By Subham Choudhury
Introduction
Any discussion related to China always has been of contention. The recent rise of the Red Dragons in the international sphere as a hegemon competing toe-to-toe with the United States of America has been the topic for discussions all across the academic community. The demands of the People’s Republic of China for the regions of Hong Kong and Taiwan have been called out by Taiwan sympathizers and the followers of democracy. Many in the international community call out PRC against their human rights abuses and their stand against democracy overall. It is important for us to know why Taiwan is still not being accepted as the only China and why PRC is considered to be that instead.
One-China Policy was formed by the US. It is understood to be formed from the One-China principle which believes that the People’s Republic of China is the sole sovereign state under China and Taiwan is a part of this China. The One-China principle refuses to acknowledge the existence of the Republic of China (Taiwan) and believes that the area is a part of the PRC. The PRC believes that “Taiwan is an inalienable part of Chinese Territory” (China.org.cn, n.d.). The One-China Policy hence acknowledges that there is an existence of the territory of China; hence the US has maintained formal relations with the PRC, while choosing not to do the same with ROC. This should not be confused with endorsement though, as Taiwan still has good unofficial relationship with the US as the US sells arms to the Taiwanese for their defense. The existence of the One-China Principle has resulted in Taiwan being isolated from the international community, as any country wanting to maintain good relations with the Chinese need to break all ties with Taiwan (BBC, 2021).
The Origin of the One China Policy
The creation of the One-China Policy was slow and it had to be made due to the changing scenario in the international relations. The increasing strength of the PRC after the death of Mao Tse Tung’s regime led to the US understanding the capabilities of the Communist nation and warming its relations with the country. Taiwan was first recognized by the US, but as the winds of change started to blow towards the PRC, the US saw it wise to change tunes and they accepted Beijing as the formal leader of China. They still maintained informal relations with Taiwan. In 1979, under the Carter Administration, the formal warming of the relations was seen between Washington and Beijing. The US decided to shut down the US embassy in Taipei. Despite all this, the US passed the Taiwan Relations Act in the same year to allow the US to continue to support Taiwan by selling arms to them. The American Institute, a private institution in Taiwan, carries out all diplomatic works in Taiwan as a sign of influence of the US in the country (BBC, 2021).
The need of this policy
As discussed before, the changing international relations between the US and the PRC had led the US to consider acknowledging the sovereignty of a single China. The increase of power of the PRC since the end of the Mao Tse Tung regime in China has brought development in the country and has seen immense economic and cultural upheaval.
Fig 1. The growth of China during and after Deng Xiaoping period
(Source: Ghosh, 2019)
The following image (Ghosh, 2019) shows the immense growth of China after the death of General Mao and the change of the economy from Socialist Commodity Economy in the Xiaoping era to the Socialist Market Economy in the Zemin era. Due to this immense change in the economy, the US may have been forced to understand Beijing as the formal leader of China. The need of the policy also stands due to the constant conflict between the PRC and the ROC for the sovereignty of China, and it believes that the policy could lead to the successful conclusion of the civil unrest continuing between the countries.
Why the US went through with the Policy?
Before we go on to the analysis of the policy, we have to understand the theory we are going to use. Rational Actor Model is used frequently by foreign policy scholars. The origin of the theory comes from another theory named expected utility theory which was formulated by “von Neumann and Morgenstern in the 1940s” (Mintz & DeRouen Jr, 2012). What can we understand from the rational actor model is from one of the assumptions of the theory of realism, where it is understood that the actors are unitary and rational. This means that they are responsible for their actions and they would always take decisions based on the national interest. When it comes to understanding the foreign policies of countries, one can extrapolate this assumption that countries take rational decisions, by which it means that they would take decisions based on the national interests and national security.
Coming back to the rationale of the US taking the decision to go on with the One-China Policy, was because first, the People’s Republic of China was just out of the hardline communist regime of Mao Zedong, and was expected to act on the expectations of the international community in order to survive in an extremely competitive world. The opening of PRC by the Deng Xiaoping government was a welcome step and was seen as an opportunity to reduce the influence of communism over the region. Furthermore, from a geopolitical perspective, China was a good alternative to keep the USSR at check, especially when the Cold War was at a full swing. The USSR would certainly not want to make enemies with a fellow communist country, and hence will be unable to do anything to China, as it would have hampered the image of the USSR. Also, Taiwan was facing uncertainty after the death of Chiang Kai-Shek and was considered as a basket-case by many (Tsai, 1999; Rodrik et al., 1995). In the aftermath of such an incident, it was quite natural for a country like the US to consider Taiwan not useful enough and hence it may have chosen the PRC. Another major aspect to be considered was the fact that the US was also in war against the Vietnamese on one end, was handling bad relations with Cuba on another, its’ reputation took a hit due to numerous scandals within its’ national politics (the Watergate) and the policies of the new Carter administration, which was understood to be softer than his predecessors or successors (Hess, 2016).
It is worth noting that when Carter took office, the country was going through what is called ‘stagflation’, a period where the economy has become stagnant and is not growing enough to be able to sustain the needs of the growing population in future. It was understandable that in order for the US to be able to have an economic boom, the companies must be allowed to find cheap labor outside of the country, as it would cut the operation costs for the companies and would lead to bigger profits for the organizations. This may have influenced the US to go along with making the PRC a most-favored nation (Oberdorfer, 1979), which may have laid the foundation of the US-China trade relations. The key word here is ‘may’ as all these may have been probable for the US, as it required to improve its’ economy.
How bad the particular decision of choosing the PRC over Taiwan is a debate for another day, but the fact that small events can influence the tide of the whole history is astonishing. Countries who are considered to be beneficial turn out to be extremely useless after a certain point of time, due to changing scenarios and better decision-making in case of the countries who were left out.
References
BBC. (2021, October 6). What is the ‘one China’ policy? BBC News. Retrieved January 24, 2022, from https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-china-38285354
China.org.cn (Ed.). (n.d.). The one-china principle and the Taiwan issue. Retrieved January 24, 2022, from http://www.china.org.cn/english/taiwan/7956.htm
Hess, S. (2016, July 28). Jimmy Carter: Why he failed. Brookings. Retrieved January 24, 2022, from https://www.brookings.edu/opinions/jimmy-carter-why-he-failed/
Mintz, A., & DeRouen Jr, K. (2012). Understanding Foreign Policy Decision Making. Cambridge University Press.
Oberdorfer, D. (1979, October 24). Trade Benefits for China Are Approved by Carter. The Washington Post. Retrieved January 25, 2022, from https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/politics/1979/10/24/trade-benefits-for-china-are-approved-by-carter/febc46f2-2d39-430b-975f-6c121bf4fb42/.
Rodrik, D., Grossman, G., & Norman, V. (1995). Getting Interventions Right: How South Korea and Taiwan Grew Rich. Economic Policy, 10(20), 55–107. https://doi.org/10.2307/1344538
Tsai, P.-L. (1999). Explaining Taiwan’s Economic Miracle: Are the Revisionists Right? Agenda: A Journal of Policy Analysis and Reform, 6(1), 69–82. http://www.jstor.org/stable/43199017
Image courtesy
Ghosh, I. (2019). 70 Years of Economic Development and Policy in the People’s Republic of China. The People’s Republic of China: 70 Years of Economic History. The Virtual Capitalist. Retrieved January 25, 2022, from https://www.visualcapitalist.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/10/China_70_years_Shareable-1.jpg.
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