Washington challenges Beijing and invites Taiwan to the Democracy Summit
Keeping a promise he made during the election campaign, Joe Biden had the State Department organize the virtual summit "The Summit for Democracy" . The meeting will be held on 9 and 10 December, will see the participation of as many as 110 nations and will mainly deal with the issue of human rights dear to the US Democrats (especially at the time of the Obama presidency).
Nothing striking so far. This is the usual international summit, which moreover will take place remotely, intended to reaffirm the positions of the various participating countries without anyone expecting important results. However, there is a sensational and noteworthy fact. Unlike what happened on the occasion of similar events, the guests do not include the People's Republic of China (i.e. the Communist China founded by Mao Zedong), but the Republic of China (i.e. Taiwan, heir to Chiang Kai-shek's nationalist China) .
Granted the furious reaction of Xi Jinping and the Chinese media , which once again warned Biden not to "play with fire", a phrase used every time someone dares to question Taiwan's belonging to mainland China. And, consequently, Beijing's "right" to annex the small island – which is also a great technological power – by hook or by crook.
In any case, it is important to note that the American president, with this move of high symbolic value, continues to express his intention to defend Taiwan at any cost, even militarily if necessary. And this attitude, on the other hand, is by no means taken for granted. In recent decades, the United States, while maintaining close economic and political ties with Taiwan, have accepted Beijing's slogan "One China", effectively leaving the island in a sort of diplomatic "limbo" that allowed the Chinese Communist Party to isolate it almost completely in the international scenario.
It is now a question of whether Biden, who must make his allies forget his disastrous management of the withdrawal from Afghanistan, is willing to play this fundamental game to the end, perhaps trying to understand which cards his opponent (and old acquaintance) Xi Jinping. In other words, it is necessary to understand, on the one hand, whether the US president is willing to run the risk of a direct confrontation with the People's Republic, which could also lead to a conflict with nuclear weapons.
The same reasoning applies to the Chinese, who probably do not yet feel ready to face such a confrontation given that the American armed forces are still the first in the world. There are several factors at play in this case. Xi made a personal commitment to bring the island back to China, a move that his predecessors from Mao onwards failed to do. If you go to Beijing, you will easily find many gadgets with slogans praising Taiwan's return to the Chinese borders, even if the island can boast long periods of separation from the so-called "motherland".
But we must also take into account the fact that the last plenum of the Communist Party received an invitation to Xi not to exacerbate the reasons for the conflict with the US too much. The CCP secretary must take into account this signal, also because his appointment to the third term will be at stake next year, since the aforementioned plenum canceled the rule that imposed the constraint of the two terms. The only card Xi could play is the profound division of American society and politics, which effectively weakens an already weak president on his behalf. But it has to be shown that this division is so strong as to prevent a decisive US reaction to the invasion of Taiwan.
In short, the games are completely open. It is unlikely that the invitation to participate addressed to the Republic of China, to the detriment of the People's Republic, is a prelude to the full diplomatic recognition of Taiwan. Beijing has made it clear several times that such recognition would be considered a veritable declaration of war. And America, like other Western nations, cannot afford it given the still close economic and trade relations that bind Beijing to the nations of the West. However, it is important that the problem was raised explicitly at an international summit.
Mao's heirs have so far managed to avoid official protests over the diplomatic isolation to which Taiwan is condemned due to Beijing's diktats . But it was inevitable that, on the occasion of a summit dedicated to the state of health of democracy, the People's Republic would be excluded given its dictatorial nature. Equally inevitable (even if it took courage) to invite Taiwan in its place, a liberal democracy in line with Western ones.
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This is a machine translation from Italian language of a post published on Atlantico Quotidiano at the URL http://www.atlanticoquotidiano.it/quotidiano/washington-sfida-pechino-e-invita-taiwan-al-vertice-per-la-democrazia/ on Fri, 26 Nov 2021 03:49:00 +0000.