Xi’s two speeches and U.S. forward policy

With the 20th National Congress of the Communist Party of China completed, it is appropriate to examine China’s policy regarding Taiwan and America’s response. Two recent speeches by Xi Jinping, president of the People's Republic of China (herein China), will provide the data for my analysis, one from the Boao Forum for Asia, April 21, 2022, and the other at the 20th National Congress, October 16, 2022.

Xi defines China as a modern socialist state with Chinese characteristics. In the April speech, he articulates “confidence” as a basic theme and concludes the October speech: “Let us maintain firm confidence….” In both speeches he speaks of a “wheel of history” with a determinism that Taiwan will be reunited with China, hopefully, peacefully. He speaks of international cooperation as China’s approach to the world in a “win-win” style, such as China’s approach to ASEAN and other Asian countries.

In both speeches he criticizes an approach to world affairs (he does not mention the U.S. by name) as having a Cold War mentality, hegemonism, a power politics approach, bloc thinking, and prone to interfere into the internal affairs of others. He also opposes “the wanton use of unilateral sanctions and long-arm jurisdiction.”

In both speeches he professes a belief in the principles of the United Nations Charter and international law, including respect for the territorial integrity and political independence of all states and their equality under law. Taiwan would not be included here because it is part of China, as the U.S. admits in its One-China policy. Xi states: “(T)he hegemonic, high-handed, and bullying acts…, and playing zero-sum games are exerting grave harm.” (October speech).

Regarding Taiwan, Xi had several things to say in the October speech: “Resolving the Taiwan question and realizing China’s complete reunification is, for the Party, a historic mission and an unshakable commitment. It is also a shared aspiration of all the sons and daughters of the Chinese nation … The policies of peaceful reunification and One Country, Two Systems are the best way to realize reunification…Blood runs thicker than water, and fellow Chinese on both sides of the Taiwan Strait are one family bound by blood … Taiwan is China’s Taiwan … a matter that must be resolved by the Chinese … we will never promise to renounce the use of force … This is directed solely at interference by outside forces and the few separatists seeking ‘Taiwan independence’ … The wheels of history are rolling on toward Chinese reunification….”

Xi emphasizes China’s desire for world peace and adherence to the Five Principles of Peaceful Coexistence (first enunciated by the great diplomat Chou Enlai in 1953 and with India’s great Prime Minister Nehru in 1954). (Look the principles up). In addition to respecting countries’ territorial integrity and equality, Xi stated China respects “the development paths and social systems independently chosen by all the world’s peoples … China stands firmly against all forms of hegemonism and power politics, the Cold War mentality, interference in other countries’ internal affairs and double standards … No matter what stage of development it reaches, China will never seek hegemony or engage in expansionism.”

As the counterweight to China, the U.S. appears to be following a forward containment strategy developed during the Cold War. Regarding Taiwan, it states its policy to be strategic ambiguity, and with President Joe Biden’s confusion over the policy, he himself is strategic ambiguity. Containment plus China’s commitment to Taiwan is a zero-sum game, if the U.S. is including Taiwan in its perimeter of defense. This is a formula for war, possibly a nuclear one.

The U.S. has tried to steal Taiwan from China since 1949 when the Communists took over the Chinese government. For the sake of reasonableness, to say nothing of world avoidance of a nuclear war, the U.S. should repeal the Taiwan Relations Act and negotiate as favorable as possible a transition of Taiwan to China as a physical reality along the lines of Hong Kong and Macao, One Country, Two Systems. What are we doing over there interfering in their business and risking a major war? We should not be doing end-runs around the United Nations Security Council.

James W. Pfister, J.D. University of Toledo, Ph.D. University of Michigan (political science), retired after 46 years in the Political Science Department at Eastern Michigan University. He lives at Devils Lake and can be reached at jpfister@emich.edu. 

This article originally appeared on The Daily Telegram: James Pfister: Xi’s two speeches and U.S. forward policy