The Taiwan Question as a Bipartisan Bridge on U.S.-China Relations

In a rare bout of agreement, the question of U.S. relations with Taiwan appears to not only be a uniting—rather than a dividing—issue between parties in Washington, D.C. but also a glimpse into the Biden administration’s formal China policy that remains undefined.

Despite their stark disagreements in outlook and methodology for U.S. domestic and foreign policy development, one overlap thus far between the presidential administrations of Donald Trump and Joe Biden is their U.S. policy regarding Taiwan—especially the strategy of transiting through the international waters of the Taiwan Strait.

Admittedly, in its last days, the Trump administration “upset decades of U.S. policy on Taiwan,” leaving the Biden administration with few realistic options regarding Taiwan. Still, early signs by the incoming administration indicated an at least initial continuation of Trump era policy on Taiwan, evidenced by the symbolic in-person attendance of Bi-khim Hsiao during President Biden’s inaugural speech. While President Biden and his team stated early on that they are willing to work with Beijing—a warmer approach than former President Trump and his team held regarding China—the new leaders of the United States have also made it clear through both their actions and their words that they do not plan to simply revert back to Obama-era activity. In his first phone call with President Xi Jinping as U.S. President, Joe Biden brought up “fundamental concerns” about “increasingly assertive actions” against Taiwan.

Is there anything remarkable about the new administration’s decision to persist with this Trump-era pro-Taiwan policy? Could this continuation of unilateral maritime transits through the Taiwan Strait, and the subsequent dismissals of warnings and similar actions from Beijing over the matter, be an indication of the Biden administration’s overall China policy that is yet to be publicly formalized?

Over the last few U.S. administrations, there has been a gradual movement towards legitimizing ties between the U.S. and Taiwan with increasing bipartisan support. Related activity over recent years has brought the U.S. to a potential point of culmination on this issue, including throwing the idea of the ‘One China Policy’ into question, much to Beijing’s distaste. The trajectory of the Taiwan question has the potential to completely change the U.S.-China relationship and, more than ever before, must be followed closely.

For context, the Taiwan Strait has long been publicly regarded by Chinese representatives as a vitally important region to China. This waterway, which runs between the island of Taiwan and the coast of China’s Fukien province, is claimed by Beijing as part of China’s exclusive economic zone and is approximately 100 miles (160 km) at its narrowest point. International law recognizes the central portion of this narrow waterway as within international waters, which means that any nation—according to the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea—is allowed to traverse this waterway without contest. Given its proximity to the Chinese mainland and the electric nature of U.S. relations with China over Taiwan, until recently, the Taiwan Strait tended to be left as a secondary or tertiary choice site of naval navigation exertion.

This is no longer the case.

Despite its physical distance from Taiwan, the United States has determined that its best interests lie in preserving a free and open Indo-Pacific, which includes the international waterways of the Taiwan Strait. Although this “Free and Open Indo-Pacific” strategy became official under the Trump administration, this official shift towards the Indo-Pacific has been active since the Obama administration’s “Rebalance to Asia and the Pacific.” In a rare point of consistency across administrations, thus far, the Biden Administration has largely maintained these two strategies for the Indo-Pacific.

One of the most notable consistencies across the transition of power in Washington is the continuation of maritime transits. According to the US Navy, these transits are “in accordance with international law” and demonstrate “the U.S. commitment to a free and open Indo-Pacific.” Under Trump, there was a record number of such transits by the US Navy through the Taiwan Strait and the surrounding areas. These activities notably increased in frequency during the latter half of his presidency, with the US Navy sailing through the Taiwan Strait at least 15 times in 2020 alone.

Against some pre-transition estimations, the comparatively high frequency of US Navy passages through the Taiwan Strait has not waned with the transition of power in the White House. US Navy warships have been consistently transiting the Taiwan Strait about once a month despite “chilling” warnings from Beijing, with the eighth and most recent transit occurring on August 27. The Chinese Coast Guard regularly protests against such passages while simultaneously sending their own naval and aerial exercises, at a similarly increasing rate, into the Taiwan Strait and Taiwan’s ADIZ. In May, amidst the release of a joint statement between President Biden and South Korea’s President Moon Jae-in that specifically mentioned preserving peace and stability in the Taiwan Strait, Beijing directly warned the U.S. to stop “playing with fire.”

This uptick in cruising the waters around Taiwan corresponds with an increasingly blatant and seemingly unrepentant Washington in its dealings with China; even across a change of visibly different administrations. Both China and the U.S. claim to be responding to the other side’s perceived escalations in activity, but regardless of how genuine these claims are, such statements means that neither party will be ready or willing to decrease the rate of their activity in the near future.

This uptick is also occurring as public discussions about Taiwan’s ability to protect itself popularize and U.S.-Taiwan diplomatic relations appear to deepen in spite of pushback from Beijing. Most notably, this August the Biden administration announced the proposal of a $750 million weapons sale to Taiwan with the note from the State Department that the sale is to help Taiwan strengthen “its self-defense capabilities to meet current and future threats.”

Members of the U.S. Congress have also begun to speak directly to the public about issues in Taiwan or the Taiwan Strait, inevitably bringing attention to issues that were largely set aside before or entirely unaware of by the general American public. On September 14, for instance, Representative Ami Bera explained at a public event that the bipartisan Taiwan Peace and Stability Act (H.R.3972) was introduced on June 17, 2021 in direct response to President Xi Jinping’s “aggressive” changes in dealing with Taiwan, “which is forcing [the U.S.] to rethink the ability of the people of Taiwan to choose their own role.” This spike in public discussion may infer that the American public itself has grown—or will grow—to care more about Taiwan and protecting the democratic rights of such an island which could, in turn, encourage lawmakers to continue to discuss Taiwan.

Experts from China, the U.S., and elsewhere have noted how the improvement of U.S.-China relations could easily depend on activity related to Taiwan, with some even calling it a “flashpoint.” In the first meeting between Deputy Secretary of State Wendy Sherman and the new Chinese Ambassador to the U.S. Qin Gang, Ambassador Qing reportedly “emphasized that the Taiwan issue is the most important and sensitive issue in Sino-U.S. relations.”

The current leaders of the U.S. and China, like their predecessors, have acknowledged that the issue of Taiwan and the Taiwan Strait cannot be shelved. While complex and twisted, the issue of Taiwan is undeniably vital to not only understanding the present and historical context of overall U.S.-China relations but also how it can be used as a rare tool of collaboration in a wounded domestic American political system. The limited—but present—calls for an end to the strategically ambiguous ‘One-China’ policy further bolster the possibility of a unified Congress over U.S.-Taiwan relations. Regardless, understanding Taiwan’s development and what the issue regarding Taiwan has now become is vital to understanding the potential paths that Washington could pave to build a unified U.S. foreign policy on China.