Keywords

Introduction

With the publication of the US National Security Strategy (NSS) at the end of 2017, the Trump administration defined China as a “strategic competitor” (Whitehouse 2017). Then, toward the end of 2020, top administration officials, including Secretary of State Mike Pompeo (Santora 2020), Secretary of Defense, Mark Esper (Department of Defense 2020), and National Security Advisor Robert C. O’Brien (2020), all identified China as the main threat to the US. The trade war between the US and China, which began in March 2018, has morphed into confrontations over technology, finance, currency, cyber risks, diplomacy, and ideology. Military buildup and tensions in the Indo-Pacific region have also increased since 2018, as can be seen from the various military exercises and aggressive patrols by the US and China in the East and South China Seas (Wang 2021a, b; Zheng 2021; Zhou 2021). A skirmish along the disputed border between China and India broke out in 2020 (Biswas 2020) and was followed by military buildups on both sides. If the trend toward strategic rivalry between the US and China becomes entrenched or expands, it seems likely that an accidental conflict between these two giants could occur in any flashpoint in the Indo-Pacific region.

Taiwan, situated at the midpoint of the first island chain, has become one of the most commonly identified flashpoints for a potential conflict between the superpowers (Buckley and Myers 2021). On the one hand, the People’s Republic of China (PRC or China) claims that Taiwan is an inalienable part of its territory and is prepared to use force to take it back if necessary (MOFA, PRC 2021). On the other hand, the US commitment to maintain the status quo across the Taiwan Strait (as the US defines it) is also essential to Washington’s hegemonic status and alliance network in Asia, in addition to its defense interest in Taiwan’s geostrategic importance (France 24 2021). Since 1979, the US has maintained a “One China” policy in which it “acknowledges” rather than “recognizes” the PRC’s sovereign claim over Taiwan (although not openly challenging the PRC’s position), while insisting that disputes between China and Taiwan must be resolved peacefully and opposing any unilateral change in the status quo by either side of the Taiwan Strait (Hou and Yeh 2021). According to the Taiwan Relations Act (TRA), the US administration is obliged to help Taiwan maintain sufficient defense capability to counter China’s military threats and coercion. From the perspective of the Republic of China (ROC or Taiwan), the PRC has not ruled Taiwan for a single day since its establishment in 1949, nor has it effectively exercised any control over Taiwan’s territory and people. Therefore, the PRC’s claim to sovereignty over Taiwan has no legal or political basis. Moreover, since 1996, Taiwan has become a fully fledged democracy, with a popularly elected president and legislature. Only the Taiwanese people have sovereignty over Taiwan.

Unfortunately, the political reality of international relations prevents such a claim to popular sovereignty being realized with regard to Taiwan. Taiwan can neither declare independence nor can it participate in the United Nations and its affiliated organizations. Although the international community refers to Taiwan as simply “Taiwan”, its own government and people cannot use that name in the international arena. Even though fellow democracies in North America, Europe, and elsewhere may sympathize and support Taiwan’s “meaningful participation” in various international organizations (European Parliament 2021), such as the World Health Organization (WHO), the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO), and the International Criminal Police Organization (INTERPOL), membership for Taiwan under that name is ruled out for fear of offending China. “Not offending China” is an easy choice for allies of the US and Taiwan’s fellow democracies; the US itself employs the concept of “strategic ambiguity” in its “One China” policy and has adopted a policy of “engagement” with China. After all, if the US does not publicly challenge China’s claim to sovereignty over Taiwan, why should other democracies in Europe and elsewhere challenge China on the Taiwan issue? However, with the US-China confrontation intensifying and expanding, there seems to be no easy way out of this impasse. European countries, especially members of the EU, may still want to maintain their strategic autonomy and cling to the “Sinatra doctrine” (i.e., doing it “my way”), and hence they try to avoid taking sides between the US and China (EEAS 2019). However, new strategic imperatives may compel small-to-medium powers elsewhere to reconsider their existing policies.

For Taiwan, given that the US-China geostrategic confrontation has intensified and China’s military threat to Taiwan has become more apparent, it may appear that the choice is quite simple, namely, an alliance with the US against China. However, in this chapter, we argue that the apparent choice for Taiwan turns out to be a difficult one, for the Taiwanese people. Using the most recent survey data collected by Duke University in 2020, we examine the extent to which Taiwanese people support the option of an “alliance with the US against China,” and the reasons for that support. We find that support for such an alliance has less to do with people’s long-term aspirations, such as party identification and preference for unification or independence. Rather, it depends more on circumstantial factors, such whether they distrust or wish to appease China. Those who believe that appeasing China would prevent war in the Taiwan Strait are less likely to support an alliance with the US, whereas those who believe that China cannot be trusted to honor its peace commitment to Taiwan (or Hong Kong) are more likely to support such an alliance against China. The effect of the above two types of attitude is statistically significant even after checking for respondents’ assessment, regarding the likelihood of US intervention in the case of a military conflict in the Taiwan Strait and their perception of a cross-Strait peace/conflict environment. One policy implication of our findings is that if China wants to disrupt a US-Taiwan (informal) alliance, it should make efforts to inspire trust in its peace commitment to Taiwan among the Taiwanese people. For example, China must honor its commitment to “one country, two systems” in Hong Kong, because success or failure of the system, will have a palpable effect on Taiwan. Stepping up military threats against Taiwan is also counterproductive, as such behavior will increase Taiwanese people’s support for an alliance with the US against China. The PRC’s policy of isolating the incumbent Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) is irrelevant, because party identification is a statistically insignificant factor in Taiwanese people’s support for an anti-Chinese alliance with the US.

