On January 13th, 2024, Taiwan elected Lai Ching-te (賴清德), the former Vice President of Taiwan, as President of Taiwan. This election was historic, as it solidified the dominance the DPP, the Democratic Progressive Party, has had over the KMT, the Kuomintang, since 2016 [1]. Even so, Lai Ching-te only won roughly 40% of the vote, with the KMT candidate, Hou Yu-ih (侯友宜), winning 33.5% of the vote and the TPP (Taiwan People’s Party) candidate, Ko Wen-je (柯文哲), winning a surprising 26.5% of the vote [2].
While this election in part represents the positive power of Taiwan’s hard-fought democracy, on a broader scale, it is more so indicative of Taiwan's ongoing struggle for sovereignty. Chinese officials have released many statements leading up to and following Taiwan’s election, emphasizing President Xi Jinping’s ultimate goal of reunifying China and Taiwan (“台灣是中國的台灣”) and how unfit for the Taiwanese presidency China deems Lai Ching-te to be [3][4]. Furthermore, following the election, Oceanic country Nauru, one of Taiwan’s few remaining diplomatic allies, announced plans to cut ties with Taiwan, and instead establish diplomatic ties with China [5]. Despite the strides Taiwan has taken in the last 30 years to build up its government and identity as separate from China, China’s influence nevertheless remains a shadow on Taiwan’s accomplishments.
To learn more about the implications of Taiwan’s election, I sat down with Dr. Brent Christensen, former US Foreign Service Officer and former director of the American Institute in Taiwan.
Q: Why does China care so much about Taiwan? How might an invasion of Taiwan help mitigate the lingering effects of China’s “Century of humiliation?”
A: “It's a good question. I think that Taiwan is sort of the last piece of the puzzle, as it were, [for the PRC] to regain territory lost during what it regards as the “Century of humiliation.” It has become an article of faith in the PRC that Taiwan must be regained for the PRC to finish addressing the territorial losses that occurred during that century, when the PRC was weak and had to cede all these territories and [make] all these concessions to foreign powers. And although this has been a long-standing demand, [...] Xi Jinping has almost personalized it as something that is essential for his [...] dream for the “rejuvenation of the Chinese nation.” There are a lot of people who are suggesting that now that China has become so powerful, they will take action sooner rather than later to force the issue. But in my view, that is not the PRC’s inclination; peaceful reunification remains their priority. But Taiwan also remains a critical issue in the U.S.-China relationship. It is worth noting that the one most important issue when Kissinger was negotiating the terms for normalizing relations with the PRC [in 1972] was the status of Taiwan. I thought the way the [1972 Shanghai] communique was drafted and interpreted was a very elegant way of finessing that issue on which there was obviously no good way to completely resolve that issue. They just sort of agreed to disagree.”
Q: Moving to the US side of this conflict, what are the US’s primary interests in Taiwan?
A: “There are several factors that make Taiwan important to the United States. One of course is Taiwan’s success as a democracy; it scores number 1 in Asia on the Global Democracy Index, and number 10 worldwide. So that's a pretty impressive achievement, considering they didn't have their first direct election for president until 1996. Secondly, I think that policymakers recognize that Taiwan is an important security partner in the region. We have an explicit commitment in the Taiwan Relations Act [of 1979] that we will support Taiwan's self defense. It is a legal requirement spelled out in the Taiwan Relations Act that the U.S. will provide necessary support for Taiwan to maintain a sufficient self-defense capability. And I think there is a realization that if the US did not support Taiwan’s self-defense, it would call into question our [support for our] other allies in the region. There is also an important economic factor—Taiwan’s economic value to the U.S. and to the global economy was clearly underscored by the computer chip shortage that occurred a couple of years ago.
Indeed, there is now a broad awareness that Taiwan is an indispensable source of the most sophisticated semiconductors in the world. And it is the TSMC [Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company] that makes 90% of the chips that the world needs for everything from cars to computers to cell phones. I would point out that NVIDIA, which designs the majority of the chips that fuel the AI industry, has them all made by TSMC.”
Q: It is well-established that Taiwan is an essential factor in the global economy, despite it being such a small, young island. How did this happen?
A: “To some degree, this is due to the impressive success of Taiwan’s industrial policy. Economic Strategist Kwoh-Ting Li is the one who first conceived of the idea of setting up Taiwan’s science parks. And he was the one who invited Morris Chang, the founder of TSMC, to come to Taiwan and set up this company. But this could only have been done in the right sort of environment where there was already a lot of technical talent in Taiwan. The New York Times’ Tom Friedman wrote a column a few years ago where he said that Taiwan was fortunate not to have any natural resources except its people. [...] So Taiwan had to focus all of its attention on honing the skills of its people. There is a broad recognition that Taiwan has a lot of really impressively capable engineers and technical experts who were able to support these industrial goals. [...] After all, it is the semiconductors and all [the other tech products] that Taiwan produces that really makes the world’s high-tech industry work.”
Q: Shifting back to China, I want to talk about China’s current economy. In the last few years, we have seen numerous reports on China’s declining birth rates, aging population, and difficulties with its housing market. How might these difficulties change China’s strategy with an invasion of Taiwan?
A: “Actually, China’s economy needs Taiwan’s high-tech inputs. This has been described as a “silicon shield,” in that this critical need would perhaps prevent or delay a Chinese attack. Taiwan produces all of these high-end components that China's high-tech industry needs. So, China may impose export controls or bans on certain kinds of Taiwan exports, such as pineapples or wax apples. But they will never do that for the things they really need from Taiwan. They can make some of these components themselves, but they don't make them as well. [...] For example, all of the important parts of an iPhone—the lenses, the chips, the speakers, and the other things that make an iPhone work—all come from Taiwan. So [...] any actual military conflict would interrupt those supply chains or those exports in a way that would make a lot of these industries just collapse.”
I look forward to the next few months and the next few years, where the China-Taiwan conflict will undoubtedly step further onto the global stage, drawing support, censure, and action from all sides. In the end, however, I can only hope that we can all live to say “不是，台灣真的不是中國的台灣” (“No, Taiwan is really not China’s Taiwan”).
