June 2, 2026 • 28 mins
Why does America support Taiwan, sell it weapons, and rely on it economically, yet refuse to treat it like a normal country? Steve Yates breaks down the history behind U.S.-Taiwan relations, the origins of “One China” policy, and the growing risk of conflict with Beijing. He explains why current policy may no longer match today’s realities and what a more common-sense approach could look like.
Nation States with Yates helps you understand global events through the lens of America’s interests. Join Steve Yates, your personal national security advisor, for clear, practical analysis on the issues shaping America’s future.
Follow Clay & Buck on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/c/clayandbuck
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Listen
Watch
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:01):
Welcome to Nation States. With Yates, news comes at you fast,
whether you're in the White House or at your house.
We try to take you behind the headlines and beyond
the talking points, to serve as your personal national security advisor,
to take a look at what's happening in this wild world,
but help it makes sense in a main street kind
of way. Today, I want to talk a little bit
(00:23):
about Taiwan again, because it stays in the headlines, it's
at the front lines. It seems to be in the
middle of what is the greatest challenge between the US
and China. After President Trump's summit in Beijing with Leader
Sheijin Ping of China, I was just in Taiwan for
a week of meetings, consultations, and a little bit of
(00:44):
speech of fining, but came back with a few takeaways
about key questions that maybe real Americans might have about
what exactly is our policy towards Taiwan and why is
our policy the way it is because some of the
answers might surprise you. So after this brief break, we're
(01:04):
going to come back and take a deep dive into
what exactly is America's approach to Taiwan. What should be
America's approach to Taiwan, and should our leaders even be
talking to each other? Might surprise you that they haven't
been talking directly to each other. So after a brief break,
come back to join US with Nation States with Yates.
(01:28):
Welcome back to Nation States with Yates. Taiwan. You might
have heard of it island one hundred miles off the
coast of mainland China. There's some dispute about exactly how
far and away it is from the United States. The President,
and when he was talking on the plane back from China,
made mention of it being nine five hundred miles away. Well,
(01:49):
it's probably nine thy five hundred kilometers from the west coast,
but really only four hundred miles from the nearest US
base where there are significant US capabilities, including troops, and
only about seventeen hundred miles from the nearest US territories
where citizens vote in our elections and have representation in
our government. And so of course there are some targets
(02:11):
far away from the US West coast that matter to
US interests. The waterways around Taiwan strategically significant. We've talked
about that before, but as I spent the last week
in Taiwan. Sometimes I refer to it as fantasy island
where all of your dreams come true. A few basic
questions crossed my mind as we thought about what exactly
(02:31):
is America's policy towards Taiwan. Well, to specialists, a lot
of it will begin with a civil war on the
Chinese mainland. What they leave out of that story is
there were already people on the island of Taiwan at
that time. There were natives that had been there for
centuries that the cultures resembled more of Polynesia, even Native
(02:54):
American culture, than they did any kind of mainland Asian culture.
But over the centuries there would be traders, people who
were fleeing from other jurisdictions that might end up in
the island of Taiwan. And then there were far away
European traders that would come, the Portuguese, Spanish, others would
come and they would settle create some form of governments
(03:17):
in a localized part of Taiwan. But all of this
was going on before the Chinese Civil War. Also before
the Chinese Civil War, a small nation called Japan we're
going to talk about in the next episode or two.
They came to Taiwan by way of the Sino Japanese
War that ended in eighteen ninety five, result of which
(03:40):
was Japan One China lost. Now, that was China under
what we call the Qing Dynasty. That was a minority
group known as the people in Manchuria, northeastern part of China.
They had their own script and language and culture that
was distinct from what had been traditionally Chinese. But they
(04:02):
took over and ran the Qing Empire for hundreds of years.
They lost to the Japanese, and one of the takeaways
by Japan after that loss was Taiwan. It was ceded
to Japan imperpetuity, which is a fancy way of saying forever.
Forever turned out to be fifty years. But I digress.
The Civil war ends between the Chinese mainland and the
(04:28):
and the Republic of China that was led by Chen
Kai Shek. It was the Nationalist Party Kuomintang that lost
the civil war, retreated from the mainland and went to Taiwan.
Now that Taiwan had been given by Japan. Two China
after Japan lost World War II, So you have Sino
(04:52):
Japanese War eighteen ninety five Taiwan ceded to Japan. Forever
Forever goes until nineteen forty five, when Japan loses World
War II, the Republic of China nominally takes control of Taiwan,
but really they weren't paying that much attention to that
jurisdiction at that time. It was when the civil war
(05:15):
on the mainland went badly and Shen Kai Shek and
his forces retreated far out of range for the Communists
at that time, and so the Republic of China went
to Taiwan thinking maybe Uncle Sam others would come back
to their aid and one day they would retake the mainland.
