The Need for a Yellow Warning Light in the Taiwan Strait

Tsai Ing-wen’s administration and pro-Taiwan forces in the U.S. have been making increasingly more small moves toward Taiwanese independence. Based on the Anti-Secession Law, mainland China has drawn a red line that Taiwan does not dare cross. However, Taiwan has been actively scheming and putting a great deal of thought into ways to “de-Sinicize” and hollow out the One-China Policy instead.

For example, advocates for Taiwan independence have separated Taiwan from the mainland in education and culture. In politics and foreign relations as well, they have taken various actions to diminish the mainland’s red line. These include both big moves, like seeking what it calls “international space” for Taiwan, and small tricks, like putting “Taiwan” in large print on its passports and changing Koxinga from a “national hero” into an “invader” in textbooks.*

American Pro-Taiwan forces are challenging the One-China policy as well, but it’s not because of shared values between the U.S. and Taiwan, as they claim. In the 1970s and 1980s, when the U.S. renounced Taiwan in order to establish diplomatic relations with mainland China and signed the Three Joint Communiqués which recognized the One-China policy, it did not do so out of sympathy, of course, but out of a strategic need to cozy up to China and put pressure on the Soviet Union during the Cold War. Afterward, the U.S. continuously sought closer political ties with Taiwan, and even increased arms sales to the Taiwanese military, completely violating its promise within the Aug. 17 communiqué to “gradually reduce its sale of arms to Taiwan.” Of course, this was not out of sympathy for Taiwanese “democracy,” but because of a geopolitical scheme to check China’s rise and maintain U.S. hegemony. Based on this reasoning, it is easy to understand why the more strained the U.S.-China relationship becomes, the more effort the U.S. devotes to manipulating the Taiwan issue.

What deserves noting is that, in the face of the mainland’s resolute determination to uphold unification of the country, Taiwan Independence supporters and foreign pro-Taiwan forces have been continuously making small pushes toward independence, while simultaneously making declarations that they have no intention of changing the status quo, that they are not seeking jurisprudential independence, or that they support the Three Joint Communiqués and respect the One-China policy, and more. Some people describe this as the “sliced sausage” strategy, because it involves engaging in and supporting Taiwanese independence in increments. The hidden reasoning of Taiwan independence advocates and American pro-Taiwan forces is that before they cut off that last slice of sausage, their actions can’t truly be considered separatist or supportive of Taiwanese independence. If they haven’t brushed up against that red line, then they’re still in the green; as long as they don’t openly call for legal independence of Taiwan, then they can act unimpeded, and the mainland will have no way to enact any practical response measures.

Approaching the situation in the Taiwan Strait with this kind of “red and green” binary thinking is extremely risky. With this kind of logic, Taiwan independence supporters and pro-Taiwan forces are trying to change the mainland’s bottom line from thick to thin. If openly declaring or supporting independence is the only action that crosses that red line, then all kinds of actions that are, in reality, working against the One-China policy are in the clear. Their wishful thinking is that if the “sausage” is all sliced up within that uninhibited and ever growing green zone, then when it is time to truly make that final cut, when the red line must be crossed, Taiwan independence will be like water in a ditch; even if the mainland tries to act against it, it will be too late.

Therefore, it is of utmost urgency that we tear down the U.S. and Taiwan’s binary “red and green” logic. For one thing, we need to further clarify what the red line is, and bar the U.S. and Taiwan from intentionally applying a limited understanding of it. For another, we must also define a yellow warning zone based on the red line which is established. Just like a traffic light, there should always be a yellow warning light between the red and the green signals. The yellow light’s purpose is to ensure that drivers brake in time, so that there is ample reaction time for vehicles meeting at the intersection.

The current situation in the Taiwan Strait is extremely complex, with many political and military forces intersecting; it is just like a traffic intersection, with its complex arrangement of roadways and multiple vehicles. A yellow warning light is absolutely essential. That’s the only way we can force those who intentionally use dubious and dangerous “sliced sausage” tactics to hit the brakes in time to prevent a terrible traffic accident in the Taiwan Strait.

*Editor’s note: Koxinga refers to a prince known internationally by his Dutch-Romanized honorific and who was a Chinese Ming loyalist who resisted the Qing conquest of China in the 17th century.

The author is a researcher and deputy director of the Institute of International Relations of the Shanghai Academy of Social Sciences.