The Impact on Taiwan of US-China Strategic Competition

US-China strategic competition did not begin, nor has it ended, with the Trump administration. As soon as George W. Bush assumed the US presidency in 2001, his administration began to evaluate the challenges posed by China’s rise (Department of Defense 2001). Had it not been for the September 11 terrorist attacks, which redirected US attention and resources to its war on terror, the Bush administration might have taken steps to limit China’s military expansion in Asia. Similarly, China’s assertiveness did not begin when Xi Jinping became president in 2013, but rather began with the second term of Xi’s predecessor, Hu Jintao, in 2007. After the 2008 Beijing Olympics and the 2007–2008 subprime mortgage crisis in the US, the Chinese leadership believed that US decline was inevitable and the power gap between the US and China would narrow rapidly. In 2010, China had already surpassed Japan to become the world’s second-largest economy (BBC 2011). But what makes China a great power to be feared is its rapid military expansion, with a double-digit increase in its defense budget each year since 2000 (Bitzinger 2015). While the Chinese government has repeatedly insisted that it does not intend to seek hegemony, nor will it compete with the US for global leadership, the sheer size of its army and economy and its aggressive approach in the East and South China Seas make it a potential threat to the US and its allies and friends in the Asia–Pacific region.

Xi’s aspirations for China’s “rejuvenation” and realization of the “Chinese dream,” aimed at restoring China to its rightful place as the “middle kingdom” (Ma et al. 2021), as well as his suggestion that “the Pacific is broad enough to accommodate both China and the US” (Whitehouse 2014), did nothing to alleviate the suspicions of the US and its allies that China’s rise might not be entirely peaceful. Rather, Xi’s rhetoric and his subsequent move to abolish the term limits on the PRC presidency, his further suppression of political dissent, tightening of controls on civil society, brutal purge of rival factions, and abuse of human rights in Xinjiang and Tibet, as well as the rise of “wolf warrior”-style diplomacy designed to intimidate foreign countries that refuse to accommodate the PRC’s interests all helped to alert the world that a Pax Sinica could mean the end of the democracy, freedom, and human rights that are fundamental to Western civilization. However, this change in perception was not followed by any swift action against China.

The Obama administration’s strategy of rebalancing or pivoting toward Asia was part of this change in perception (Clinton 2011), but little action was taken to constrain China’s expansion. Despite issues of mistreatment by the host during Obama’s state visit to China (Wan 2016), the Obama administration remained committed to strategic and economic dialog with China which yielded only limited results. Limited market access, intellectual property rights violations, forced transfers of technology, state subsidies, and “unfair” trade practices continued to be problems, and China simply ignored its promise not to militarize the islands and rocks in the South China Sea. Guided by the “engagement school” of thought, the Obama administration refrained from using hard power to push back against China’s expansion in the South China Sea. For the entire eight years of Obama’s tenure, the US Navy only conducted so-called freedom of navigation exercises twice. The sense of the US being in decline and unwilling to confront China, made most countries in the Asia–Pacific, which trade increasingly more with China than with the US, feel that they should not affront Beijing, even if they were subject to China’s coercion. If the trend toward Chinese assertiveness and US weakness had continued, it would have been only a matter of time, before Asian countries had started to bandwagon with China.

For China, time (but not power) is the most important factor in its national ascendance. As long as China has time to move along its own planned trajectory, it will eventually accumulate sufficient power to surpass the US. As a case in point, the “Made in China 2025” plan is aimed at developing China into a technological superpower in a generation (Guancha 2015). Whether this plan can actually be achieved by 2025 is questionable, but there is little doubt that it will be achieved eventually. So the major flaw in the thinking of the engagement school is not that engagement has failed to transform China into a democracy that follows the international rules or norms set by the US and its European allies, but that engagement takes time to be effective, and hence it gives China time to expand and change international rules and norms according to its illiberal authoritarian model. So it is hardly surprising that China often invites its rivals and opponents to engage and resolve their differences through “dialog traps” (Collins and Erickson 2021).

In other words, the strategic engagement practiced by various US administrations since the normalization of US-China relations in 1979 is in China’s best interests. And the best counter strategy for China is to follow Deng Xiaoping’s motto, namely, “hide your strength, and bide your time.” Deng’s strategy was to make China appear less aggressive as a way of buying time to focus on economic development and the accumulation of national power. Under Deng Xiaoping, China pretended to follow international rules, when they served China’s interests. For several decades, the US and its European allies that invested in and traded with China confronted a barrage of market access restrictions imposed by the Chinese authorities (Rogin 2010). But these countries were willing to give China time to change, because they hoped that doing so, engagement would work eventually and “transform” China.