(05:36):
When I, many decades later, would first go to Taiwan
in nineteen eighty seven, I could see carvings on the
sides of hills that would talk about restoring or liberating
the mainland, meaning that the Republic of China would go
back to the Chinese mainland. Well, we fast forward from
(05:56):
China the Communists winning on the mainland. Obviously America didn't
recognize the Communists right away. We were in the middle
of a Cold War with the Soviet Union. There was
a question of whether this Republic of China could go
back and take over and maybe we needed to wait
out the final disposition of that. There was in the
(06:18):
nineteen fifties an exchange of missiles from some offshore islands
that were closer to the mainland but belonged to the
Republic of China, and we came plausibly to the brink
of nuclear war or a war with a nuclear power
by the time those late fifties came around, well, that
(06:39):
was an uncomfortable disposition for the United States, but it
was a firm position of the Cold War. We get
into the Vietnam Conflict, as it was called, and after
many years, we're looking for a way to gracefully wind
down that conflict or even better win During the Knick administry,
(07:00):
but one of the key strategies that President Nixon was
following was looking at where was the population of China,
and there was hundreds of millions on the Chinese mainland,
and looked at the country that we recognized, the Republic
of China still claiming jurisdiction over all of the mainland,
and that was the formal US diplomatic partner and ally
(07:24):
of the United States from World War Two, continuing onward
into the Cold War and the Vietnam conflicts seemed to
open a way for the grand strategist Henry Kissinger to
balance China, maybe against the Soviet Union, by making an
opening to communist China and looking to get on the
(07:46):
path of diplomatic recognition of China, maybe distinct from Taiwan. Now,
the dictator that ran China, Mao Zadong, pretty bloody guy,
killed many tens of millions of Chinese people during that conflict.
But the guy that was running Taiwan, Shang Kai Shek,
(08:07):
wasn't any kind of wilting lily when it came to
putting down the hammer on people. He had established martial
law on Taiwan. So in some ways we called it
free China, but it was a free China run by
a dictator under martial law. But it was one aligned
with us in the Cold War. So in this muddle,
(08:29):
the United States adopted a policy that would be called
One China, where we moved towards recognizing the People's Republic
of China as that one China, and we had unofficial
relations with Taiwan, which was the Republic of China. In
nineteen seventy nine, we made the formal switch. We ended
(08:52):
a mutual defense treaty with Taiwan, but we passed in
the US Congress a Taiwan Relations Act that said that
the United States considered the peaceful approach to resolution of
differences in this what we now call the Indo Pacific
Region or Asia Pacific Region as fundamental to American national
(09:16):
security interests. In any move to change that by force
would be considered a grave national security concern for the
United States. That was Cold War code language for we
would go to war potentially or at least militarily intervene
on behalf of our allies if hostile powers took that course. Well,
(09:40):
in the midst of all of this, we never really
answered some basic questions about how are we going to
deal with the government in Taiwan in the long term.
We had a very short term focus. The short term focus,
we thought, well, little Taiwan doesn't really stand a chance
next to big China. It was an Asian tiger economy.
(10:03):
But this was what would soon be a billion people
on the Chinese mainland. And when we moved to recognize
the People's Republic of China, so did the rest of
the world. Some before US, many after US, and China
got the permanent seat on the UN Security Council away
from the Republic of China makes some sense the way
(10:28):
that China was big, and by the nineteen seventies it
had acquired nuclear weapons, and so the rationale for the
Permanent Five later became those that had nuclear weapons, and
we wanted to keep that a small club, and hopefully
those Permanent Five wouldn't go to war with each other.
This is our thinking. But in the midst of that,
(10:48):
would we talk to the government of Taiwan, How would
we talk to the government of Taiwan. Well, in the
seventies and eighties and for much of the nineties, there
was a risk that there would be conflict coming from
China to Taiwan, in other words, that the mainland might
try to take Taiwan. But during that time, China's economy
was going from absolute destruction from its great leap forward,
(11:13):
which was actually a great leap into poverty, and its
great proletaric culture revolution, which destroyed the civil society of
China and along the way took it deeper into poverty.
And so for much of the seventies, eighties, and nineties,
China was recovering and trying to build out from that
(11:33):
and during that period, there seemed to be less of
a risk that China would try to challenge the United
States's alliance system, including the partnership with Taiwan under the
Taiwan Relations Act to provide for defensive self defense needs. Well.
During the course of that we also decided that the
President of the United States wouldn't talk directly with the
(11:56):
President of Taiwan because in the minds of people and
Foggy Bottom or the State Department, that's not what we
do with countries. We don't have diplomatic relations. Now that's
not in fact true when we look at what presidents
do in a number of other conflicts. There are competing
conflicts around the world where the United States has an ally,
(12:19):
and we actually will talk to the leader that opposes
that ally if we're engaged in peacemaking or trying to
de escalate a conflict, and in many other situations we
have actually talked with both parties with disputed sovereignty. But
we kept this exception largely because of the imperative of
(12:39):
economic engagement with China, which grew by leaps and bounds
over the decades, but also we thought we had this
fancy way of dealing with things that was working okay.
But the mid nineteen nineties we had an election open
up in Taiwan. We had a new president who had
succeeded the Chan dynasty, the Chen Kai Shek and his
(13:02):
son jiuong Jingua passing away. Lee dung Wei, a new
leader had emerged, and he was intent on moving Taiwan
away from martial law, which had been lifted in nineteen
eighty six, and toward democracy where all leaders from the
legislature on up were directly elected by their constituents. Fine idea,
(13:25):
a good American idea, but one good for the Chinese
people too. Interesting example that Chinese people ethnically, Chinese people
in an Asian society are good with having elections and
moving toward democracy, something the Communist Party has disputed, and
sometimes commentators in Asia would say that there were Asian
values at odds with moving towards what we see as
(13:47):
a free and open democracy. But nonetheless Taiwan went on
that course. Lee Dungwei was elected by a landslide in
nineteen ninety six, but before that election, China decided to
test missile that splashed down near the two major ports
of Taiwan. Kind of disrupting trade flows and sending a
(14:07):
shock through the political system. But the shock actually turned
out to the benefit of President Lee in that he
had a runaway election, and by two thousand, President Lee
decided that after twelve years in office, he wanted Taiwan
to have a competitive party system, and even though he
(14:27):
could have stood for election in two thousand, he decided
not to and allowed for the Democratic Progressive Party, the
Nationalist Party, and even a third independent party to compete
for the presidency in two thousand that ended up being
won by a plurality mean not a majority vote, but
still winning by the opposition Democratic Progressive Party. It was
(14:49):
an historic transition. In all of this, presidents of the
United States were still not talking to the President of Taiwan.
