Authored by Dr. Nancy Bernkopf Tucker, the book “Strait Talk: United States-Taiwan Relations and the Crisis with China” is an elaborate study of the less-explored United-States Taiwan angle in the US-Taiwan-China trilateral. As a matter of geopolitical interest, US-Taiwan relations have become more prominent in the past few years owing to the election and reelection of sovereignty, if not independence-minded Tsai Ing Wen of the Taiwanese DPP on the one hand, and on the other is the slight shift in America’s ‘Strategic ambiguity’ towards the Taiwan question, as demonstrated by the opening up of a new American representative office in Taipei in 2019, and more recently, the statement made by President Joe Biden regarding America’s willingness to protect Taiwan “no matter what.” In that regard, this book is an essential read for understanding the complex history of US-Taiwan relations and the significance of the China factor therein, right from Nixon’s presidency in the 1970s to George H.W Bush’s presidency in the first decade of the millennium.
Divided into 10 chapters spread across 400 pages, Dr. Tucker’s book moves in a historical fashion from first discussing the Cold war context that brought about major flashpoints in the US-Taiwan relations (such as the switching of diplomatic recognition by US to mainland China over Taiwan in 1982, as well as the Taiwan strait crisis of 1995, which garnered international condemnation for China), and moving on to the subsequent policies of US Presidents in dealing with Taiwan.
The mistrust that shrouds US-Taiwan relations is a pivotal, overarching theme in Dr. Tucker’s book. Using detailed archival research as well as evidence provided by over a hundred interviews, she explains to the readers how US-Taiwan relations changed since the former turned a greater part of its attention towards mainland China. Her attempt is to highlight how Taiwan was sidelined due to both, changing US interests in East Asia and a certain tone-deafness to its importance in US strategic positioning in the region. At the same time, incidents such as unreliable intelligence provided by Taiwan to the US during the cold war, as well as its controversial past with China, were causes of concern for the US. For the US, peaceful resolution of the cross-strait conflict has always been central to US-Taiwan relations, as is evident from the detailed and “excruciating” deliberations that went on in the Jimmy Carter and Ronald Reagan administrations in the US over the issue of Arms sales to Taiwan. Having interviewed senior American officials such as Arthur Hummel (US Ambassador to China, 1981-85) and John Holdridge (US Ambassador to Indonesia, 1982-86; point person on the now-declassified Kissinger project of switching diplomatic recognition to PRC), Dr. Tucker has backed her description of the arms sales situation prevalent between US, China and Taiwan at the time of Deng Xiaoping’s relationship as tumultuous, and a contributor to increasing Taiwanese suspicions towards American interests in protecting the island. The passing of the Taiwan Relations Act in 1979 was a cause of great controversy in the US Congress, but it helped (and continues to help) shape American response to the Taiwan question. At the same time, the redrawing of the bilateral map even before the US made the diplomatic switch to PRC in 1982, such as through the depreciation of US embassies in Taiwan to liaison offices, and the abrogation of the defence pact with Taiwan in 1979, were also enough to prove a point.
The issue of recognition of PRC, and the trade-off the US had to make in allaying a former ally and recognising its economic and anti-Soviet interests in mainland China, has domestic political consequences for America too. As Dr. Tucker exemplifies, Carter was so conflicted on the matter (especially with regards to the continuance of the sale of arms to Taiwan), that he left the question open-ended and unequivocally passed it on for the next President to decide. In fact, when Carter lost the 1980 election to Reagan, the latter’s apparent promises towards acting as a skilled statesman and meeting US interests with both China and Taiwan were a winning factor. Of course, as his Presidency progressed, Reagan made compromises on the quality of arms American was to provide Taiwan, affirming a reversal of America’s priority promise to Taiwan – the promise of defence.
US presidential outlooks toward Taiwan have had a knack for number-based policies since the early 1980s. From Reagan’s ‘Six Assurances’ (1982) to Bill Clinton’s ‘Three Noes’ (1998), American diktats on how China and Taiwan should manage their relations between themselves and the US have boiled down to pointer-based demands and exceptionalistic conclusions. From Taiwan, for example, Clinton’s ‘Three Noes’ demanded “No independence,” and from China, “No use of force”. On the other hand, American ambiguity and interests have equally contributed to implementation loopholes in these policies – in that, while Taiwan has not yet declared independence, its nationalistic fervour has led to the election and re-election of Tsai Ing-Wen of DPP. Her stance against Chinese bullying is more assertive as compared to that of her predecessors. Similarly, while China has not yet used force against Taiwan, through its Anti-Secession Law of 2005, it has unilaterally offered an ultimatum to Taiwan – to continue negotiations over reunification, or to face its wrath. In this regard, as Dr. Tucker also explains, US presence in the trilateral is both a deterrent to military conflict and a point of contention in terms of who it favours more.
There have been changes in the US policy towards Taiwan in that American sales of arms to Taiwan were considerably high during Donald Trump’s presidency, which was also when its relations were worse with China. The US abandonment of Afghanistan, however, has presented both a cause of worry for Taiwan, and an opportunity for mainland China’s anti-west narrative. Of course, this was unprecedented at the time Dr. Tucker wrote “Strait Talk,” considering she suggests America’s preoccupation with Afghanistan a hindrance to its larger strategy in confronting a nuclear power in the Taiwan strait. While that may not have been an explicit reason for the US withdrawal, it sure is something to consider and invest in for the Americans. Her emphasis on mistrust between the US and Taiwan, and her suggestion to US policymakers to “talk straight” are a little overstated and simplified, respectively. Neither is her text predictive of US policy in the following years, and delves relatively lesser into explaining pragmatism and policy of Chinese and Taiwanese leaders. Nonetheless, her work uses archives and testimonies judiciously to provide a decent explainer for an unexplored research area at the time.
Since the book was written in 2009, US-China-Taiwan relations have become more interdependent and complex. Under the Obama administration, the US undertook massive arms sales to Taiwan, through the 2014 Taiwan Relations Act Affirmation and Naval Vessel Transfer Act of 2014 and another US$ 1.83-billion arms sale package that included two frigates, anti-tank missiles and amphibious assault weapons. Since Xi Jinping assumed the post of General Secretary of the Chinese Communist Party in 2012, he has adopted an increasingly aggressive policy towards reunification of Taiwan with mainland China and the consequent fulfilment of China’s nationalist ‘middle kingdom’ vision. Naturally, the arms sales agreements enacted by the US under Obama, and later under Trump, drew angry responses from China, and exacerbated the already tense US-China relations especially after 2016 (which is when the US-China Trade War began). In recent times, China has deployed over 200 J-10 and J-16 fighter jets to carry out sorties in the Taiwanese Air Defence Identification Zone, and has provoked the US to expand its naval sortie rates in the Taiwan Strait. However, the US has kept intact its policy of ‘strategic ambiguity’ towards Taiwan’s status, and its support for the maintenance of status quo in the China-Taiwan cross-strait relations. The situation today is ever-evolving and tense.
As a keen student of International Relations and East Asian geopolitics, I recommend “Strait Talk” to all fellow students of international history and geopolitics, as well as to academia teaching East Asia in general and US, China and Taiwan relations in specific. The book is also intended for researchers conducting fresh quantitative and qualitative analyses on the present and future of the US-China-Taiwan trilateral. Further recommended readings on this genre include “The Future of United States, China, and Taiwan Relations” (eds. Cheng-yi Lin and Denny Roy) and “U.S.-Taiwan Relationship: Overview of Policy Issues” (by Shirley Kan and Wayne Morrison).
