The Taiwan tangle for US and China

The Biden administration has proposed $750 million weapons sale to Taiwan, a move likely to fuel tensions with Beijing further. The deal includes Medium Self-Propelled Howitzer Systems and related equipment. If concluded, this proposed sale will contribute to the modernisation of Taiwan's Howitzer fleet, strengthening its self-defence capabilities to meet current and future threats. It is being said that the Biden administration is trying to get its strategy right in the Indo-Pacific.

Taiwan is one pawn in the hands of the US that it could exploit to the hilt in giving sleepless nights to Chinese leadership. This is in continuation of the Donald Trump policy. Biden is just replicating the Trump policy in the region with greater intent. The US has been arming Taiwan for that matter since long. The modernisation of the Taiwanese forces by the US is a continuous process as it has been supplying F-16 fighter jets, Abrams tanks, portable Stinger anti-aircraft missiles and torpedoes etc.

Taiwan has been governed independently of mainland China, officially the People's Republic of China (PRC), since 1949. The PRC views the island as a renegade province and vows to eventually "unify" Taiwan with the mainland. In Taiwan, which has its own democratically elected government and is home to 23 million people, political leaders have differing views on the island's status and relations with the mainland. Cross-strait tensions have escalated since the election of Taiwanese President Tsai Ing-wen in 2016. Tsai has refused to accept a formula that her predecessor, Ma Ying-jeou, endorsed to allow for increased cross-strait ties. Meanwhile, Beijing has taken increasingly aggressive actions, including by flying fighter jets near the island.

As some analysts fear, any attack by China on Taiwan might draw the US into it. President Xi Jinping had reiterated often that "we do not promise to renounce the use of force and reserve the option to use all necessary measures." Yet this threat to Taiwan receives little international attention. "To say that the world has underestimated the severity of this flashpoint and that there's the potential for war over Taiwan is a underestimation. The US is welcome to supply arms to Taiwan if it feels that China has to be contained. But Taiwan should also not be naive to believe in the US for its security.

Hardly 15 countries recognize it and the list does not include even the US and India. Taiwan should look at the other trouble-spots of the world like Afghanistan, Syria, Iraq etc., who have all been ditched by the international players on one pretext or the other. Taiwan's KMT-drafted constitution (Kuomintang Constitution) continues to recognize China, Mongolia, Taiwan, Tibet, and the South China Sea as part of the Republic of China. The KMT does not support Taiwan's independence and has consistently called for closer ties with Beijing.

But in the face of recent election losses, KMT leaders have discussed whether to change the party's stance on the 1992 Consensus.The KMT's chief rival party, the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP), has never endorsed the understanding laid out in the 1992 Consensus. President Tsai, who is also the leader of the DPP, has refused to explicitly accept the consensus. Taiwan's freedom depends on China's intentions, but on the US interventions anyway.