Well in a way. We had these tests that were provocative,
but we're still doing business with China. We still are
making a bet that bringing China into the World Trade
Organization meant that we were going to try to peacefully
(15:11):
evolve China, where development, the internet prosperity would narrow our
differences and expand areas of cooperation, and that China would
grow out of the problems of communism and animus toward
the United States and our allies, and so maybe peace
would bloom across Asia. We've had a couple of challenges
(15:31):
along the way since two thousand that should be sobriety
checkpoints in that regard, But most of all has been
in recent years. China has vastly increased its investment in
its military. Has it vastly increased the number and nature
of the fire power it has to deploy by air,
(15:53):
by sea and under sea, and cyber and some other
means weather directed at Taiwan, but also at our treaty allies, Japan,
the Philippines, and some others. Making clear that economic prosperity
didn't lessen the risk of conflict. The money that China
made by investment from Taiwan, from the United States, from
(16:15):
our allies was actually turned against all of us, the
United States, our allies, and Taiwan with greater coercive means
than we had ever seen before coming from the People's Republic.
So in all of this, in twenty twenty six, we
face a little bit of a confusion when it comes
to dealing with war and peace. And make no mistake,
(16:39):
the Communist Party of China has threatened that if the
United States doesn't handle its dealings with Taiwan properly, that
there would be grave consequences and we would risk direct conflict.
That is a pretty direct threat of war that was
delivered very very recently by shijinping II Don Trump when
(17:00):
he visited Beijing. So this is a serious situation. When
President Trump has faced similar situations, say with Russia's invasion
of Ukraine, the President would speak to leaders on both
sides and try to talk about how to have an
off ramp to wind down a conflict and maybe establish
a better path to peace. After October seventh and when
(17:25):
Israel suffered a grave injury within its own country by
terrorists backed by Iran but also others from within its
own territory in Gaza, within Israeli sovereign territory, there was
a breakout of war. Military was used to put down
that movement. And President Trump, even though Israel is an
(17:49):
ally of the United States, one of the more reliable
ones one we will stand side by side with in
military action in Iran, we still talked to both sides
to talk about how to de escalate and maybe chart
a better path to peace and prosperity that would get
away from conflict and maybe free the United States and
(18:10):
those countries involved to do better things with their neighborhood
and the wider world. Well, somehow there is a point
that ceases to function the same way when our leaders
think about China, And what do you think about that?
Do you think that the United States ought to call
(18:30):
Taiwan by the name the communist Chinese used to refer
to it, which is Taiwan. Well, if so, you and
I would agree, But you know who wouldn't agree. Our government.
Our government tends to refer to Taiwan as authorities and
the people on Taiwan and sometimes will make do of
(18:52):
calling the Taiwan Chinese Taipei because they want to avoid
provoking Chinese sensibilities about sovereignty, when really we're all talking
about the same place, which has a government, has a military,
has a currency, and actually has been an amazingly big
investor in the United States in times past, has been
an amazingly big investor in China. But the thanks that
(19:15):
the people of Taiwan and its elected government get is
diplomatic isolation, where we dare not even say their name. Now,
do you think if we take seriously the threat from
China that we should go ahead and talk to Beijing
about how to avoid that threat. Do you think we
should talk to the leader of Taiwan about how we
(19:36):
intend to avoid that threat? Should we talk directly, so
elected leader to elected leader, Well, if you like me,
think that that would be normal in common sense. Guess
what we are at odds with what American policy has
been since nineteen seventy nine. Presidents haven't talked directly with
the elected leader of Taiwan. We have cut out organizations
(19:59):
where we pretend that somehow Beijing's feelings, which seem to
be very very sensitive for someone that claims to be
a power, that these sensitive feelings mean that we should
have intermediaries carry messages between the presidents. And maybe we
shouldn't have very senior leaders from the United States government,
say like a Secretary of State or a national security advisor,
(20:21):
go to a place like Taiwan to talk to their
elected leadership directly. Or we also shouldn't allow those elected
leaders to freely visit the United States, even though they
buy billions of dollars in defensive arms from US, even
though they invest billions and billions and billions of dollars
in manufacturing in the United States and purchase billions of
(20:41):
dollars in agricultural and other products from the United States,
and despite being freely elected Democrats. In the small D sense,
we say no, you can't, as president of Taiwan, visit
the United States freely, and if you should visit, you
should only have what is called a transit, which means
you can stop over for your comfort, but you shouldn't
(21:05):
have an official visit. You shouldn't go to Congress and
address our elected leaders there. You definitely shouldn't be allowed
to visit the district of Columbia or our nation's capital rests.