However, the hopes of the engagement school seem to have been dashed, as under Xi’s leadership, China has become more repressive internally and aggressive externally. Deng’s motto has been abandoned and instead, China is asserting itself and demanding that its dignity be respected (Heydarian 2014). While China is sometimes prepared to compromise where its interests are concerned, China’s dignity is non-negotiable and must not be violated. The problem with “dignity” is that it is a psychological state, a moving target for China’s opponents. As China becomes more powerful, it becomes more difficult for other countries to avoid violating its dignity, and as a result, the scope of self-censorship where criticism of China is concerned has expanded substantially (Nossel 2021). In order to avoid offending China, most European countries will only criticize its human rights violations in private, hoping that this kind of low-profile approach will persuade the Chinese authorities to change their ways.

For China, there is no cost involved in such non-transparent human rights dialogs, because they do no harm to China’s image. Furthermore, this kind of dialog enables European governments to demonstrate to their own populations, that they are actively condemning China’s human rights violations. Once this ritualized human rights dialog has been completed, the two sides can continue to do business as usual. From a Chinese perspective, as long as foreigners are able to make a profit in the Chinese market, they should keep their mouths shut. If anyone dares to criticize China publicly, they will be harshly rebuked and warned to mind their own business. And persistent China-bashing may lead to economic sanctions, as was the case of the 200% anti-dumping duty imposed on Australian wine (Tan and Wang 2021).

However, the fact that engagement has failed to induce China to change its behavior does not bother the US or European establishments. Were it not for China’s hegemonic posture and the way that its socioeconomic influence is penetrating into other countries, these governments would probably stay silent and continue to engage in their lucrative business with China. The Trump administration was probably the first to lose patience with China’s “dialog trap,” but it did conduct an economic and strategic dialogue with China in June 2017, albeit on a smaller scale than that of the Obama administration. But Trump quickly found this to be useless, given that China did not deliver what it promised. So in 2018, the US-China dialog was suspended indefinitely, and Washington launched a trade war with China. In its public response, China promised tit-for-tat tariffs on US goods, but in practice, China was prepared to agree to a trade deal with the US so that the trade war could be brought to a swift conclusion. Whatever the deficiencies of the phase-one trade deal between the US and China, it showed that the PRC would respect a show of power, and only hard power would persuade it to listen and react. While Trump may have used the wrong measures to redress the US-China trade deficit, the trade war did signal that the Trump administration would not give China any more time to transform itself as the engagement school had suggested. It was checkmate for China, and it would no longer have time to play out its own game of Go against the US (Sun 2012).

The problem with the US-China strategic competition for small-and-medium powers like Taiwan is not whether they should maintain neutrality or take sides. Rather, it is to understand the real nature of the competition. China is putting pressure on weaker allies and friends of the US, so as to avoid a major assault from Washington. As a result, small-to-medium powers like Taiwan face the choice of bandwagoning with China or balancing against it by allying with other major powers—the US in particular. Although such a strategic choice is usually made by political elites, ordinary citizens’ preferences also matter because in democratic systems, elites’ policies have to be evaluated and approved by citizens through elections. This is why in this chapter, we investigate what ordinary citizens in Taiwan think about the option of an “alliance with the US against China.”

The rest of this chapter is organized as follows. In the next section, we discuss how the two major political parties in Taiwan frame Taiwan’s strategic choice between the US and China. In the subsequent section, we discuss our research design and the findings of our empirical analysis. Finally, we conclude by discussing some policy implications of these findings.

Taiwan’s Strategic Choices as Framed by the Two Major Political Parties

In 2008, the incumbent administration under President Ma Ying-jeou of the Kuomintang (KMT) framed its foreign policy as being “viable diplomacy,” the essence of which was to resume dialog and negotiations with China on the basis of the 1992 Consensus and rebuild trust between the two sides. The KMT’s goal was, and remains, to reach a diplomatic truce, under which China and Taiwan would stop attempting to lure away each other’s diplomatic allies and China would give tacit advance approval of Taiwan’s participation in some international organizations. The KMT also adopted a “zero surprise principle,” assuring Washington that Taiwan would not attempt to unilaterally change the status quo between the two sides of the Taiwan Strait. At the same time, the KMT reassured Washington that any improvement in cross-Strait relations would not undermine Taiwan’s security cooperation with the US. Taiwan would continue to purchase defensive weapons from the US and seek to negotiate a free trade agreement with it. The Ma administration also sought to establish friendly relations with Japan while insisting on a rational and peaceful resolution of the Diaoyu (or Senkaku) Island dispute. In short, the KMT’s foreign policy under Ma can be described as one of closer ties with the US, making peace with China, and befriending Japan. It appears to have embodied a hedging strategy involving a combination of closer security ties with the US and economic dependence on China. In reality, the Ma administration did not get along well with Japan, given that Japan’s de facto ambassador in Taipei, Masaki Saito, refused to confirm whether or not Japan renounced Taiwan’s sovereignty to the Republic of China (ROC) in the 1950s (Hsu 2009). In addition, Ma sent a Taiwan coastguard vessel to patrol waters around Diaoyu Island, something which very much upset Tokyo. While Taiwan’s security ties with the US were consistently strong and solid, the Ma administration did drop a plan to purchase diesel-powered submarines from the US, a sale that had been approved by the George W. Bush administration (Cole 2011). The scrapping of the weapons purchase plan did little harm to US-Taiwan relations, given that the Obama administration remained committed to engagement with China. Nevertheless, it did send the wrong signals to the US defense establishment as to whether Taiwan under the KMT was willing to defend itself against a Chinese attack. In addition, Ma’s reluctance to accept US assistance in the wake of the devastation caused by Typhoon Morakot also sent a chilly message to Washington (Wu 2009). Although Ma’s policy of maintaining close ties with the US and befriending Japan may not have been executed in line with his original public announcement, his policy toward China could be deemed to have been a success.

