The Two Chinas Heading Into The 2020s

The Caribbean and wider Latin America have become a focal point of the People’s Republic of China’s (hereafter referred to as China) ambitions as it seeks to diminish the diplomatic power of the Republic of China (hereafter referred to as Taiwan) and its claim to stand apart from Beijing’s unquestioned rule of all Chinese territory.

Approaching 2020, it’s an important time to consider what may be Beijing’s next steps. How much closer is the Communist Party of China  (CPC) in reunifying Taiwan with the territories of the People’s Republic of China?

Friends in the Neighbourhood

The past two years have seen Taiwan lose a number of key allies in this region who have switched sides on which nation they recognise as the rightful government of China: Panama in June 2017, the Dominican Republic in May 2018 and El Salvador in August 2018. Still, Taiwan’s diplomatic future remains tied to this region more than any other. Of the seventeen nations that retain full diplomatic relations with Taiwan, nine, including Saint Lucia, come from the Caribbean and Latin America.

Although there have been reports of the Solomon Islands and the Vatican (as a city state) being set to make a switch, the direct threat that a revisionist China could pose to other Asian nations, and the ideological divide between the Catholic Church and a government which demands subservience of religion to the state, means either state would look to a swap with much trepidation. 

Latin American (LATAM) nations do not necessarily have to factor in the same considerations. A revisionist China would not be the direct threat to LATAM in the same way it would to Asia, and nor must any nation in the region consider the faith of over one billion people when making foreign policy decisions. With LATAM nations having a ‘freer hand’ to decide between the two, Taipei and Beijing also know they must increasingly up the ante to secure or pry away nations to their cause.

The Two Chinas into 2020

Even if Taiwan were to lose diplomatic recognition from all allies, this would not see the nation automatically cease to function. China knows that Taiwan is a military tinderbox in the region; China’s diplomatic efforts are reducing Taiwanese influence, and it has increased military patrols around the island, but any invasion runs the risk of a response in kind from the US, Japan and allied nations in the region. China is a rising military power but it still lags far behind the US in capability, and would be no match for the US in combination with other military powers in the region. 

Washington also looms as an even more important calculation for Beijing in the Trump era. The trade tensions with the US have threatened to cripple the exports of manufacturers like Huawei, due to the effective ban on US companies like Google supplying the Chinese manufacturer with software such as its Gmail and YouTube apps. Although China has a massive domestic market for its goods, it cannot rely on that alone to build its economy into the future.

Even if Trump proves an aberration as a president, and is replaced in 2020, the US as a whole has shifted in recent years from viewing China as a strategic partner — first devised by the Clinton administration in the 1990s — to a strategic competitor. With the political capital that it is spending in this area, and the desired perception that Beijing is being weakened by its rivals, nations that may have previously been ready to swap from Taipei to Beijing, might now have a new calculation.

Can Beijing Really 

Get What It Wants?

Beijing is getting closer to its apparent goal. It is isolating Taiwan effectively, growing in economic power, and using enhanced hard and soft power to spur further isolation of Taiwan. Even so, Beijing is now stuck between a rock and a hard place with what it seeks to pursue. 

Just a few years ago, when relations between Taipei and Beijing were far better than now, Beijing was citing the ‘one country, two systems’ model of Hong Kong as a shining example of the possibilities of reunification. Yet nobody in Taiwan would look upon the events of recent weeks and months in Hong Kong and desire that situation for their island.

Just as the attention of the world on events in Hong Kong has shown, Beijing cannot advance militarily on Taiwan without provoking worldwide outcry. Even if China gambled, and counted on the US not intervening, it would certainly be subject to a new round of isolation and sanctions. It would also have to deal with a resistant population, and the prospect of an insurgency playing out in the YouTube era that would further diminish Beijing’s standing globally. 

Put simply, Beijing may be closer to its reunification goal than ever before — and yet never so far.

History No Longer a Guide to the Future

In 2013, early on during his rule, Chinese President Xi Jinping said that a political solution to Taiwan ‘must reach a final resolution’ and that ‘these issues cannot be passed on from generation to generation’. While Taiwan has also been a combustible issue, Xi is unquestionably cut from a different cloth than other rulers, as not since Mao has a leader had such power in the CPC.

Although the year 2000 or 2010 was certainly not without geopolitical challenges, arguably not since World War II has the international community been so unpredictable as it is, heading into 2020. There is no suggestion that Xi Jinping or the Chinese government alone are to blame for this. 

The only reunification scenario that would be acceptable to the Taiwanese people and stakeholders further afield is one that occurs peacefully and with Taiwanese consent. Instead, the CPC believes attempts at suffocation, isolation and condemnation of the Taiwanese government, and the citizens who democratically elected it, are the ideal way to go about inspiring a desire for reunification. 

As we approach a new decade, China will play a greater role than ever before in maintaining global stability or destabilizing it, commensurate with its ambitions. All of us have an interest in seeing stability maintained, especially for vulnerable nations which rely on international norms being observed in order to see their domestic security maintained.

Giving Voice to The Issue

Nations that retain formal diplomatic relations with Taiwan have an important role to play in this process, and in this era. While the China-Taiwan issue is complex, there is no complexity surrounding the fact that the CPC has increasingly flexed China’s muscles as a major power in Asia, with little regard for international norms, or the smaller nations that rely on them. 

LATAM nations which seek to turn from Taipei to Beijing may consider that the long-term economic benefits of doing so justify such a move but, as the CPC grows increasingly assertive in seeking to silence all who don’t align with its agenda, little nations must ask, as they head into 2020 and a decade of rising mega powers globally, whether a new deal is actually better if it comes at the cost of one’s voice.