Maybe you can find a nice spot to visit in
California or Texas or Florida occasionally maybe New York, but
be on your way. And that's the way we've treated Taiwan. Now,
(21:29):
aside from Taiwan's feelings, do you think this is the
way that we will get their attention, to get their cooperation,
to maybe hear directly from the side that is on
our side, how we might avoid a conflict without selling
out the people that have invested billions in US and
purchased billions from US, and also our friends and collaborators
(21:52):
with our important treaty allies to their north in Japan
and to their south, and the Philippines. Well, again, common
sense has been set up side in American policy, and
we have these other ways that I guess allegedly educated
and smarter people have followed. But in following their way,
we seem to be still at risk of a conflict.
(22:15):
And so in my assessment here at Nation States, we
don't think that this old way of doing things makes
a lot of sense in twenty twenty six, and that
if we really want to avoid a conflict, we should
be talking directly with the parties involved, and we should
be clear that we want the parties. If we have
the side that is on America's interests and our allies interests,
(22:37):
they should be free to buy what defense needs they need,
they need to deter the conflict on their own without
us having to intervene necessarily. But if there's a conflict,
is there really a question of where America should come down?
Do we want the communist Chinese to feel as if
they can take a free and democratic territory that's vital
to the global economy without any kind of meaningful response.
(23:01):
Do you think we can have an alliance with Japan
or the Philippines if a territory that is right between them,
just a few hundred miles from each's territorial waters. Do
you think we can have a system of alliances in
East Asia? If that were to occur, and if we
didn't have a system of alliances in East Asia, do
you think that China wouldn't be looking to walk across
(23:22):
the Pacific the way the Japanese did in the march
to World War II, coming toward America. That's what China
has been doing all along, planning this breakout from that
first island chain into the blue water of the Pacific
in order to push America out of Asia. Now, a
lot of people in the United States might think, well, America
(23:43):
doesn't need to be in Asia. We should be paying
attention to our own homeland, and I definitely support making
our homeland a priority. It should be the priority. But
the best way for us to stay safe and prosperous
in doing so is to keep the most modern developed
economies of Asia that are our allies on board, able
(24:04):
to defend themselves and working together with us to keep
those malign influences at home in Asia contained. There, rather
than having to deal with them coming across the Pacific
to our shores and challenging us here. Now that's your
humble correspondence point of view on these kinds of things.
But I hope you maybe we're surprised to learn that
(24:27):
it's American policy not to talk directly to the democratically
elected leader of Taiwan, even though we supposedly face potential
military conflict. I hope you have some shock at the
notion that even though the Chinese Communist Party calls Taiwan
by the name of Taiwan in its own proceedings, that
(24:49):
we don't call Taiwan by its name and we think
somehow that's going to help, And that despite being a
major customer on defense and commercial things, that we aren't
more clear that it's completely at odds with American interests
for China to change this status quo by force, that
it should have to do so peacefully and by negotiation,
(25:12):
if at all. And these are kind of the core
foundations of what I think a sensible approach to what
is Taiwan, what is American policy, and how do we
best avoid conflict might be. I'm curious what you think
on those things. After we come back from this brief break,
we'll do a little sum up of the key takeaways
(25:34):
from this episode and tease what comes next in our
ongoing conversations here at Nation States with Yates. Welcome back
to Nation States with Yates for another episode looking at
the fun island of Taiwan and how we should avoid
a conflict by maybe using some common sense about who
(25:55):
we're talking to. And hopefully you enjoyed going through this,
you of what has been the American approach to this
island that makes the news when the semiconductor's issue comes up,
or when China's testing its military muscle, maybe threatening a blockade.
Maybe it helps you understand a little bit more about
(26:16):
why the new Prime Minister of Japan has said, you know,
this coercion that China's using against Taiwan, it threatens Japan's
national interests, and the President of the Philippines has had
to say somewhat the same thing recently. In other words,
we have yet another hotspot around the world that is
being destabilized, not by America, not by our leader and
(26:38):
what he's saying, but by the leader of China who's
trying to change things in its favor for political and
strategic reasons that we don't share. So hopefully when you
run across this getting talked about with your family and friends,
maybe at your church, gatherings for socials, or otherwise in
(27:00):
your engagements, you can feel confident to say, you know
what common Sense America says, Taiwan is Taiwan. Common Sense
America says that the President of the United States, if
he wants to avoid a conflict, should talk to the
leaders of both sides of the conflict, and when the
comes down to it, we prefer that our partners and
(27:20):
allies have strong, independent capabilities, so that America isn't everyone's
nine to one one Johnny on the spot coming in
to intervene when a threat comes on the horizon. We
want those threats kept in their neighborhood and may be
balanced and contained by our friends and partners in that
region before it comes to our desk or your home.
(27:42):
Because I think making peace avoiding conflict is best done
through strength, and hopefully you've got a taste for the
strength being talking in clear common sense, allowing those who
want and need to defend themselves the means to be
able to do so, but also by America. Being clear,
(28:03):
we can set expectations with our advers area about what
they should really expect if they were to go too
far and where too far might be. So with that,
I hope you've enjoyed the conversation today about Taiwan. We
talked a little bit in today's episode about Japan, and
Japan was in the news in the recent past in
(28:23):
a fun and different way, and I want to take
a little bit of a deep dive onto some things
about Japan that maybe you haven't been thinking about, because
really China has overwhelmed the headlines and the conflict with
Iran has taken over the headlines. But there's important development
in Japan that's good for America that we want to
talk about in our next episode, So please come back
(28:45):
until next time. I'm Steve Yeates, your host here at
Nation States with Yates
Welcome to Nation States. With Yates, news comes at you fast,
whether you're in the White House or at your house.