Not only did cross-Strait exchanges increase significantly under Ma, but China and Taiwan signed 23 agreements in such areas as the economy, transportation, postal service cooperation, customs facilitation, judicial assistance, and food safety (Matsuda 2015). High-ranking officials from China, including the deputy director of Beijing’s Taiwan Affairs Office (TAO), party secretaries of important provinces, and the city mayor of Shanghai, were able to visit Taiwan frequently and freely without any supervision. In turn, the Chinese authorities also hosted several cross-Strait forums on how to promote unification to which they invited prominent Taiwanese, such as retired generals, local government officials, and students and scholars, as well as representatives of farmers’ and fishermen’s associations, temples and religious establishments, and indigenous peoples. It appeared that China’s influence had penetrated extensively into Taiwan’s civil society during Ma’s tenure (Mainland Affairs Council 2019). In addition, as a result of Ma’s diplomatic truce policy, Taiwan did not lose any of its diplomatic allies between 2008 and 2016. Moreover, from 2013 to 2016, with Beijing’s tacit approval, Taiwan was invited by the secretary-general of the WHO to participate in the World Health Assembly as an observer (Wees 2016). Taiwan was also able to participate in the ICAO Assembly as a “special invited guest” of its secretary-general in 2013. While cross-Strait relations improved substantially under Ma, his hedging strategy was seen by the Taiwanese public as lacking balance, steering Taiwan closer to China’s orbit. In particular, Ma’s Cross-Strait Service Trade Agreement (CSSTA) of 2013, aimed at liberalizing the trade in services between Taiwan and China, provoked the Sunflower Student Movement. When hundreds of thousands of people turned out to protest, Taiwan’s legislature suspended its review of the CSSTA and the agreement was never ratified. That said, Ma demonstrated his committment to his approach of appeasing China by meeting Xi Jinping in Singapore in 2015, a few months before he stepped down as president.

With the Singapore summit, Ma was aiming to preserve his personal legacy, while Xi wanted to make sure that the trend toward unification that had started under Ma would be locked into the program of the next administration. Both Ma and Xi found common ground in the 1992 Consensus, seeing it as the political basis for cross-Strait relations, although each side interpreted it differently. For China, the consensus meant that both sides of the Taiwan Strait accepted that there is only one China, period. In contrast, Ma and the KMT saw “China” as having different interpretations on either side of the Strait, with Ma’s interpretation being the Republic of China and Xi’s the People’s Republic. Even though China consistently rejected the KMT’s “different interpretations” idea, with its derived consequence that the two sides could each be represented in international organizations, China was willing to trust Ma and allow his administration to promote the KMT’s version of the consensus within Taiwan.

This trust between the KMT and the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) has never been replicated in relation to the incumbent DPP and Taiwan’s current president, Tsai Ing-wen. Indeed, when after assuming office in 2016, President Tsai refused to follow the course set up at the Ma-Xi summit and rejected China’s preconditions as prescribed by the terms of the 1992 consensus, China suspended all communication with Tsai’s government and once again attempted to isolate Taiwan in the international arena. And since 2016, Beijing has persuaded seven of Taiwan’s diplomatic allies to transfer recognition, thus ending the diplomatic truce set up by Ma (Aljazeera 2021). Taiwan’s participation in international organizations like the WHO and ICAO was also blocked by Beijing. In January 2019, in the CCP’s fortieth annual “Letters to Taiwanese Compatriots,” Xi Jinping redefined the terms of the 1992 Consensus as promoting the unification of China based on the “One China principle” and “one country, two systems” (Taiwan Affairs Office 2019; Grano and Wu 2021). Xi’s statement alerted Taiwan’s ruling elite to Xi’s readiness to push for unification on a unilateral basis. Tsai was quick to respond to Xi’s words, insisting that China must recognize the existence of the ROC, must not deny the Taiwanese people the right to choose freedom and democracy, and must resolve cross-Strait disputes peacefully. She said that her government was willing to engage in peaceful dialog and orderly exchanges with China under no preconditions. At the same time, Taiwan would work toward “democratic consolidation” and the “enhancement of national security” (Office of the President 2019).

