On Friday last week, China’s state-run Xinhua news agency very excitedly proclaimed “a set of judicial guidelines targeting die-hard ‘Taiwan independence’ separatists” had been issued “as a refinement and supplement to the country’s ‘Anti-Secession’ law” from 2005, with sentencing guidelines that included the death penalty as an option. At the same time, 77 People’s Liberation Army Air Force (PLAAF) aircraft were flown into Taiwan’s air defense identification zones (ADIZ) in just 48 hours, a high enough number to indicate the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) was peeved about something and wanted it known.
What was puzzling is that the CCP always saves their big status quo-changing moves to coincide with some event for maximum effect and to attempt to make it look like they were the ones responding to a provocation, not the reality that they are the ones being provocative. Yet, neither the announcement of the judicial guidelines and amendments nor the PLAAF aircraft seemed to be in response to anything.
That is until on Sunday the Liberty Times broke the story, which also ran in its sister newspaper the Taipei Times, that two US deputy assistant secretaries of state visited Taiwan on June 20, without attracting the media’s attention, and met with representatives from Taiwan’s 12 allies, as well as those from other like-minded nations, including Australia, Belgium, Canada, the Czech Republic, the EU, Finland, France, Japan, Luxembourg, New Zealand, Poland and the UK. As far as I know, a conclave of 23 countries and the EU being held in Taipei with two top American State Department officials has never happened before.
Photo: Reuters
In my previous column we did a deep dive into how and why these two events were almost certainly connected and that these two events signaled that an intensifying diplomatic war between the CCP and a group of American-led Taiwan-friendly nations has been underway, and that it has just escalated sharply.
The new amendments coming out of Beijing apply to all nationalities and anyone from anywhere in the globe can be tried in China in absentia. It is also worth noting that 45 countries have signed extradition treaties with China. And just in case the assembled diplomats in Taipei did not get the message, Xinhua noted that among other things, “advocating the nation’s entry into international organizations whose memberships are limited to sovereign states, engaging in official exchanges and military contacts abroad and conspiring to create “two Chinas,” or “one China, one Taiwan,” in the international community” is punishable by law in China, possibly with the death penalty.
One day diplomats assemble in Taipei to discuss expanding Taiwan’s international presence, the next day Beijing brands them all criminals worthy of jail or execution. While things have not yet reached the level of tension where the CCP is likely to act against foreign diplomats, that could change.
Photo: EPA-EFE
PUBLICLY, SUSPICIOUSLY LITTLE
Why were the Chinese so furious? In various public settings over the years I have pointed out that to get any major progress on any big issue regarding Taiwan, the best way to do it would be to plan it secretly among a group of countries and then act on it as a group.
This Taipei conclave was clearly not meant to be public. It is possible they did this simply to make it diplomatically easier to bring in two higher-ranking American diplomats and for the respective countries to join. But then, why bother with all the hassle and just do a Zoom meeting instead? That suggests they wanted to meet in person because there were things they wanted to discuss without the security risks inherent in online meetings.
It is hard to determine if the Liberty Times journalist managed to get wind of the conclave or if he was tipped off by the multiple anonymous diplomats. That multiple diplomats spoke to the journalist, mostly stuck to the same script, and left crucial gaping holes in their story is highly suspicious. Diplomats are highly trained in knowing who to speak to and what to say, so anything they mentioned being discussed at the conclave will already be well known to the CCP. Indeed, aside from the bombshell revelation that such a large-scale conclave or conference took place, most of what they mentioned being discussed is either not new, or relatively minor.
The Taipei Times article started with this: “US officials who visited Taiwan earlier this week met with foreign representatives and told them that UN Resolution 2758 does not involve Taiwan nor should it be conflated with China’s “one China” principle.
UN Resolution 2758 expelled the “representatives of Chiang Kai-shek (蔣介石)” from the UN in 1971 in favor of the People’s Republic of China (PRC), primarily because Chiang was too stubborn to accept two Chinas in the UN, in spite of there being two Germanys, Koreas, Yemens and Vietnams at the time. There is no mention of the status of Taiwan.
According to one representative quoted in the article, the Americans are looking to “vary its approaches to help Taiwan build ties,” citing an example using American embassies to act as intermediaries between Taiwan representative offices and governments. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA) did not comment on this conclave, but did put out a press release noting that the Taiwan-US working group on international organization issues was held in Taipei on Friday, attended by representatives from the US State Department, without specifying who.