We try to take you behind the headlines and beyond
the talking points, to serve as your personal national security advisor,
to take a look at what's happening in this wild world,
but help it makes sense in a main street kind
of way. Today, I want to talk a little bit
(00:23):
about Taiwan again, because it stays in the headlines, it's
at the front lines. It seems to be in the
middle of what is the greatest challenge between the US
and China. After President Trump's summit in Beijing with Leader
Sheijin Ping of China, I was just in Taiwan for
a week of meetings, consultations, and a little bit of
(00:44):
speech of fining, but came back with a few takeaways
about key questions that maybe real Americans might have about
what exactly is our policy towards Taiwan and why is
our policy the way it is because some of the
answers might surprise you. So after this brief break, we're
(01:04):
going to come back and take a deep dive into
what exactly is America's approach to Taiwan. What should be
America's approach to Taiwan, and should our leaders even be
talking to each other? Might surprise you that they haven't
been talking directly to each other. So after a brief break,
come back to join US with Nation States with Yates.
(01:28):
Welcome back to Nation States with Yates. Taiwan. You might
have heard of it island one hundred miles off the
coast of mainland China. There's some dispute about exactly how
far and away it is from the United States. The President,
and when he was talking on the plane back from China,
made mention of it being nine five hundred miles away. Well,
(01:49):
it's probably nine thy five hundred kilometers from the west coast,
but really only four hundred miles from the nearest US
base where there are significant US capabilities, including troops, and
only about seventeen hundred miles from the nearest US territories
where citizens vote in our elections and have representation in
our government. And so of course there are some targets
(02:11):
far away from the US West coast that matter to
US interests. The waterways around Taiwan strategically significant. We've talked
about that before, but as I spent the last week
in Taiwan. Sometimes I refer to it as fantasy island
where all of your dreams come true. A few basic
questions crossed my mind as we thought about what exactly
(02:31):
is America's policy towards Taiwan. Well, to specialists, a lot
of it will begin with a civil war on the
Chinese mainland. What they leave out of that story is
there were already people on the island of Taiwan at
that time. There were natives that had been there for
centuries that the cultures resembled more of Polynesia, even Native
(02:54):
American culture, than they did any kind of mainland Asian culture.
But over the centuries there would be traders, people who
were fleeing from other jurisdictions that might end up in
the island of Taiwan. And then there were far away
European traders that would come, the Portuguese, Spanish, others would
come and they would settle create some form of governments
(03:17):
in a localized part of Taiwan. But all of this
was going on before the Chinese Civil War. Also before
the Chinese Civil War, a small nation called Japan we're
going to talk about in the next episode or two.
They came to Taiwan by way of the Sino Japanese
War that ended in eighteen ninety five, result of which
(03:40):
was Japan One China lost. Now, that was China under
what we call the Qing Dynasty. That was a minority
group known as the people in Manchuria, northeastern part of China.
They had their own script and language and culture that
was distinct from what had been traditionally Chinese. But they
(04:02):
took over and ran the Qing Empire for hundreds of years.
They lost to the Japanese, and one of the takeaways
by Japan after that loss was Taiwan. It was ceded
to Japan imperpetuity, which is a fancy way of saying forever.
Forever turned out to be fifty years. But I digress.
The Civil war ends between the Chinese mainland and the
(04:28):
and the Republic of China that was led by Chen
Kai Shek. It was the Nationalist Party Kuomintang that lost
the civil war, retreated from the mainland and went to Taiwan.
Now that Taiwan had been given by Japan. Two China
after Japan lost World War II, So you have Sino
(04:52):
Japanese War eighteen ninety five Taiwan ceded to Japan. Forever
Forever goes until nineteen forty five, when Japan loses World
War II, the Republic of China nominally takes control of Taiwan,
but really they weren't paying that much attention to that
jurisdiction at that time. It was when the civil war
(05:15):
on the mainland went badly and Shen Kai Shek and
his forces retreated far out of range for the Communists
at that time, and so the Republic of China went
to Taiwan thinking maybe Uncle Sam others would come back
to their aid and one day they would retake the mainland.
(05:36):
When I, many decades later, would first go to Taiwan
in nineteen eighty seven, I could see carvings on the
sides of hills that would talk about restoring or liberating
the mainland, meaning that the Republic of China would go
back to the Chinese mainland. Well, we fast forward from
(05:56):
China the Communists winning on the mainland. Obviously America didn't
recognize the Communists right away. We were in the middle
of a Cold War with the Soviet Union. There was
a question of whether this Republic of China could go
back and take over and maybe we needed to wait
out the final disposition of that. There was in the
(06:18):
nineteen fifties an exchange of missiles from some offshore islands
that were closer to the mainland but belonged to the
Republic of China, and we came plausibly to the brink
of nuclear war or a war with a nuclear power
by the time those late fifties came around, well, that
(06:39):
was an uncomfortable disposition for the United States, but it
was a firm position of the Cold War. We get
into the Vietnam Conflict, as it was called, and after
many years, we're looking for a way to gracefully wind
down that conflict or even better win During the Knick administry,
(07:00):
but one of the key strategies that President Nixon was
following was looking at where was the population of China,
and there was hundreds of millions on the Chinese mainland,
and looked at the country that we recognized, the Republic
of China still claiming jurisdiction over all of the mainland,
and that was the formal US diplomatic partner and ally
(07:24):
of the United States from World War Two, continuing onward
into the Cold War and the Vietnam conflicts seemed to
open a way for the grand strategist Henry Kissinger to
balance China, maybe against the Soviet Union, by making an
opening to communist China and looking to get on the
(07:46):
path of diplomatic recognition of China, maybe distinct from Taiwan. Now,
the dictator that ran China, Mao Zadong, pretty bloody guy,
killed many tens of millions of Chinese people during that conflict.
