Primer: Establishing Diplomatic Relations with Taiwan

This week, Political Union will be debating whether or not the U.S. should establish diplomatic relations with Taiwan. 

As a heads-up, we will be switching up our debate format this week! The debate will proceed as such:

There will be two teams, both with two members. 

Each team will provide a 3 minute opening speech. 

Each team will then have 3 minutes to question each other. 

Then, they will have another 3 minutes to reply to the questions posed to them in the opening period.

There will then be a 30 minute period with open discussion where audience members will be allowed to directly question the teams, as well as posit their own points.

Finally, each debater on both teams will be given 1.5 minutes to provide their closing thoughts. 

Moving to the topic at hand, this debate has a long and fraught history, and important implications for US-China relations. To get an overview of the history and different facets of the debate, read this article by The Council on Foreign Relations [15 minute read]. There are some clear benefits to establishing more official ties to Taiwan: it is one of the United States’ most important economic partners [10 minute read] and a democratic stronghold which shares values with the US [5 minute read]. However, there is one clear deterring factor which deserves to be heavily considered: China. 

The United States has taken an approach of “strategic ambiguity”, which in recent years has seemed more difficult to uphold, to Beijing’s chagrin [5 minute read]. Many argue that it would be unwise, (if not impossible) to uphold such a strategy given recent escalating tensions in the region [10 minute read]. Not upholding this strategy, however, would be costly for all parties involved. Taiwanese people remain hesitant about large displays of diplomacy due to its potential impacts on Taiwan’s security [10 minute read]. The Center for Strategic International Studies did a “wargame”, aiming to predict the costs of fighting off a Chinese invasion to Taiwan. The write-up is long, but reading the Conclusion, “War is not Everything”, which begins on page 142 should give you the jist of the argument against escalating actions [10 minute read]. China also has a strong pull overseas—Honduras recently cut ties with Taiwan in order to strengthen its economic relations with Beijing and receive loans from them, rejecting an economic package from Taiwan [5 minute read]. Taiwanese officials argue that the conditions economic agreements that Beijing levies are rarely fulfilled on Beijing’s end. Nonetheless, China’s global economic presence holds weight both to foreign and domestic agents [10 minute read]. While this fact is clearly a deterrent to the United States in the present, we should also consider what allowing China’s economic power to grow means for the United States’ strategies in the future. 

Establishing diplomatic relations with Taiwan is a complicated game that will involve balancing values-based, economic, and political priorities—and weighing sacrifices that the US must make now against those that it will perhaps make later. 

“Taiwan and U.S. flags” by Adam Fagen is licensed under CC BY-NC-SA 2.0