A Small Carrot and a Big Stick: China’s recent reassertion of it’s One-China policy.
How China tightening its grip on Hong Kong has further alienated Taiwan.
For over a century, from 1842–1949, China existed as a fractured nation, with some areas controlled by foreign imperial powers and others by local warlords. Despite unifying the Chinese mainland in the mid 20th Century, China’s ruling party, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), holds the view that China is still a fractured nation, considering Taiwan to be a fundamental part of China. Historically, Taiwan has been considered part of China. However, when the nationalist Kuomintang (KMT) government lost the civil war against the communists in 1949, they took the Chinese fleet and gold reserves and fled, establishing an autonomous state in Taiwan. In response to this, the CCP adopted the One China policy which committed mainland China to one day reunify with Taiwan, be it peacefully or otherwise.
In addition to Taiwan, up until the late 1990’s Hong Kong and Macau remained sovereign territory of Great Britain and Portugal respectively. When these territories were handed back to the Chinese in 1997 and 1999, a new policy was adopted in order to protect the long-held rights and freedoms of their citizens. A policy of One Country, Two systems. Under this policy, the territories would be allowed to retain their way of life for a period of 50 years, allowing them to maintain their own legal system and rights, including freedom of assembly and freedom of speech. This would have left Hong Kong unchanged until 2047.
Unfortunately this was not to be. In June 2020 China violated the terms of its agreement with the Great Britain and extended its anti-sedition laws to Hong Kong, effectively allowing the Chinese government to imprison anyone who spoke out against them. This came after nearly a year of student protests in response to creeping Chinese influence and was imposed with the intention of stamping out any opposition to the CCP in Hong Kong. Thereby ending Hong Kong’s independent legal system and the right to freedom of speech in of Hong Kong, ushering in a new system of repression for its citizens.
Prior to China backtracking on the agreement, One Country, Two systems had offered a glimmer of hope for those seeking the reunification of China and Taiwan. It was proof that freedoms and systems of democratic rule could coexist with the mainland’s authoritarian one party state. Until it wasn’t. China’s violation of its commitments has effectively thrown any hope for peaceful reunification of China and Taiwan out of the window and has meant that China has had to reevaluate its approach to its One China policy.
Taiwan’s offer of refuge to the people of Hong Kong has further escalated already heightened tensions between itself and China. In March 2019 China’s airforce sent jets over the centreline between itself and Taiwan for the first time in 20 years. With Chinese Premier Xi Jinping having previously linked Chinese reunification with his vision of national rejuvenation, his recent actions in Hong Kong have justifiably set off alarm bells in Taiwan.
“What China is doing now is continuing to ramp up preparedness to solve the Taiwan issue”
“The threat is on the rise.”
Taiwan Foreign Minister Joseph Wu, July 22, 2020.
Elsewhere, China’s island building campaign and forceful assertion of its frankly ridiculous territorial claims in the South China Sea have been met with little to no action by the international community. China has repeatedly ignored the ruling of the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea, which stated that China’s expansion in the area violates UN law. The violation of this international convention is not only a testament to China’s disregard for its commitment to uphold international order, but has also served to further embolden China to flaunt other international agreements, as we have seen in Hong Kong.
Farther afield China continues to isolate Taiwan diplomatically, with only 15 countries in the world still recognising Taiwan as the “real” China. Despite the fact that Taiwan is the 21st largest economy in the world (according to IMF 2019 statistics), it is excluded from all major global organisations. Taiwan was even excluded from the World Health Assembly in Geneva at the height of the Coronavirus crisis, despite the Island’s exemplary containment of the virus.
In recent years China has taken great pride in its ability to flaunt international agreements at virtually no cost. Hong Kong is merely the latest example of this. It has exposed how weak the international system is in responding to those who violate its conventions and agreements. Perhaps this will embolden to China to move to seize Taiwan in a similar way to the Russian seizure of Crimea in 2014. Although I expect Taiwan would have something to say about that. And so we must ask ourselves, how long before creeping expansion becomes something more?
In order to protect Taiwan from further Chinese expansionism the West must reaffirmed its commitment to uphold international order and defend national self determination in Asia. Firstly, this means a reversal of isolationist rhetoric in the West such as “America First”. Second, international organisations need to be given real authority to punish countries that violate international agreements. Third and finally, the West must cooperate in order to present a united front against an increasingly powerful and threatening China. These measures are vital if we are to protect global values of freedom and democracy from global authoritarian threats.
