China refuses to ‘acknowledge’ US one-China policy

WRITTEN BY PAK K. LEE AND ANISA HERITAGE

18 August 2022

Nancy Pelosi’s visit to Taiwan on 2-3 August 2022 provoked furious retaliatory reactions from Beijing. The visit not only further aggravated frayed Sino-US relations but also drew closer attention to the cracks in the already fragile consensus between the two governments on the meaning of the one-China policy. In early August, both Pelosi and the People’s Republic of China (PRC)’s Ambassador to the US, Qin Gang, put across their respective viewpoints in the Washington Post in quick succession. Less than two weeks later, US Senator Ed Markey led another congressional delegation to visit Taiwan. In response, the Chinese army vowed to carry out more drills near Taiwan.

Qin argued that the US should “naturally abide by the one-China principle”, and claimed that the US had “violated and undermined” the principle in the past when it adopted the Taiwan Relations Act in 1979 and when President Reagan issued his ‘Six Assurances’ to Taiwan in 1982. China’s Foreign Minister, Wang Yi, made a similar remark in October 2021, when he urged the US “to pursue a real one-China policy, instead of a fake one, to fulfil its commitments to China faithfully rather than treacherously”. Pelosi’s visit lays bare an often misunderstood issue on the part of China: that there is a mutually agreed ‘one-China’ policy, however, the US has frequently violated this agreement. Is this really the case? We argue that there are two different interpretations of ‘one China’ — both China and the US agree on the narrow version but diverge on the broader one.

Two versions of ‘one China’

China’s version of ‘one China’ is abundantly clear: there is one China only, Taiwan is part of China and this ‘China’ is the PRC. Accordingly, reunification and by what means — whether by negotiation or by force — is an internal matter for China, as stated in the PRC’s anti-secession law (2005). The US agreed to the United Nations General Assembly Resolution 2578, adopted in October 1971, which recognised that the representatives of the PRC government are the only lawful representatives of China to the UN. However, Resolution 2758 did not endorse the PRC position that Taiwan is part of China per se, as it did not mention either the Republic of China or Taiwan.

In order to minimise the chances of conflict with Beijing, Washington must now clarify its one-China policy rather than maintain strategic ambiguity over the matter of Taiwan’s indeterminate status.

The US engages in a ‘one-China’ policy with two important caveats — first, if the policy involves recognition that Taiwan is part of China; second, if there is any aggressive move on Beijing’s part to unilaterally force unification on Taiwan. Therefore, what has developed since 1972 is a dual parallel track approach to US-PRC and US-Taiwan relations under the auspices of the one-China policy. The American position was outlined in three joint communiqués signed between 1972 and 1982. In the first, the Shanghai Communiqué signed at the end of President Nixon’s historic visit to China in February 1972, the US was only prepared to “acknowledge that all Chinese on either side of the Taiwan Strait maintain there is but one China and that Taiwan is a part of China. The United States Government does not challenge that position” (emphasis added).

In the second Joint Communiqué of 16 December 1978, the US accepted that the PRC government was “the sole legal Government of China” and reaffirmed that it would “acknowledge the Chinese position that there is but one China and Taiwan is part of China” (emphasis added). US recognition of the PRC did not, however, entail recognising Chinese sovereignty over Taiwan. The Chinese text of this communiqué uses “cheng ren” (recognise) rather than “ren shi”, as previously used in the Chinese text of the Shanghai Communiqué, for the English word “acknowledge”. Senator Jacob Javis pointed out this subtle change during the congressional debate on the Taiwan Relations Act in February 1979. The then Deputy Secretary of State, Warren Christopher, said in a Senate hearing, “[w]e regard the English text as being the binding text. We regard the word ‘acknowledge’ as being the word that is determinative for the U.S.”.

Acknowledging the PRC’s position was by no means formal acceptance that the PRC held any sovereignty claims to Taiwan. This interpretation of the ‘one-China’ policy has been consistently held since 1972 by every incoming president, and here is where the dual parallel track starts to unfold. Following US recognition of the PRC in January 1979, Congress passed the Taiwan Relations Act (TRA), creating a legal framework for maintaining relations with Taiwan. It pledged “to provide Taiwan with arms of a defensive character”. Both the American government and Congress regard the TRA as ‘superior’ in status to the joint communiqués signed with China because the Act was ‘democratically’ enacted by Congress. Hence Pelosi’s order of significance in her Washington Post article that the US one-China policy is guided by the TRA, the US-China Joint Communiqués, and the Six Assurances.

The TRA reaffirmed the US position on how Taiwan’s unification with the PRC ought to be achieved: “The [US] decision to establish diplomatic relations with the [PRC] rests upon the expectation that the future of Taiwan will be determined by peaceful means and that any effort to determine the future of Taiwan by other than peaceful means … is considered a threat to the peace and security of the Western Pacific area and of grave concern to the United States” (emphasis added). In the midst of negotiating the third Sino-US communiqué on US arms sales to Taiwan, President Reagan issued Six Assurances to the Taiwanese government in July 1982. The fifth assurance stated that: “The United States has not altered its position regarding sovereignty over Taiwan” (emphasis added). Both the TRA and the Six Assurances are considered “cornerstones” of US-Taiwan relations.

Mind the difference: ‘Acknowledge’ versus ‘recognise’

In sum, the US is pursuing a narrowly interpreted one-China policy, which recognises the PRC government as China’s sole legal government. Beijing and Washington have only a shared understanding of this narrow interpretation of the one-China policy. The US has never adopted a ‘one-China’ policy that would entail a formal recognition of Taiwan as part of the PRC. Given the indeterminacy of Taiwan’s political status, visits by Pelosi and other lawmakers to Taiwan have not violated the US version of the one-China policy. The US president may even interpret the American ‘acknowledgement’ flexibly. In August 2020, US Health and Human Services Secretary, Alex Azar (a cabinet official in the Trump administration), visited Taiwan and met President Tsai Ing-wen. In order to minimise the chances of conflict with Beijing, Washington must now clarify its one-China policy rather than maintain strategic ambiguity over the matter of Taiwan’s indeterminate status.

The US could start by openly clarifying how its position on ‘one China’ differs from that of the PRC’s, namely that 1) it does not entail ‘recognising’ Taiwan as part of China, 2) reunification with Taiwan is not entirely an internal Chinese matter, and 3) the question of Taiwan’s sovereignty might be decided ‘peacefully’ by the Chinese people living on both sides of the Taiwan Strait.

DISCLAIMER: All views expressed are those of the writer and do not necessarily represent that of the 9DASHLINE.com platform.

Author biographies

Pak K Lee is a Senior Lecturer in Chinese Politics and International Relations in the School of Politics and International Relations at the University of Kent, Canterbury, United Kingdom.

Anisa Heritage is a Senior Lecturer in the Department of Defence and International Affairs at the Royal Military Academy Sandhurst, United Kingdom. Image credit: Flickr/Office of the President, Republic of China (Taiwan).