But the guy that was running Taiwan, Shang Kai Shek,
(08:07):
wasn't any kind of wilting lily when it came to
putting down the hammer on people. He had established martial
law on Taiwan. So in some ways we called it
free China, but it was a free China run by
a dictator under martial law. But it was one aligned
with us in the Cold War. So in this muddle,
(08:29):
the United States adopted a policy that would be called
One China, where we moved towards recognizing the People's Republic
of China as that one China, and we had unofficial
relations with Taiwan, which was the Republic of China. In
nineteen seventy nine, we made the formal switch. We ended
(08:52):
a mutual defense treaty with Taiwan, but we passed in
the US Congress a Taiwan Relations Act that said that
the United States considered the peaceful approach to resolution of
differences in this what we now call the Indo Pacific
Region or Asia Pacific Region as fundamental to American national
(09:16):
security interests. In any move to change that by force
would be considered a grave national security concern for the
United States. That was Cold War code language for we
would go to war potentially or at least militarily intervene
on behalf of our allies if hostile powers took that course. Well,
(09:40):
in the midst of all of this, we never really
answered some basic questions about how are we going to
deal with the government in Taiwan in the long term.
We had a very short term focus. The short term focus,
we thought, well, little Taiwan doesn't really stand a chance
next to big China. It was an Asian tiger economy.
(10:03):
But this was what would soon be a billion people
on the Chinese mainland. And when we moved to recognize
the People's Republic of China, so did the rest of
the world. Some before US, many after US, and China
got the permanent seat on the UN Security Council away
from the Republic of China makes some sense the way
(10:28):
that China was big, and by the nineteen seventies it
had acquired nuclear weapons, and so the rationale for the
Permanent Five later became those that had nuclear weapons, and
we wanted to keep that a small club, and hopefully
those Permanent Five wouldn't go to war with each other.
This is our thinking. But in the midst of that,
(10:48):
would we talk to the government of Taiwan, How would
we talk to the government of Taiwan. Well, in the
seventies and eighties and for much of the nineties, there
was a risk that there would be conflict coming from
China to Taiwan, in other words, that the mainland might
try to take Taiwan. But during that time, China's economy
was going from absolute destruction from its great leap forward,
(11:13):
which was actually a great leap into poverty, and its
great proletaric culture revolution, which destroyed the civil society of
China and along the way took it deeper into poverty.
And so for much of the seventies, eighties, and nineties,
China was recovering and trying to build out from that
(11:33):
and during that period, there seemed to be less of
a risk that China would try to challenge the United
States's alliance system, including the partnership with Taiwan under the
Taiwan Relations Act to provide for defensive self defense needs. Well.
During the course of that we also decided that the
President of the United States wouldn't talk directly with the
(11:56):
President of Taiwan because in the minds of people and
Foggy Bottom or the State Department, that's not what we
do with countries. We don't have diplomatic relations. Now that's
not in fact true when we look at what presidents
do in a number of other conflicts. There are competing
conflicts around the world where the United States has an ally,
(12:19):
and we actually will talk to the leader that opposes
that ally if we're engaged in peacemaking or trying to
de escalate a conflict, and in many other situations we
have actually talked with both parties with disputed sovereignty. But
we kept this exception largely because of the imperative of
(12:39):
economic engagement with China, which grew by leaps and bounds
over the decades, but also we thought we had this
fancy way of dealing with things that was working okay.
But the mid nineteen nineties we had an election open
up in Taiwan. We had a new president who had
succeeded the Chan dynasty, the Chen Kai Shek and his
(13:02):
son jiuong Jingua passing away. Lee dung Wei, a new
leader had emerged, and he was intent on moving Taiwan
away from martial law, which had been lifted in nineteen
eighty six, and toward democracy where all leaders from the
legislature on up were directly elected by their constituents. Fine idea,
(13:25):
a good American idea, but one good for the Chinese
people too. Interesting example that Chinese people ethnically, Chinese people
in an Asian society are good with having elections and
moving toward democracy, something the Communist Party has disputed, and
sometimes commentators in Asia would say that there were Asian
values at odds with moving towards what we see as
(13:47):
a free and open democracy. But nonetheless Taiwan went on
that course. Lee Dungwei was elected by a landslide in
nineteen ninety six, but before that election, China decided to
test missile that splashed down near the two major ports
of Taiwan. Kind of disrupting trade flows and sending a
(14:07):
shock through the political system. But the shock actually turned
out to the benefit of President Lee in that he
had a runaway election, and by two thousand, President Lee
decided that after twelve years in office, he wanted Taiwan
to have a competitive party system, and even though he
(14:27):
could have stood for election in two thousand, he decided
not to and allowed for the Democratic Progressive Party, the
Nationalist Party, and even a third independent party to compete
for the presidency in two thousand that ended up being
won by a plurality mean not a majority vote, but
still winning by the opposition Democratic Progressive Party. It was
(14:49):
an historic transition. In all of this, presidents of the
United States were still not talking to the President of Taiwan.
