Beyond the Taiwan Strait: How Taiwan’s Future Shapes Global Relations
By Isaac Smith, 2nd Year BA Liberal Arts
As the USA’s unilateral power status strays from recent memory, and China seeks to enhance its burgeoning global position, Taiwan conducts the currents of global tension and strategic competition.
A foreboding, but self-assured energy whips around the island's 900-mile coastline as it confronts the prospect of a full-scale Chinese invasion. Apprehension of nascent warfare broods over the nation's rugged mountains, and spills into its gentle plains.
The United States, a custodian of Taiwanese independence, is acting to embolden the island’s military in the hope of preventing de facto Chinese control of the region. Where its global standing is increasingly contested, Chinese success would tear loose the USA’s clutch on regional affairs.
Chinese and American officials strive for a guise of stern but composed diplomacy – but the money speaks of haste and consternation. Since the 1950’s, the United States has supplied Taiwan nearly $50 billion in defence equipment and services. In 2024 alone, Joe Biden approved a $567 million payment to further fortify its coast.
With this, Taiwan prepares an active defence strategy. To resist China, it must focus on precision strikes and asymmetric operations. Emphasizing agility and mobility, with the United States’ help, Taiwan plans to use distributed, resilient forces with precision weapons to target enemy logistics and operational centres. In this “honey badger” strategy, it is hoped Taiwan could damage China just enough so that any offensive is deemed too costly.
On the other hand, China exhibits military vigor unfettered. Record air incursions, harassment tactics, and increased military drills. These efforts are designed to exhaust Taiwan's resources and deter further moves toward independence. China’s People’s Liberation Army is escalating its capabilities, preparing for a full-scale invasion within the next decade.
This intense combat preparation comes as no surprise, what unfolds in Taiwan will the turn the dials on the future. Obsession over hegemony is hardly concealed, but the powers must play the long game. In a period entrenched already in global aggression and point-scoring, the situation's denouement may just tip the balance.
China claims Taiwan as part of its natural territory, a Communist Party whitepaper claims Taiwan’s base in the history and jurisprudence of China has an ancient stem. The party reiterates reunification, with rhetoric attesting archaeological discoveries, and stressing profound cultural ties. However, these claims are not without strong disputation.
More telling, if China is successful, they will sever the United States influence in the Pacific region. They would entrench their military in the middle of the first island chain, a string of islands from the Japanese archipelago to Indonesia. China could dictate terms in nearby shipping lanes, affording it tremendous leverage over rival powers.
A 2023 public opinion poll revealed that 48.9% of Taiwanese support formal national independence, 26.9% favour maintaining the status quo (where Taiwan operates as a de facto independent entity but has not formally declared independence or been recognized as a separate state by China), and 11.8% support unification with China.
Another suggests over 80% of Taiwanese favour maintaining the status quo, with those preferring to keep Taiwan's current status indefinitely rising sharply. It suggests the sentiment for independence has been dropping since 2020 – Chinese aggression is surely taking its morale toll.
Despite this, in 2024, Taiwan elected the pro-sovereignty Democratic Progressive Party for the third consecutive time. China, labelling the elections as a choice between ‘Peace or War’, insisted that Taiwan's elections "could stop the eventual reunification of the motherland".
Though a spirit of confidence and empowerment within the Taiwanese populace is undeniable, the sombre reality will be embraced with disquietude, as the island must, once again, host clashing global interests in its long pursuit of national sovereignty. Whilst the Chinese threat reaches its pinnacle, a turn to the United States for protection is inevitable.
Taiwan’s complex history as a geopolitical pawn reflects both its strategic location and its turbulent past. In 1662, Zheng Chenggong (Koxinga), a Ming dynasty loyalist, defeated the Dutch who had colonized Taiwan since 1624. Koxinga used the island as a base to resist the Qing Dynasty, which had control in China. However, his regime was short-lived, and by 1683, the Qing defeated Koxinga’s successors and took control of Taiwan, incorporating it into its Fujian Province.
This marked the beginning of Qing rule, with increasing Han Chinese settlement and tensions with indigenous populations, who resisted the growing presence of outside settlers.
Taiwan’s next colonial shift occurred after the First Sino-Japanese War (1895), when China ceded Taiwan to Japan. Under Japanese rule, Taiwan was heavily industrialized, with railways, ports, and agricultural systems modernized for imperial benefit.
The Japanese also attempted to assimilate the local population, enforcing the Japanese language and Shintoism while suppressing Chinese cultural identity. Taiwanese resistance, including the Tapani Rebellion (1915) and the Musha Uprising (1930) by indigenous Seediq warriors, was crushed. By the 1930s, Japan intensified militarization, with many Taiwanese forced into military service during World War II.
Following World War II, Taiwan was handed over to the Republic of China (ROC), which was led by Chiang Kai-shek’s Kuomintang (KMT). Tensions between the KMT and local Taiwanese sparked the 1947 228 Incident, a brutal crackdown on dissent, setting the stage for Taiwan’s later evolution into a democratic society amidst ongoing Chinese-Taiwan tensions.
And now, in its latest stage, trends rooted in Taiwan’s history deliver new challenges. The 2019 Hong-Kong protests, and Beijing’s subsequent handling of them, sent a clear signal that demands for independence would not be won diplomatically.
The situation will be complexified as Trump holds the US presidency for the second time. To upkeep his domestic appeal of insulation, Trump expressed Taiwan should “pay more for defence”, starkly comparing the United States role in the conflict to that of an insurance broker.
However, he conveniently avoided questions on whether he would defend Taiwan against invasion – navigating a delicate balance between satisfying his supporters at home and acknowledging the clear strategic underpinnings of the situation.
As Taiwan’s quest for independence plays out in the anxious theatre of global interest, it appears the crucial act is nearing.