Although Tsai’s olive branch met with a harsh response from China, her policy toward the US thus far seems to have been very successful. Tsai’s US policy is based on mutual trust and “no surprises.” She signaled to the US that she would maintain the status quo between the two sides of the Taiwan Strait and would not rock the boat by undertaking ill-conceived initiatives that would provoke China. At the same time, Tsai’s government would enhance Taiwan’s self-defense capability and strengthen national security, while resisting China’s coercion and preserving peace in the Indo-Pacific region. Tsai’s reassurance was much appreciated by the Trump administration, especially as the US was at that time engaged in a fierce strategic competition with China. When US-China relations deteriorated with the onset of the trade war in March 2018 (Mullen 2021), the Trump administration tried to strengthen its ties with Taiwan by sending high-ranking officials (including Secretary of Health and Human Services Alex Azar, Under Secretary of State Keith Krach, and Assistant US Trade Representative Terrence J. McCartin) to the island, authorizing a multi-billion-dollar sale of advanced weapons to Taiwan, resuming negotiations on TIFA (US-Taiwan Trade and Investment Framework Agreement), including Taiwan in Washington’s Economic Prosperity Partnership Dialogue (EPPD), and inviting Taiwan to attend a ministerial conference on advancing freedom of religion and belief (DeAeth 2018; State Department 2019). Moreover, the US used its diplomatic resources to dissuade Taiwan’s diplomatic allies in Central America from switching recognition to China, while offering more vocal and clear support for Taiwan’s participation in various international organizations (Yeh 2021).

The increased US support for Taiwan was more than just a reward for the Tsai government’s exercise of responsible statecraft; it was also connected with China’s intensified military maneuvers in the Taiwan Strait. Beijing signaled its displeasure of closer ties between the US and Taiwan by sending its war planes into Taiwan’s air defense identification zone (ADIZ) and crossing the median line of the Taiwan Strait. Indeed, a clear pattern emerged: whenever the US sent high-ranking officials to Taiwan or offered concrete support for Taiwan in the international arena, China would send its fighter jets into Taiwan’s ADIZ or conduct military exercises near Taiwan’s territorial waters or airspace. China also “routinized” its military maneuvers, both as a political statement and as a way of testing Taiwan’s defense capabilities and wearing out Taiwan’s defensive resources. It is estimated that the number of aircraft of the People’s Liberation Army Air Force entering Taiwan’s ADIZ increased from 10 in 2019 to 380 in 2020 (Shih et al. 2021). Such frequent encroachments alarmed the US military establishment, which interpreted them as a prelude to an invasion of Taiwan (Hille and Sevastopulo 2021). To deter China’s military ventures and reassure Taiwan, Washington not only offered to sell more defensive weapons to Taiwan and train its army and marines, it also started frequent patrols by warplanes and warships in the Taiwan Strait and South China Sea (Department of Defense 2020). Bipartisan support for Taiwan was so apparent in the US Congress and the House of Representatives that more than 14 bills relevant to Taiwan were passed in 2018–2020, including the Taipei Act, Taiwan Travel Act, and the Taiwan Security Enhancement Act (Legislative Search Results 2022).

All-round high-profile US support for Taiwan and the impasse in the island’s relations with China did indeed make it look as though the Tsai government was taking sides with the US against China. Yet, the Tsai administration had no way of influencing how much assistance the US government would offer Taiwan. Nevertheless, by acting as a responsible stakeholder determined to maintain the peaceful status quo between the two sides of the Taiwan Strait, the Tsai government was able to enjoy the trust and support of the US in such a way as to counter China’s threats and coercion. The question is whether the Taiwanese people support Tsai’s strategic choice for Taiwan or whether they prefer Ma’s hedging strategy. To answer this question, we analyze data from the Taiwan National Security Surveys (TNSS). Since 2002, the Program in Asian Security Studies at Duke University has commissioned the Election Study Center at National Chengchi University, Taiwan, to conduct the TNSS via telephone interviews (Niou 2004). The TNSS focuses on Taiwanese citizens’ attitudes toward key political issues and national security. It has accumulated 13 waves of data. The latest survey was carried out on 27–31 October 2020, and recorded 1110 successful interviews. The data were released on 12 November 2020. As Sino-US relations and cross-Strait relations experienced significant changes at the end of the Trump administration amid the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020, the 2020 TNSS data provide a timely opportunity to investigate how Taiwanese citizens evaluated developing issues regarding national security.

Why Would Taiwanese Side with the US Against China?

For the technical specifications of our statistical models, as well as explanations of the variables selected, please refer to Tables 11.1 and 11.2 in the appendix. In this section, we present the findings derived from our analyses of the TNSS data. While foreign policy may not be the most important determinant of election results in most Western democracies, previous studies show that in a Taiwan context, especially in presidential elections, attitudes toward China have an important impact on vote choices (Sheng 2002; Wu and Liao 2015). Therefore, political parties and presidential candidates have to accommodate voters’ preferences by carefully positioning themselves along the dimension of pro- or anti-China on various policies. In this chapter, we argue that the most important policy choice related to Taiwan’s security is whether to ally with the US against China or to hedge against China to avoid war. The two main parties in Taiwan have clearly positioned themselves on this question, with the DPP preferring to ally with the US against China, and the KMT preferring a hedging strategy. From 2020 TNSS data, as shown in Fig. 11.1, we find that 54.24% of Taiwanese respondents “agree” or “strongly agree” that Taiwan should ally with the US and Japan against China.Footnote 1 The question is, why do they make such a choice?