That there has been a sharp uptick in the amount of talk of UN Resolution 2758 by both the Americans and Chinese recently is not news, though it is now clearer that the ongoing diplomatic battle has grown bigger and more advanced than I had previously understood.
Aside from one sentence in the article, all of this could easily have been taken care of in an online meeting, but that sentence did hint that something much bigger might be going on: “A representative to Taiwan, requesting anonymity, quoted the US officials as saying during a meeting that as long as it is not specified in UN Resolution 2758, “everything is feasible” with regard to Taiwan pursuing a breakthrough in its external relations.”
WHAT IS NOT LIKELY
“Everything is feasible” pursuing a breakthrough in external relations! They clearly were discussing something much bigger than American embassies being helpful, but what?
It is unlikely they were discussing the biggest breakthrough of all, restoring full diplomatic ties as either Taiwan or the Republic of China (ROC), though it is theoretically possible. However, if this were the case why bring in the 12 ambassadors of the countries that already diplomatically recognize the ROC? Also, this big of a decision would need to be made at the very highest levels of government in the strictest of secrecy, this meeting was more mid-level with too many non-essential actors in the room. They also would not have been discussing UN membership because China has a Security Council veto.
In MOFA’s press release about the Friday Taiwan-US working group on international organization issues meeting that “the US side also reaffirmed its longstanding commitment to Taiwan’s meaningful participation in the UN System and the international community, including the World Health Organization (WHO) and the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO).”
This could have been discussed at the Thursday meeting, but alone these would not have warranted all the fuss and secrecy. These two are discussed every year and there is no secrecy about it, though perhaps they were coming up with a new strategic approach that would catch Beijing off guard. There is not likely to be any progress at getting Taiwan on the agenda at the WHO for at least another three years until Tedros Ghebreyesus’ term runs out. ICAO has elections next year.
Still, this does not seem big or new enough to cause the CCP to react so strongly, so there must be something else.
PEOPLE AND POSSIBILITIES
Of the two Deputy Assistant Secretaries of State, only one was identified: Mark Lambert. Of course he was there — he’s State Department China Coordinator and Deputy Assistant Secretary in the Bureau of East Asia and Pacific Affairs and oversees the Office of China Coordination and the Office of Taiwan Coordination.
Lambert’s resume is quite impressive, but something very interesting that jumped out was that he established the International Organizations Bureau’s office aimed at protecting UN integrity from authoritarianism. So perhaps there is something to this being a push for a new strategy on Taiwan joining UN-affiliated organizations across the board as part of a strategy of pushing back against the CCP’s relentless efforts to undermine, subvert or control international agencies. Looked at from that angle, there is more meat on the bone in calling this conclave, and that might be enough to cause Beijing to react as strongly as they did.
Another possibility is they discussed forming a new organization or organizations that would include Taiwan, but exclude China, as part of a grand vision of “de-risking.” That does not gibe with the diplomatic moves of many of the participants of the countries at the meeting and could come unwelcome economic blowback, however, so this seems unlikely.
They could be looking to supercharge the Global Cooperation and Training Framework (GCTF), which I must admit has been far more effective and impressive than I would have guessed at their founding in 2015. MOFA claims 113 countries have participated. Still, this does not seem important enough.
Perhaps they are discussing a clever workaround of some kind. Perhaps including Taiwanese in their own national delegations, though Taiwanese passport holders are not even allowed to participate in many of these organizations, so they would need to somehow get the Taiwanese different passports.
Few of these individually seem like they would trigger such a response from the CCP and be worth all the secrecy, but in aggregate and the clear coordination behind it might be enough. Simply forming a solid international working group meeting regularly to strategize could be spooking Beijing.
However, I feel we are missing a vital clue by not knowing the identity of the other deputy assistant secretary of state and the department being represented. These people are often the top people in the State Department in a specific specialty, such as Lambert with Taiwan and China. I suspect we are being left in the dark about what the specialty of the other person is to avoid tipping their hand.
Donovan’s Deep Dives is a regular column by Courtney Donovan Smith (石東文) who writes in-depth analysis on everything about Taiwan’s political scene and geopolitics. Donovan is also the central Taiwan correspondent at ICRT FM100 Radio News, co-publisher of Compass Magazine, co-founder Taiwan Report (report.tw) and former chair of the Taichung American Chamber of Commerce. Follow him on X: @donovan_smith.
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