China reacted with anger and dismay when the US State Department criticized the "Anti-Secession" Law recently passed by the National People's Congress. Chinese officials protested that, contrary to US complaints, the law did not change the status quo regarding Taiwan. Indeed, they insisted that the legislation reinforced the status quo.
The Chinese are probably sincere. Yet this underscores a larger -- and potentially very dangerous -- problem. Beijing, Taipei and Washington all insist that they oppose any unilateral action that alters the status quo, but the three capitals interpret the status quo in vastly different ways. That creates considerable potential for misunderstanding and recrimination -- or worse.
When US officials speak of the status quo, they mean a willingness by all parties to tolerate indefinitely Taiwan's ambiguous political status. In other words, that it should continue to enjoy its de facto independence (but not internationally recognized legal independence) until Taipei and Beijing can agree on a peaceful resolution of the dispute.
That rationale enables Washington to acknowledge Beijing's position that there is only one China and that Taiwan is part of it while continuing to sell arms to Taiwan and maintaining an implicit commitment to defend it against a Chinese military assault. Taiwan's attempts to push the envelope regarding independence are considered disruptive and undesirable, but so too is any attempt by China to compel unification. That is why the US has admonished both capitals in the past year over their behavior.
The People's Republic of China (PRC) has a radically different definition of the status quo. As one Chinese official put it, "the status quo of cross-straits relations is that both sides of the [Taiwan] Strait belong to one and the same China ... a status quo not defined by other countries such as the United States, nor by the Taiwan leaders."
To Beijing, the status quo is a synonym for a "one China" policy and eventual "reunification" with Taiwan. Anything that challenges the concept of one China is, therefore, an unacceptable attempt to alter the status quo. Thus, from the perspective of Chinese leaders, the Anti-Secession Law is not disruptive; it merely re-emphasizes the only acceptable political outcome: reunification. Conversely, even the mildest actions by Taiwan to gain international recognition are a threat and must be resisted.
Taiwan's concept of the status quo is exactly the opposite. Officials routinely argue that the status quo means Taiwan's independence. They point out that the Republic of China (ROC) has been in existence since 1912, and that a number of countries in the world still recognize the ROC as an independent state.
As supporting evidence for the proposition that the status quo means an independent Taiwan, one official stressed that since 1996, Taiwan has held fully democratic elections "within specified boundaries by specified citizens for a government exercising exclusive control over a territory."
Unification with China, according to Taipei, is only one outcome among many to be negotiated by the governments of two independent and equal states. From Taiwan's perspective, the Anti-Secession Law is an aggressive and threatening attempt to alter the status quo, while Taiwanese efforts to secure international recognition by joining the UN and other international organizations are consistent with the status quo.
Unfortunately, Beijing, Taipei, and Washington do not seem to grasp that they have very different concepts in mind when they all speak of preserving the status quo. Serious diplomatic quarrels and armed conflicts have begun over less significant misunderstandings. That danger is becoming acute with regard to Taiwan.
Ted Galen Carpenter is vice president of defense and foreign policy studies at the Cato Institute in Washington.
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