Preventing a war over Taiwan
Much has changed since the 1970s, when Richard Nixon and Mao Zedong devised the ‘one China’ formula to paper over their differences on Taiwan’s status. But, if combined with other measures to bolster deterrence against any sudden acts of aggression, the 50-year-old policy can still help to keep the peace
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MIGHT China try to attack Taiwan by 2027? The outgoing chief of the US Indo-Pacific Command, Philip Davidson, thought so in 2021, and he recently reaffirmed his assessment. But whether the United States and China are destined for war over the island is another question. While the danger is real, such an outcome is not inevitable.
China considers Taiwan a renegade province and a remnant of the Chinese civil war of the 1940s. Although US-China relations were normalised in the 1970s, Taiwan remained a point of contention.
Nonetheless, a diplomatic formula to paper over disagreement was found: Chinese on both sides of the Taiwan Strait agreed that there was just “one China”. For the Americans, refusing to recognise any de jure declaration of independence by Taiwan would ensure that the island’s relationship with the mainland would be settled by negotiation, not force.
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