“The Taiwan Policy Act” does not help to solve the US’s own problems

     Recently, US House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s persistent visit to Taiwan leads to an international public outcry. So far, more than 170 countries and many international organizations have issued statements reiterating the one-China principle and condemning the diplomatic event. Perhaps fearing of provoking China again, the US Senate’s “Taiwan Policy Act of 2022”, which was scheduled to vote on August 3, has been postponed again. But that does not mean that the warning is cleared. In fact, Taiwan has been one of the most unstable factors imposed by the US in China-US relations, and this trend has become even more obvious recently.

On June 16 of this year, US Senate members Bob Menendez and Lindsey Graham jointly filed “the Taiwan Policy Act of 2022”. It is worth noting that Menendez, a member of the Democratic Party and the chairman of the United States Senate Committee on Foreign Relations, has just led a delegation to “visit” Taiwan in April 2022. And Graham is the chief Republican member of the Senate Budget Committee. The bill is probably one of the few consensuses the leaders of both parties can reach. The contents of the bill are quite shocking, offering to treat Taiwan as a “major non-NATO ally”. Although the US has actually done this under President George W. Bush, this is the first pursuit of legal orientation. On that basis, the United States intends to provide US $4.5 billion in military aid to Taiwan over the next four years, selling more offensive weapons and increasing war reserves in the Taiwan Straits War. The United States also has intention to supply Taiwan with information and public opinion war guidance and a new sanctions system. What’s more, it plans to help Taiwan to expand a greater “international space” in diplomacy, economy, education and other fields. The upgraded “Taiwan Relations Act”, which has scheming lawmakers from both parties in the Senate, is undoubtedly the biggest change in the US’s Taiwan policy since 1979.

But in sharp contrast to lawmakers’ eagerness to get into action, the White House is heavyhearted and willy-nilly. The Biden administration, which is struggling to deal with the increasingly heightened US-China friction, feared that the tough language in the bill would break the US’s “strategic ambiguity” in the Taiwan question and inevitably pull the two countries on the track of direct confrontation. This point has been partially confirmed in Pelosi’s recent visit to Taiwan. According to Bloomberg News, the Biden administration is convincing the Democratic lawmakers to avoid the “unpredictable” consequences of the sudden escalation in the Taiwan question. Some senators, including Democratic Senator Chris Murphy, said they might push for a change in the bill, but Idaho Senator Jim Ricch said the White House should not interfere with the legislative process. In fact, against the backdrop of the rise of China, the Biden administration is unlikely to be so headstrong, as some lawmakers do, and the White House needs to work harder to persuade Capitol Hill to remain “strategically vague”.

In the future, whether the “Taiwan Policy Act of 2022” will take effect, or in what shape it will become effective, will not affect the growing tension and escalating friction between the United States and China. The essence is that the United States is always reluctant to give up its strategy to contain China. By playing the “Taiwan card” constantly, US politicians seem to have more short-term gains and political counters. Or at least that is what they think. But in the long run, the US’s interference in the Taiwan question will not help to solve its own inflation problems, but to consolidate its role of a saboteur of cross-Straits peace and stability. How will this help the United States?