CRG Weekly: Taiwan, US-China talks and coal support
News from the China Research Group
New event: COP26 and China: what does success look like? Join us for our pre-COP26 briefing on Monday 25 October at 3pm BST. Register here. Speakers include:
Amber Rudd, former Home Secretary and Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change during Paris climate negotiations
Isabel Hilton, founder of think tank China Dialogue
Alex Wang, Professor of Law at UCLA and a leading expert on environmental law and the law and politics of China, will make up the panel for this crucial discussion.
Next event: Banking on the Belt and Road. We will be dissecting China’s overseas lending with the AidData team, following the release of their groundbreaking report last week. The event will take place, virtually, on Monday 18 October at 4pm BST. Register here.
The week in review
The week began with a record number of Chinese planes entering Taiwan’s Air Defence Identification Zone (ADIZ). By Monday, almost 150 Chinese aircraft had been sent into the ADIZ in what was seen as a warning to Taiwanese President Tsai Ing-Wen ahead of Taiwan’s National Day celebrations. Analysts have suggested that Taiwan - which the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) views as a breakaway province - is increasingly perceived by Beijing as moving towards a formal declaration of independence under Tsai’s Democratic Progressive Party (DPP).
Tsai penned an article in Foreign Affairs magazine this week warning there would be "catastrophic" consequences for peace and democracy in Asia if the island were to fall to China. She has maintained that Taiwan does not require a formal declaration of independence as the island already has its own constitution, military, and democratically-elected leaders. However, the fact that her Defence minister, Chiu Kuo-cheng, warned this week that China-Taiwan military tensions are at their worst for 40 years and that China will be capable of mounting a full-scale invasion of the island by 2025 suggests that the existing status quo may be coming under threat.
The Biden administration, which has somewhat ambiguous defence obligations to Taiwan through the Taiwan Relations Act, was quick to express its concerns over the recent deterioration in cross-strait relations. These concerns were relayed by Jake Sullivan, the US national security adviser to Yang Jiechi, China’s top foreign policy official, in Switzerland on Wednesday as the two countries made a commitment to engage in constructive dialogue at a senior level. Biden, who is scheduled to meet Xi Jinping for virtual talks later this year, said that he and Xi had agreed to abide by the “Taiwan agreement.”
The relationship between the US and Taiwan has been one of (deliberate) ‘strategic ambiguity’. The US supports a “One-China policy,” which asserts that China and Taiwan are parts of a single sovereign state. This entails the US seeking political solutions to Taiwan-related issues, rather than a declaration of Taiwanese independence or the forcible reunification of Taiwan with China.
As the PRC under Xi continues to push towards a forceful unification through both mouth and deed, this default position of strategic ambiguity is likely to grow more difficult to sustain. A Wall Street Journal exclusive this week revealed that the US has already been proactively strengthening its military ties with the island through secretly training Taiwanese troops.
Whilst the US government is routinely questioned about Taiwan and cross-strait relations, the topic is rarely high on the agenda in the UK. Earlier this year, the UK government set out the foreign, defence, security, and international development policies for the next decade in its Integrated Review. The document did not contain a single mention of Taiwan across its 112 pages.
Direct military partnerships and actions, such as AUKUS and the HMS Richmond sailing through the Taiwan Strait last week, go some way to emphasising the UK’s commitment to freedom of navigation and international law in the South China Sea. Whilst such moves inevitably incur Beijing’s ire and potentially push conflict over Taiwan closer, as former Prime Minister Theresa May pointed out in the wake of the signing of the nascent trilateral defence pact, there are other forms of security cooperation that the UK can play a leading role in.
For example, alliances such as the D10, initiated by Prime Minister Boris Johnson to facilitate cooperation amongst leading democracies on issues such as 5G and supply chain security could be expanded through clever diplomacy to include Taiwan, a leading player in semiconductor technology and cyber governance. The UK and Taiwan will hold annual trade talks later this month - this represents the ideal opportunity to discuss both countries’ accession to the CPTPP and the scope for deeper cooperation this multilateral trade agreement could provide.
Taiwan continues to be excluded from the WHO despite its stellar record on the Covid-19 pandemic. While Beijing will never accept Taiwan’s formal entry into organisations that require statehood, other forms of participation could be pushed for by the UK and its allies for the benefit of the international community.
In recent months, many ideas and reports have been tabled as to how the UK should manage its relationship with an increasingly assertive China across various sectors. Taiwan is on the frontline of many of these contestations - with experience of recognising and countering threats such as foreign interference and disinformation - and yet we have often found it a comfortable position to ignore its plight altogether because it is perceived as a unique CCP “red line”.