Well in a way. We had these tests that were provocative,
but we're still doing business with China. We still are
making a bet that bringing China into the World Trade
Organization meant that we were going to try to peacefully
(15:11):
evolve China, where development, the internet prosperity would narrow our
differences and expand areas of cooperation, and that China would
grow out of the problems of communism and animus toward
the United States and our allies, and so maybe peace
would bloom across Asia. We've had a couple of challenges
(15:31):
along the way since two thousand that should be sobriety
checkpoints in that regard, But most of all has been
in recent years. China has vastly increased its investment in
its military. Has it vastly increased the number and nature
of the fire power it has to deploy by air,
(15:53):
by sea and under sea, and cyber and some other
means weather directed at Taiwan, but also at our treaty allies, Japan,
the Philippines, and some others. Making clear that economic prosperity
didn't lessen the risk of conflict. The money that China
made by investment from Taiwan, from the United States, from
(16:15):
our allies was actually turned against all of us, the
United States, our allies, and Taiwan with greater coercive means
than we had ever seen before coming from the People's Republic.
So in all of this, in twenty twenty six, we
face a little bit of a confusion when it comes
to dealing with war and peace. And make no mistake,
(16:39):
the Communist Party of China has threatened that if the
United States doesn't handle its dealings with Taiwan properly, that
there would be grave consequences and we would risk direct conflict.
That is a pretty direct threat of war that was
delivered very very recently by shijinping II Don Trump when
(17:00):
he visited Beijing. So this is a serious situation. When
President Trump has faced similar situations, say with Russia's invasion
of Ukraine, the President would speak to leaders on both
sides and try to talk about how to have an
off ramp to wind down a conflict and maybe establish
a better path to peace. After October seventh and when
(17:25):
Israel suffered a grave injury within its own country by
terrorists backed by Iran but also others from within its
own territory in Gaza, within Israeli sovereign territory, there was
a breakout of war. Military was used to put down
that movement. And President Trump, even though Israel is an
(17:49):
ally of the United States, one of the more reliable
ones one we will stand side by side with in
military action in Iran, we still talked to both sides
to talk about how to de escalate and maybe chart
a better path to peace and prosperity that would get
away from conflict and maybe free the United States and
(18:10):
those countries involved to do better things with their neighborhood
and the wider world. Well, somehow there is a point
that ceases to function the same way when our leaders
think about China, And what do you think about that?
Do you think that the United States ought to call
(18:30):
Taiwan by the name the communist Chinese used to refer
to it, which is Taiwan. Well, if so, you and
I would agree, But you know who wouldn't agree. Our government.
Our government tends to refer to Taiwan as authorities and
the people on Taiwan and sometimes will make do of
(18:52):
calling the Taiwan Chinese Taipei because they want to avoid
provoking Chinese sensibilities about sovereignty, when really we're all talking
about the same place, which has a government, has a military,
has a currency, and actually has been an amazingly big
investor in the United States in times past, has been
an amazingly big investor in China. But the thanks that
(19:15):
the people of Taiwan and its elected government get is
diplomatic isolation, where we dare not even say their name. Now,
do you think if we take seriously the threat from
China that we should go ahead and talk to Beijing
about how to avoid that threat. Do you think we
should talk to the leader of Taiwan about how we
(19:36):
intend to avoid that threat? Should we talk directly, so
elected leader to elected leader, Well, if you like me,
think that that would be normal in common sense. Guess
what we are at odds with what American policy has
been since nineteen seventy nine. Presidents haven't talked directly with
the elected leader of Taiwan. We have cut out organizations
(19:59):
where we pretend that somehow Beijing's feelings, which seem to
be very very sensitive for someone that claims to be
a power, that these sensitive feelings mean that we should
have intermediaries carry messages between the presidents. And maybe we
shouldn't have very senior leaders from the United States government,
say like a Secretary of State or a national security advisor,
(20:21):
go to a place like Taiwan to talk to their
elected leadership directly. Or we also shouldn't allow those elected
leaders to freely visit the United States, even though they
buy billions of dollars in defensive arms from US, even
though they invest billions and billions and billions of dollars
in manufacturing in the United States and purchase billions of
(20:41):
dollars in agricultural and other products from the United States,
and despite being freely elected Democrats. In the small D sense,
we say no, you can't, as president of Taiwan, visit
the United States freely, and if you should visit, you
should only have what is called a transit, which means
you can stop over for your comfort, but you shouldn't
(21:05):
have an official visit. You shouldn't go to Congress and
address our elected leaders there. You definitely shouldn't be allowed
to visit the district of Columbia or our nation's capital rests.
Maybe you can find a nice spot to visit in
California or Texas or Florida occasionally maybe New York, but
be on your way. And that's the way we've treated Taiwan. Now,
(21:29):
aside from Taiwan's feelings, do you think this is the
way that we will get their attention, to get their cooperation,
to maybe hear directly from the side that is on
our side, how we might avoid a conflict without selling
out the people that have invested billions in US and
purchased billions from US, and also our friends and collaborators
(21:52):
with our important treaty allies to their north in Japan
and to their south, and the Philippines. Well, again, common
sense has been set up side in American policy, and
we have these other ways that I guess allegedly educated
and smarter people have followed. But in following their way,
we seem to be still at risk of a conflict.
(22:15):
And so in my assessment here at Nation States, we
don't think that this old way of doing things makes
a lot of sense in twenty twenty six, and that
if we really want to avoid a conflict, we should
be talking directly with the parties involved, and we should
be clear that we want the parties. If we have
the side that is on America's interests and our allies interests,
(22:37):
they should be free to buy what defense needs they need,
they need to deter the conflict on their own without
us having to intervene necessarily. But if there's a conflict,
is there really a question of where America should come down?