Fig. 11.1
A bar graph presents of percentage of respondents versus level of agreement. Strongly agree has the highest response of 27.21%.

(Source The 2020 Taiwan National Security Survey [N = 1110])

Support for Allying with the US and Japan against China among Taiwanese

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In addition to the respondents’ demographic characteristics, we believe there are structural and circumstantial factors that would affect people’s decisions concerning an alliance with the US against China. Structural factors include party identification and long-term attitude toward independence for Taiwan or the unification of China, while circumstantial factors include pre-existing preferences regarding policies for dealing with China, whether one believes Taiwan’s military power to be strong enough to ward off a Chinese attack, evaluation of the level of peace between the two sides of the Taiwan Strait, and expectations concerning the likelihood of the US coming to Taiwan’s aid in the event of a Chinese attack. There is one intervening variable that could affect a respondent’s opinion concerning an alliance with the US against China, namely, whether they consider China to be trustworthy. The 2020 TNSS does not include questions measuring levels of trust, so we have used two surrogates that seem to tap the degree of distrust of China among Taiwanese. One is the question whether deepening economic ties with China would lead to economic coercion by Beijing, and the other is whether China’s recent heavy-handed approach to Hong Kong would incline respondents to support Taiwan independence. On economic coercion, China has repeatedly demonstrated its displeasure at political developments in Taiwan by imposing sanctions on imports of Taiwanese fruit and agricultural products (McDonald 2021). It has also punished Taiwanese companies that operate in China and have donated to “pro-independence” political parties in Taiwan (Wu 2021). On Hong Kong, China promised that its “one country, two systems” approach would last for 50 years, but the damage done to Hong Kong residents’ freedoms by the recent enactment of the National Security Law may have heightened distrust of China among Taiwanese, which would encourage them to side with the US against China.

Concerning demographic and structural variables, our initial model shows that respondents are more likely to support allying with the US against China if they are male, non-KMT supporters, or if they prefer maintenance of the status quo or independence over unification (see Table 11.2 in the appendix). But after controlling for other variables, the effect of party identification disappears. In our models, we find that preexisting policy preferences for dealing with China have some impact. Respondents are less likely to support allying with the US against China if they think that the Taiwanese government should increase economic ties with China or adopt moderate policies toward China to ease cross-Strait tension. However, respondents who are concerned about China’s potential economic coercion against Taiwan, or about the negative effect of the National Security Law in Hong Kong, are more likely to support allying with the US against China than those who are not concerned about these issues. In other words, distrust of China plays an important role in determining whether a respondent favors allying with the US.

Concerning circumstantial factors, we would expect respondents’ support for allying with the US against China to be determined by their evaluation of the level of peace in the Taiwan Strait and the likelihood of the US coming to Taiwan’s aid in the event of a Chinese attack. Specifically, we would expect respondents who perceive that relations with China are peaceful to be less likely to support allying with the US against China, and those who perceive a low level of peace would also be against such an alliance as it could further escalate tension with China or provoke military conflict. Thus, we expect the relationship between perception of cross-Strait peace and support for allying with the US against China to take the form of an inverted U. Across the five statistical models in this chapter that are reported in Table 11.2 in the appendix, we consistently find this inverted U-shaped relationship to be statistically significant, no matter which variables we control for. In addition, after controlling for all other variables, we still find that respondents are more likely to support allying with the US against China if they expect that the US will come to Taiwan’s aid in defending against a Chinese attack (see Model 5 in Table 11.2).

To sum up, we find that Taiwanese people’s support for allying with the US against China depends more on circumstantial factors than structural factors. In particular, when people perceive that cross-Strait relations are either extremely peaceful or extremely tense, they are less likely to support such an alliance. In other words, only perception of a moderate degree of tension across the Taiwan Strait results in support for an anti-China alliance with the US. Moreover, only when people expect the US to help defend Taiwan against a Chinese attack are they likely to support an alliance with the US against China. In addition, we find that preexisting policy preferences toward China and distrust of China play important roles in respondents’ opinions concerning allying with the US against China. Those who believe that Taiwan should increase economic ties with China or that Taiwan should adopt a moderate policy toward China to deescalate cross-Strait tension are less likely to support allying with the US against China. However, feelings of distrust could have a counter-balancing effect in relation to people’s preexisting China policy preferences. For example, we find that respondents who believe that increased economic ties with China would lead to economic coercion and those who think Hong Kong’s “one country, two systems” was undermined by the National Security Law are more likely to support allying with the US against China.

On the other hand, we find that structural factors, like party identification and expectations concerning unification or independence, play an insignificant role in respondents’ opinions on an alliance with the US against China. While such an alliance is part of DPP policy, DPP supporters do not necessarily support it, so it is obvious that DPP-bashing by Beijing will not lead Taiwanese people to reject an alliance. It is true that in our models we find that people favoring the status quo or Taiwanese independence are more likely to support allying with the US against China than pro-unification respondents. But expectations concerning the future development of the cross-Strait relationship (e.g., unification or independence) have no impact at all. In other words, Taiwanese support for an alliance with the US against China is not structurally determined. Rather, it hinges on various circumstantial factors, notably, “distrusting China” and preference for “engaging with China,” as well as evaluations concerning the level of peace in cross-Strait relations and expectations of US assistance in the event of a Chinese attack. The above findings have profound implications for policymakers in the US, China, and Taiwan. These will be discussed in the conclusive section.

