three largest economic powers; the prospects for new avenues for cooperation among liberal democracies to emerge in an era of deepening competition between authoritarian and democratic states; and U.S.-Japan-China relations more generally.
9/25/20 11:00am-12:00pm
Scott A.W. Brown: Accident Rather than Design? A Subsystems Analysis of the EU’s One–China Policy/Policies
The very nature of the European Union’s foreign policymaking system – comprising of national, intergovernmental and supranational actors and processes – entails that the maintenance of coherent common positions is often difficult. The One China policy is no exception. As the EU-PRC relationship became more fraught in recent years, this particular policy began to show cracks. This paper employs the foreign policymaking subsystems framework, which starts from the position that the EU has foreign policies – rather than a single foreign policy – created through different venues, the output of which represents more than the lowest common denominator between Member States. The EU’s system is unique as the Member States’ national foreign policies are not overridden by the collective position, instead the two co-exist – sometimes uneasily. This analytical approach demonstrates that although the One China framework prevails, there is evidence that full adherence to it has begun to weaken within Europe, and the edges are fraying as different actors pull at different threads. Rather than a strategic decision to bolster relations with Taiwan, Europe’s approach has been changed by incremental moves by Member States and EU institutions. The differences between the EU-level and Member State policies have created a problem for the coherence of its policies toward the PRC and ROC and undermined the EU’s role as a strategic actor in its relations with the rising China.