Do we want the communist Chinese to feel as if
they can take a free and democratic territory that's vital
to the global economy without any kind of meaningful response.
(23:01):
Do you think we can have an alliance with Japan
or the Philippines if a territory that is right between them,
just a few hundred miles from each's territorial waters. Do
you think we can have a system of alliances in
East Asia? If that were to occur, and if we
didn't have a system of alliances in East Asia, do
you think that China wouldn't be looking to walk across
(23:22):
the Pacific the way the Japanese did in the march
to World War II, coming toward America. That's what China
has been doing all along, planning this breakout from that
first island chain into the blue water of the Pacific
in order to push America out of Asia. Now, a
lot of people in the United States might think, well, America
(23:43):
doesn't need to be in Asia. We should be paying
attention to our own homeland, and I definitely support making
our homeland a priority. It should be the priority. But
the best way for us to stay safe and prosperous
in doing so is to keep the most modern developed
economies of Asia that are our allies on board, able
(24:04):
to defend themselves and working together with us to keep
those malign influences at home in Asia contained. There, rather
than having to deal with them coming across the Pacific
to our shores and challenging us here. Now that's your
humble correspondence point of view on these kinds of things.
But I hope you maybe we're surprised to learn that
(24:27):
it's American policy not to talk directly to the democratically
elected leader of Taiwan, even though we supposedly face potential
military conflict. I hope you have some shock at the
notion that even though the Chinese Communist Party calls Taiwan
by the name of Taiwan in its own proceedings, that
(24:49):
we don't call Taiwan by its name and we think
somehow that's going to help, And that despite being a
major customer on defense and commercial things, that we aren't
more clear that it's completely at odds with American interests
for China to change this status quo by force, that
it should have to do so peacefully and by negotiation,
(25:12):
if at all. And these are kind of the core
foundations of what I think a sensible approach to what
is Taiwan, what is American policy, and how do we
best avoid conflict might be. I'm curious what you think
on those things. After we come back from this brief break,
we'll do a little sum up of the key takeaways
(25:34):
from this episode and tease what comes next in our
ongoing conversations here at Nation States with Yates. Welcome back
to Nation States with Yates for another episode looking at
the fun island of Taiwan and how we should avoid
a conflict by maybe using some common sense about who
(25:55):
we're talking to. And hopefully you enjoyed going through this,
you of what has been the American approach to this
island that makes the news when the semiconductor's issue comes up,
or when China's testing its military muscle, maybe threatening a blockade.
Maybe it helps you understand a little bit more about
(26:16):
why the new Prime Minister of Japan has said, you know,
this coercion that China's using against Taiwan, it threatens Japan's
national interests, and the President of the Philippines has had
to say somewhat the same thing recently. In other words,
we have yet another hotspot around the world that is
being destabilized, not by America, not by our leader and
(26:38):
what he's saying, but by the leader of China who's
trying to change things in its favor for political and
strategic reasons that we don't share. So hopefully when you
run across this getting talked about with your family and friends,
maybe at your church, gatherings for socials, or otherwise in
(27:00):
your engagements, you can feel confident to say, you know
what common Sense America says, Taiwan is Taiwan. Common Sense
America says that the President of the United States, if
he wants to avoid a conflict, should talk to the
leaders of both sides of the conflict, and when the
comes down to it, we prefer that our partners and
(27:20):
allies have strong, independent capabilities, so that America isn't everyone's
nine to one one Johnny on the spot coming in
to intervene when a threat comes on the horizon. We
want those threats kept in their neighborhood and may be
balanced and contained by our friends and partners in that
region before it comes to our desk or your home.
(27:42):
Because I think making peace avoiding conflict is best done
through strength, and hopefully you've got a taste for the
strength being talking in clear common sense, allowing those who
want and need to defend themselves the means to be
able to do so, but also by America. Being clear,
(28:03):
we can set expectations with our advers area about what
they should really expect if they were to go too
far and where too far might be. So with that,
I hope you've enjoyed the conversation today about Taiwan. We
talked a little bit in today's episode about Japan, and
Japan was in the news in the recent past in
(28:23):
a fun and different way, and I want to take
a little bit of a deep dive onto some things
about Japan that maybe you haven't been thinking about, because
really China has overwhelmed the headlines and the conflict with
Iran has taken over the headlines. But there's important development
in Japan that's good for America that we want to
talk about in our next episode, So please come back
(28:45):
until next time. I'm Steve Yeates, your host here at
Nation States with Yates
The Clay Travis and Buck Sexton Show News
Hosts And Creators
Clay Travis
Buck Sexton
Show Links
WebsiteNewsletterPopular Podcasts
Hey Jonas!
Hey Jonas! The official Jonas Brothers podcast. Hosted by Kevin, Joe, and Nick Jonas. It’s the Jonas Brothers you know... musicians, actors, and well, yes, brothers. Now, they’re sharing another side of themselves in the playful, intimate, and irreverent way only they can. Spend time with the Jonas Brothers here and stay a little bit longer for deep conversations like never before.
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
Las Culturistas with Matt Rogers and Bowen Yang
Ding dong! Join your culture consultants, Matt Rogers and Bowen Yang, on an unforgettable journey into the beating heart of CULTURE. Alongside sizzling special guests, they GET INTO the hottest pop-culture moments of the day and the formative cultural experiences that turned them into Culturistas. Produced by the Big Money Players Network and iHeartRadio.