Conclusion

As US-China strategic competition becomes more intense, the likelihood of a conflict in the Taiwan Strait increases. Competition between the US and China has extended beyond the realms of trade, finance, currency, technology, the internet, space, diplomacy, and the military to values and ideology. No other place in the world is experiencing such a severe impact from the multidimensional and interconnected competition between the US and China than Taiwan. From a geopolitical standpoint, Taiwan is essential to both the US and China. For the US, Taiwan is located in the midpoint of the first island chain, which acts as a line of defense for the US and its allies. Taiwan is also a vibrant democracy that the US, through the Taiwan Relations Act, is committed to providing with sufficient self-defense capability to withstand coercion, threats, and ultimately a military attack by China. At stake are the credibility of the US commitment and Washington’s security interests which depend on maintaining the peaceful status quo in the Taiwan Strait. China, for its part, regards Taiwan as part of its sovereign territory and refuses to allow any foreign power or pro-independence forces in Taiwan to challenge its One China principle. The very stability of the CCP regime is tied to the unification of China, hopefully by peaceful means but by military force if necessary. Lying behind China’s aspiration for unification is its long-term strategic goal of becoming a global power via an advance into blue waters such as the Pacific Ocean. For China, unification is linked to regime survival, and it is a precondition for becoming a preeminent international power. Xi’s personal ambition to rule China indefinitely is yet another variable that makes the situation between the two sides of the Taiwan Strait unpredictable. Therefore, neither China nor the US has room to turn its back on Taiwan, and yet they may be reluctant to go to war with each other over the island.

For an indication of rising tension in the Taiwan Strait, we should look no further than the increasing military buildup in the area. The PLA has substantially increased the number of its near-shore exercises over the past four years, and whenever high-level US officials visit Taiwan, the PLA announces or holds a military exercise in the East China Sea. And as we discussed above, the number of PLA Air Force encroachments into Taiwan’s ADIZ increased substantially between 2019 and 2020, and in the period January-November 2021, more than 930 such sorties took place. While China has been using military exercises to threaten and coerce Taiwan, the US has offered support by announcing more arms sales and sending its warships through the Taiwan Strait. The US air force has engaged in routine patrols near Taiwan’s ADIZ and in the South China Sea. The Pentagon also revised its defense strategy to include multiple launching bases for anti-ship missiles to deter China and respond to any contingencies around Taiwan. In addition to sending more high-level envoys to the island, the US Congress also passed several bills in support of Taiwan. It is up for debate whether it is the overt support offered by the US, the threat emanating from China, or a combination of the two that has prompted so many Taiwanese people to favor allying with the US against China.

The mounting military threat to Taiwan from China not only fosters antipathy toward China among the Taiwanese people, but is also discrediting Beijing’s solemn commitment to pursue the unification of China peacefully. While Xi’s 2019 statement about “robustly preparing the ‘one country, two systems’ option for Taiwan” (Taiwan Affairs Office 2019) might signal that Xi wants to complete unification during his tenure, it was the subsequent crackdown on pro-democracy protests in Hong Kong and the tightening of control over Hong Kong society represented by the National Security Law that completely destroyed confidence among Taiwanese that China genuinely intended to implement the “one country, two systems” formula in Taiwan. Despite rhetoric concerning the provision of economic incentives for Taiwanese companies to invest in mainland China, the overall business environment there has continued to deteriorate due to soaring labor costs and unpredictable political interference in the market by the CCP regime. That Taiwanese businesses were subject to arbitrary harassment and prosecution was not new, but what made China’s potential to coerce Taiwan into a perceived reality was Xi’s interference in China’s own private corporations and the purges of business people who supported his political rivals. Does the perception of China’s economic coercion of Taiwan contribute to Taiwanese favoring an alliance with the US against China? Does distrust of China’s commitment to “one country, two systems” make Taiwanese prefer a balancing strategy against China? Why was the initial hedging option framed by the KMT abandoned by the DPP in favor of a balancing strategy against China? Our empirical analysis of the 2020 TNSS data may provide some preliminary answers to these questions.

In our empirical analysis of the survey data, we find that respondents who are male and have received a college education are likely to support allying with the US against China. Neither party identification nor people’s expectations concerning the future development of the cross-Strait relationship (unification or independence) has any impact on views on allying with the US against China. It is circumstantial factors that have a significant impact. People who perceive either an extremely high or an extremely low level of peace between the two sides of the Taiwan Strait are less likely to support allying with the US against China, whereas those who believe that the US would be willing to come to Taiwan’s aid in the event of a Chinese attack are more likely to support such an alliance. Preexisting preferences for closer economic ties with China or for a more moderate policy toward China also influence people’s choices on this issue, as respondents with those policy preferences are less likely to show support for allying with the US against China. Finally, we find that trust/distrust of China’s commitments has a significant effect on people’s choices concerning allying with the US against China. Those who believe that China’s pledges are not trustworthy, especially in light of recent developments in Hong Kong and China’s potential for economic coercion, are more likely to support allying with the US against China.

