By Antoni Slodkowski and James Pomfret
BEIJING/HONG KONG (Reuters) – For years, the U.S. government has urged China to show “restraint” in pushing its claim on Taiwan and to drop military threats to bring the democratically governed island under its control.
Now – some Chinese commentators say – the power of that long-held U.S. message has been undermined by the threats by U.S. President-elect Donald Trump to take control of Greenland and the Panama Canal, by force if necessary. Trump takes office on Jan. 20.
The implications of Trump’s comments for U.S. policy on Taiwan have been widely discussed on China’s social media platforms in recent days and by foreign policy analysts.
While nothing in the military standoff over Taiwan is likely to change in the near-term, some say Trump’s break with the norms of American diplomacy could create an opening for China.
One Chinese expert said Trump’s first term in office signalled that he views foreign policy as transactional in nature, and suggested he may be amenable to a deal on Taiwan.
Zhao Minghao, a professor at the Institute of International Studies at the Fudan University in Shanghai, said Trump’s threats to take Greenland, the Panama Canal and even Canada needed to be taken seriously.
“Besides that, we need to think about Trump’s transactionalism, which he is serious about as well. Many in China still perceive Trump as a deal-maker, even on very tough issues like the Taiwan question,” he said.
China’s foreign ministry said it was “absurd” to try and link Greenland’s status to Taiwan.
“The Taiwan issue is an internal Chinese matter, and how to resolve it is something for the Chinese people,” it said in a statement sent to Reuters.
Taiwan’s foreign ministry, asked whether Trump’s comments could provide impetus to China creating trouble over Taiwan, said that the Republic of China, the island’s official name, is a “sovereign and independent country”.
“Any distortion of Taiwan’s sovereign status will not change the status quo in the Taiwan Strait,” it said in a statement.
The Trump transition team did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
China has maintained that Taiwan is part of its territory and has never renounced the use of force to bring the island under its control.
A limiting factor for Beijing is that the U.S. is bound by law to provide Taiwan with the means to defend itself, although whether U.S. forces would come to Taiwan’s aid in the event of a war with China is unclear under a policy of “strategic ambiguity”.
Trump offered strong support to Taiwan, including regularising arms sales, in his first term. But during the campaign last year, Trump said Taiwan should pay the U.S. to be defended. Taiwan has repeatedly said it is committed to increasing its defence spending.
To be sure, the Taiwan question is vastly different to the Greenland, Canada or Panama Canal situations: in China’s eyes, Taiwan is already legally Chinese territory whose destiny is to be “returned to the motherland”. Taiwan rejects those claims.
Nevertheless, Trump’s comments on Greenland have created a stir on Chinese social media, which is subject to censorship.
“If Greenland is annexed by the United States, China must take Taiwan,” wrote Wang Jiangyu, a professor of law at City University of Hong Kong, on microblog site Weibo.
One commentator on a blog run by Chinese search engine Baidu said that if Trump does move on Greenland, China should “seize the opportunity to take back Taiwan”.
“Trump seems to be serious, so we too should see what we could get from this,” the person, writing as “Hongtu Shumeng” wrote.
Chen Fei, an associate professor at Central China Normal University’s School of Politics and International Studies, wrote on Chinese news portal NetEase that just like Greenland for Trump, Taiwan was a core security interest for China.
But the two issues are not the same as what Trump is doing is directly threatening another country’s sovereignty, he added.
“Taiwan is China’s intrinsic territory and a pure internal Chinese matter. It has nothing to do with another country’s sovereignty.”
However, Bonnie Glaser, a Taiwan expert at the German Marshall Fund of the United States, said that for Chinese President Xi Jinping there were other factors carrying greater weight, especially his assessment of the country’s military capabilities and the likely costs China would incur if it used force against Taiwan.
“I doubt that Beijing will draw parallels between Greenland and Taiwan,” she said. “The Chinese believe that Taiwan is already and always has been part of China – they won’t pay money for it and no government in Taiwan will agree to be bought.'”
Drew Thompson, a Senior Fellow at the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies in Singapore and former U.S. Department of Defense official, also said it was “quite preposterous” to think Trump’s Greenland comments could embolden China’s claims on Taiwan.
“But it does strike me that should President Trump refuse to…rule out the use of military force to achieve and protect U.S. interests, I would think that type of statement and determination would serve to further deter Beijing to take any action that would prompt the U.S. to take military action to protect Taiwan,” he said.
“That’s a pretty mighty deterrent for China.”
(Reporting by Antoni Slodkowski and James Pomfret; Additional reporting by David Brunnstrom in Washington and Ben Blanchard in Taipei; Editing by Raju Gopalakrishnan)
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