Whilst it’s natural that the UK follows the lead of the US on the major cross-straits issues, enhanced support for Taiwan at least warrants more of a mention in policymaking circles. If the Government is serious about its tilt to the Indo-Pacific, it would do well to begin considering responses to a regional security dilemma that is showing signs of becoming a global flashpoint.
In brief
New foreign secretary Liz Truss set out her agenda with an emphasis on strengthening existing alliances and securing new partnerships with like-minded democracies to counter the influence of China and Russia. Speaking at the Conservative Party Conference this week, she also called for building domestic resilience in key areas to reduce dependence on authoritarian regimes
US trade representative Katherine Tai criticised China for not adhering to all its purchasing commitments made in “phase one” during the Trump era before yesterday’s talks with Chinese counterpart, Liu He, in which she addressed US complaints about China’s trade and subsidy practices. The state-run Global Times praised Tai for her unwillingness to “inflame trade tensions” with Beijing, labelling her speech a positive sign for further bilateral cooperation.
As winter creeps closer, China’s energy crisis showed little sign of abating, forcing the Chinese government to finally unload Australian coal that had been stranded at the ports for almost a year following a collapse in relations. Domestically, Beijing reportedly ordered China's coal mines to boost output. According to Reuters, North China's Inner Mongolia region has told more than 70 mines to boost annual output capacity by nearly 100 million tonnes.
Xi Jinping shuffled the pack in a move seen by experts as a consolidation of his control within the party ahead of the 20th Party Congress next Autumn. Former Minister of Justice Fu Zhenghua was purged while new leaders were appointed in the provinces of Anhui, Shandong, Xinjiang, and Zhejiang.
Japan and the UK held their first joint submarine warfare exercise in Japanese waters as part of their “freedom of navigation” operations. HMS Queen Elizabeth also performed historic drills with two US aircraft carriers and Japanese big-deck warships, along with vessels from Canada, New Zealand, and the Netherlands in the Western Pacific.
In a week in which EU leaders met in Slovenia to discuss Europe’s role on the international stage, NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg told Politico that China is not an adversary and cooperation on issues such as climate change and arms control will be crucial.
Fears over the health of China’s property market remained as Fantasia, another heavily debt-laden property developer looked set to default, while Evergrande’s shares were suspended ahead of a “major deal”. Investors remain anxious as they continue to monitor the possibility of the Evergrande fallout spreading beyond the property sector.
The national security law crackdown in Hong Kong continued with the proposal of a new megacourt to deal with mass protest arrests from 2019. Chief Executive Carrie Lam gave her last annual policy report, hailing a “new era” for Hong Kong as she pushed for Article 23 of the Basic Law and other legal initiatives to combat “local terrorism” and “fake news”.
The CIA announced a major new China-focused mission centre. The agency will create two new mission centres, one focused on China, the other focused on emerging technology, climate change and global health. CIA director Bill Burns said the spy agency would be at “the forefront” of “facing our toughest geopolitical test in a new era of great power rivalry”.
Huawei won the rights to build Europe's first 5G smart railway port in Hungary. The signing of a cooperation agreement with Hungary's East-West Intermodal Logistics and British telecommunications operator Vodafone will pave the way for a joint effort to build Europe's first smart railway hub managed by a 5G private network.
Weekend reads
As China stumbles, the West must ask: what if its rise is not inevitable? Jeremy Cliffe asks what it would mean if the assumptions about China’s inexorable rise are disproved over the coming decades in the New Statesman.
Common prosperity did not fall from the sky. Earlier this year China celebrated the eradication of extreme poverty and announced a new goal of “common prosperity”. MERICS Senior Associate Fellow Bert Hofman assesses the meaning behind the slogan and the options at China’s disposal for reaching that goal.
Britain could move faster on China. The China Research Group’s Julia Pamilih discusses China’s direction under Xi and ways in which the UK can build resilience to reduce strategic dependence.
Podcasts
China’s love-hate relationship with coal. On this week’s China-Africa Podcast, Rishikesh Ram Bhandary from Boston University’s Global Economic Governance Initiative analyses the complex, confusing role that coal plays in Chinese energy policy.
South Korea: the tech powerhouse on the cyber frontline. Asia Matters delves into how South Korea became one of the most influential tech powers in the world and how it’s working with the international community to build up the world’s tech infrastructure.
The Chinese love of drinking. Cindy Yu and Janet Z Wang mull over the history of Chinese drinking and how drinking culture in China has been perceived over time in the latest Chinese Whispers podcast.