What, then, are the policy implications of the above findings? While we do not deny that some long-term attitudes have an impact on Taiwanese people’s preference for allying with the US against China, we should highlight the importance of circumstantial factors. If they are to succeed in winning over the Taiwanese people, Chinese policymakers must endeavor to inspire trust in their commitments. It is no good offering Taiwan the “one country, two systems” formula while at the same time hollowing out that very same formula in Hong Kong. China cannot offer economic incentives to Taiwanese businesses operating in China while at the same time imposing economic sanctions on Taiwanese agricultural imports. These contradictory actions only increase distrust of China among the Taiwanese, making them more likely to favor an alliance with the US against China. Neither DPP-bashing nor the demonizing of supporters of Taiwan independence has an impact on this, since party identification is not a statistically significant factor in our empirical analysis, and a preference for independence, as a long-term inclination, cannot be changed overnight. Increasing military pressure on Taiwan would also be counterproductive, as that would invite a stronger US military presence in the Taiwan Strait. As US military activities in the Taiwan Strait become more frequent, Taiwanese become more convinced that the US would defend the island in the event of a Chinese attack, and this, according to our statistical model, increases Taiwanese people’s support for an alliance with the US against China. Moreover, according to our empirical analysis, as the perception of a threat in the Taiwan Strait increases, so does support for allying with the US against China. Unless China’s military pressure is increased to such a level that Taiwanese people believe any resistance to be futile, the strategic choice of allying with the US against China is a straightforward one for the Taiwanese people. Given that a high level of threat would invite US intervention, the only alternative for China is to ease military tension between the two sides of the Taiwan Strait, because in those circumstances, Taiwanese people would be less likely to favor allying with the US against China.

For policymakers in the US, it is important to demonstrate their country’s commitment to defending Taiwan, should China attack. As our findings show, those who believe that the US would come to Taiwan’s aid in those circumstances are more likely to favor an anti-China alliance with the US. While the US does not want a military conflict with China, its commitment to Taiwan’s self-defense is cautiously watched not only by the Taiwanese people but also by its regional allies. The best way for the US to prevent a war with China is to make sure that its commitment to Taiwan’s self-defense is widely trusted by its allies. And Taiwanese people’s support for allying with the US against China based on their expectations of this US commitment has become a litmus test for the US-led alliance system in the Indo-Pacific region.

Although the policy of strategic ambiguity has served US interests for more than 50 years and has deterred China and Taiwan from going to war with each other, it has an inherent weakness in that it does not provide any credible reassurance that the US will come to Taiwan’s aid in the event of a Chinese attack. The 2020 TNSS data reveal that there are still many Taiwanese people who do not believe that the US would come to their aid in those circumstances, although those who do believe that the US would help Taiwan are more likely to favor an alliance with the US against China. In the context of the strategic competition between Washington and Beijing, the US should send frequent signals of reassurance to Taiwan if it wants to have the Taiwanese people’s support, instead of clinging to its strategic ambiguity policy. Recent announcements concerning arms sales to Taiwan, the more frequent presence of US warships in the Taiwan Strait, clear declarations by Presiden Biden regarding coming to Taiwan’s defence, and more visits to Taiwan by high-level US officials, such as Nancy Pelosi’s visit in August 2022, provide more reassurance. In their turn, the Taiwanese people respond to those signals of reassurance by favoring an alliance with the US against China.

For policymakers in Taiwan, whether to ally with the US against China is a critical decision affecting national security. It appears to be an easy choice, given that China has consistently threatened to take the island by force should Taiwan put off accepting Beijing’s “one country, two systems” and “peaceful unification” proposals indefinitely. Moreover, China’s recent imposition of the National Security Law in Hong Kong has effectively undermined its commitment to “one country, two systems,” thus deepening Taiwanese people’s distrust. So taking sides with the US against China has become the only viable option for Taiwanese policymakers. Our findings show that the Taiwanese people are not predisposed to favor a balancing strategy against China. Neither can the incumbent DPP rely on its supporters’ inclination to ally with the US, as party identification has no impact on such a choice. What the DPP can do is adopt a “moderate” stance and maintain the status quo, neither provoking a Chinese attack nor accommodating China’s political demands. Such a policy position would also be in the best interests of the US, because when Taiwanese people perceive only a moderate level of tension in the Taiwan Strait, they are likely to support allying with the US against China. In turn, when the US consistently sends signals of reassurance to Taiwan, it will reinforce Taiwanese people’s preference for allying with the US against China. But this preference should not be taken for granted, as our findings show that it hinges more on circumstantial factors than on structural ones. Of these circumstantial factors, we find that expectation of US help, distrust of China’s committments, and an evaluation of the level of peace in cross-Strait relations are the most relevant factors that policymakers in the US, China, and Taiwan should take into account when making their individual strategic choices.