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India
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INDIA IN
LOCKDOWN
C
hina has
never renounced what it says
is its right to “reunify” Taiwan by force
if peaceful means are thwarted. So armies
on both sides have to prepare for war, how-
ever remote it may seem. Of late the num-
ber of naval exercises China has conducted
has caused alarm—all the more so at a time
of worsening relations between China and
America on a number of fronts, including
American policy towards Taiwan. The deli-
cate status quo, in which China insists Tai-
wan is part of its territory but the island
functions as an independent country, is
fraying. As the
Global Times
, a tub-thump-
ing official Chinese tabloid, puts it: “The
possibility of peaceful reunification is de-
creasing sharply.” Mercifully, that does not
mean war is imminent.
A big reason for that is America’s sup-
port for Taiwan. Yet it has no formal alli-
ance or clear-cut commitment to defend
the island. A law passed in 1979 obliges it
only to provide Taiwan with “arms of a de-
fensive character”, and to take seriously
any effort to determine the island’s future
other than by peaceful means. This vague-
ness has been dignified with a clever-
sounding euphemism, “strategic ambigu-
ity”. Critics of the policy worry that ambi-
guity increases the risks of a disastrous
strategic miscalculation. Its supporters ar-
gue that, for the four decades since Ameri-
ca switched diplomatic relations from Tai-
wan to China, it has worked. It has
provided enough reassurance to Taiwan
that America would not let China invade
unpunished, but not so much as to em-
bolden those who favour a formal declara-
tion of independence—something China
has always warned would mean war.
On August 31st America’s position be-
came a touch less ambiguous. It made pub-
lic classified cables from 1982 in which its
government gave Taiwan six supposedly
secret but widely known “assurances”.
These included not to repeal the 1979 law,
and not to set a date for ending arms sales.
The declassification went a tiny way to
meeting recent calls from some American
politicians and former officials to clear up
the ambiguity. Ted Yoho, a Republican rep-
resentative from Florida, for example, is
promoting a “Taiwan Invasion Prevention
Act”, to authorise military intervention.
The issue has seemed more urgent fol-
lowing a recent series of menacing Chinese
military drills, including “realistic” exer-
cises in the Taiwan Strait, at both the north
and south ends of the island. No doubt car-
rying the same message, on August 10th
Chinese fighter jets crossed the median
line in the strait, the unofficial air border.
The drills serve as a reminder of just
how seriously China treats its “sacred mis-
sion” of bringing Taiwan back under its
sovereignty. They also serve to flaunt Chi-
na’s fast-improving military capability. It is
hard not to see this as part of a more asser-
tive approach to the region. That has been
evident in the South China Sea, where Chi-
na has been steadily building up a military
presence in contested waters, although its
claims have been rejected both by an inter-
national tribunal in 2016 and, just last
month, by America. To the north, off Chi-
na’s east coast, Japan has accused China in
recent months of a “relentless” campaign
to seize control of the tiny, uninhabited,
Japanese-administered Senkaku islands
(known in China as Diaoyu). And on Au-
gust 29th Chinese and Indian soldiers be-
came embroiled in the latest of several
stand-offs in a remote part of their long
border in the western Himalayas, where In-
dia accuses Chinese troops of trying to
move the de facto border.
Meanwhile, China’s ruthless approach
to Hong Kong has also held a message for
Taiwan. The imposition at the end of June
of a national-security law in effect ended
the autonomy promised under the “one
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