The
great fictional detective Sherlock Holmes once solved a case on the basis of
something that did not happen: a dog
didn’t bark. Under normal circumstances,
most of us might regard a silent dog as a blessing. But as Holmes’ culprit discovered to his
sorrow, there can be a downside to an otherwise happy circumstance.
Take
the recent “shirtsleeve summit” between President Obama and China’s new
president, Xi Jinping, at the Sunnylands estate of deceased publisher Walter
Annenberg. Discussion of cybersecurity,
North Korea, climate change, and Chinese concerns about the US rebalance or
“pivot” to Asia dominated the two days’ proceedings at Sunnylands. Remarkably absent was any substantive
discussion of Taiwan.
Why
“remarkably”? Because Chinese bullying
of Taiwan has been a contentious issue between Washington and Beijing for more
than 60 years. Objectively, little has
changed. China continues its military
buildup across the Taiwan Strait opposite the island. China continues to restrict Taiwan’s
international space and to block its aspirations to play a role in regional and
global affairs commensurate to its wealth and the talents of its people. China
continues to regard Taiwan as a wayward province whose return to the motherland
is non-negotiable, no matter what the inhabitants of the island may want.
Chinese
sources speculate that at Sunnylands, Xi reiterated Chinese objections to US
arms sales to Taiwan. Even if this is
accurate, Taiwan seems to have been little more than an afterthought at the
summit.
Similarly,
in a major address earlier this year, Tom Donilon, Obama’s national security
advisor, gave a detailed explanation of the administration’s Asia policy
without the word “Taiwan” escaping his lips.
No reference to tensions between China and Taiwan, no reiteration of a
US interest in the peaceful resolution of differences between Beijing and
Taipei.
In
an important sense, Taiwan’s disappearance as a major source of China-US friction
is good news. As recently as the
mid-1990s, President Clinton felt compelled to send a naval task force steaming
toward the Taiwan Strait as a warning to Beijing to back off. US security analysts have long worried about
an armed clash with China touched off by the PRC’s relentless pressure on
Taiwan.
But
even good news can carry unfortunate repercussions. The relative eclipse of Taiwan as an irritant
in US-China relations and the welcome diminution of cross-Strait tensions
should not become an excuse for either the United States or the rest of the
world simply to forget Taiwan.
Taiwan’s
absence from important international forums works to everyone’s
disadvantage. Earlier this year, for
instance, a Taiwanese businessman contracted the H7N9 strain of bird flu while
visiting the mainland. According to the
World Health Organization (WHO), this strain of bird flu is highly lethal and
more easily transmitted to humans than earlier strains. Bird flu does not respect passports or
national boundaries; every person around the globe has a personal stake in the
effort to understand and contain this disease.
Yet China continues to block Taiwan’s membership in the WHO, the
international organization best placed to track the spread of H7N9.
Nor
is Taiwan permitted to ratify the United Nations Convention on the Law of the
Sea (UNCLOS), although Taipei voluntarily adheres to UNCLOS guidelines. In May, a Taiwanese fisherman was shot to
death by a Filipino coastguard vessel in waters that both Taiwan and the Philippines
claim as their exclusive economic zone.
For several weeks tensions between these two US friends soared to
dangerous levels; Taiwan slapped sanctions on Manila and conducted naval
exercises in the contested waters, while hackers on both sides launched cyber
attacks on the other. Formal Taiwanese
membership in UNCLOS might not have prevented the fisherman’s death, but it
almost certainly would have provided diplomatic and legal mechanisms to defuse
the situation before it assumed crisis proportions.
In
like fashion, Taiwan is barred from the International Civil Aviation
Organization, even as an observer, even though 40 million travelers each year
pass through air space monitored by Taiwan’s civil aviation trafficking
authorities.
Even
on trade, Taiwan is relegated to the sidelines.
While the United States and Taiwan enjoy robust bilateral trade
relations, amounting to $85 billion in goods and services in 2011, the Obama
administration has displayed no interest in having Taiwan join the negotiations
on the Trans-Pacific Partnership, the signature economic component of the
administration’s rebalance. More
broadly, Taiwan’s place in the rebalance remains undefined.
US
presidents from Nixon to Obama have found compelling reasons of “realpolitik” to
court China, even when doing so has meant disadvantaging our friends on
Taiwan. In recent years such reasoning
has been based upon the belief that the future of the 21st century may well be determined by
the nature of the bilateral US-China relationship, which is now and will be for
the foreseeable future a rocky one.
Facing
these obstacles, Taiwan must seize opportunities where it can. This it does not always easy to do. I recently participated
in an overseas meeting of think tanks from more than 20 Asian countries. Several Taiwanese think tanks were invited to
attend but never responded to the invitations.
Undoubtedly complex political calculations lay behind the decision not
to participate. Yet, one can’t help
considering this a missed opportunity.
Xi
Jinping has spoken cryptically of the need for “a new type of great-power
relationship” governing ties between China and the United States. Analysts hoped that the Chinese leader would
fill in the blanks on what he has in mind during his recent meeting with
Obama. Whatever greater understanding
emerged from Sunnylands, however, gauging Chinese intentions and the sweep of
Beijing’s ambitions remains very much a work in progress.
But
several things seem certain. The United
States is closely linked to Taiwan by political and strategic considerations,
economic interest, family ties, and a common allegiance to political freedom
and individual dignity. Americans justly
applaud the remarkable economic and political transformation that has, in a
single generation, produced an economic miracle and a beacon of democracy in
Taiwan.
In
its quite proper desire to create a workable long-term relationship with the
rising power in Beijing, Washington, like Sherlock Holmes, must be mindful that
even a dog that doesn’t bark may still have much of importance to tell us. In pursuit of new partners on the
international scene, we must not forget old friends.
