The US Department of State on May 5 published a new version of the “US Relations with Taiwan” fact sheet on its Web site. The updated version expunged several statements from the former text which dates back to Aug. 31, 2018. The deleted passages were that the US “acknowledges the Chinese position that there is but one China and Taiwan is part of China,” and that the US “does not support Taiwan independence.”
In their place, the text now reads: “The United States has a longstanding one China policy, which is guided by the Taiwan Relations Act, the three US-China Joint Communiques, and the Six Assurances.”
After the fact sheet was updated Beijing appeared flustered and agitated, and lashed out at the US. In stark contrast, Washington calmly reiterated that the US’ “one China policy” is distinct from China’s “one China principle,” and added that its “one China policy” has not changed.
Washington was simply spelling out a plain truth that Beijing finds hard to swallow — that the US, under its longstanding “one China” policy, has never recognized that Taiwan is part of China.
Beijing’s “one China principle” contains three elements: there is only one China in the world; The People’s Republic of China (PRC) is the sole legal representative government of China; and Taiwan is an inseparable part of Chinese sovereign territory.
Washington’s “one China” policy is structured around a global consensus that recognizes the first two elements of Beijing’s “one China principle,” but categorically rejects the third.
The US’ “one China policy” and Beijing’s “one China principle” are as different as chalk and cheese.
On establishing diplomatic relations with the PRC, most major nations deployed subtle phraseology in the official communique with China to circumvent Beijing’s position that “Taiwan is an inseparable part of Chinese sovereign territory.”
In a communique with the PRC, the then-Canadian government stated that it would “take note of” Beijing’s position. Italy, Chile, Belgium, Peru, Lebanon, Iceland, Argentina, Greece and several other nations adopted Canada’s wording in their communiques with China. The Japanese government used the phrase “understand and respect” — which was emulated by the Philippines, the Netherlands and several other nations.
The US, Australia, New Zealand, the UK, Spain, Malaysia, Thailand and a number of other nations used the word “acknowledge.”
One can see that foreign governments deployed deliberately equivocal language in the communiques and carefully avoided making any categorical statements that they “recognized” Beijing’s claim over Taiwan.
However, in an act of pathetic self-deception worthy of Ah Q — the protagonist in the novella The True Story of Ah Q by Chinese author Lu Xun (魯迅) — in each case, Chinese diplomats translated “take note of,” “understand and respect” and “acknowledge” with the word chengren (承認, recognize) in the Chinese-language versions of the communiques.
Examine the language used in the previous version of the fact sheet published on the US Department of State Web site, which refers to the Second Joint Communique between the US and China, signed in 1979.
“The United States recognized the Government of the People’s Republic of China as the sole legal government of China, acknowledging the Chinese position that there is but one China and Taiwan is part of China.”
The passage starts by “recognizing” that the PRC is the legal government of China, but the language then abruptly changes: the US merely “acknowledges” Beijing’s view that there is “one China” and that “Taiwan is part of China.”
The word “acknowledge” — used not once, but twice — is an unequivocal downgrading of the language — the text could not be clearer.
Not only has the US never “recognized” that Taiwan is part of China, every time the US “acknowledges” China’s position, Beijing absurdly tries to spin this into a “recognition” of its stance.
Washington appears to have lost patience with Beijing’s silly semantic games and decided that it will simply cease to “acknowledge” China’s position.
US officials are likely concerned that they do not want to give Beijing any more opportunities to co-opt their wording, have a free lunch at Washington’s expense and restrict Taiwan’s space on the international stage. Who could object to this pragmatic approach?
I would go one step further: As the US has clearly stated that it does not recognize that Taiwan is a part of China, going forward, the issue of Taiwanese independence should be a bilateral matter to be worked out between the US and Taiwan. With China removed from the equation, if Washington were one day to announce the restoration of formal diplomatic ties with Taiwan, Beijing would not be able to use the “one China” canard to advance its spurious territorial claims.
Chang Kuo-tsai is a retired National Hsinchu University of Education associate professor.
Translated by Edward Jones
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