The Geostrategic Importance of Taiwan by its Geography to The USA: Part 3

                                                                                            

In any event, the United States Congress had a different take on Taiwan's future, passing the Taiwan Relations Act "to declare that harmony and strength in space are in the political, security, and financial interests of the United States, and are concerns of universal concern." The Act went on to say that it wanted to "clarify that the United States' decision to establish discretionary relations with the People's Republic of China is based on the presumption that the status of Taiwan is still up in the air through peaceful methods."

To aid in averting China's use of force against Taiwan, the TRA also committed the U.S. to provide Taiwan with any necessary protection weaponry. The Act was deemed necessary by Congress to repair some of the damage caused by Carter's withdrawal of the Mutual Defense Treaty, which had kept the peace for a quarter-century. However, it fell short of fulfilling the Defense Treaty's ironclad American pledge to come to Taiwan's defense.

The potential opportunity to confirm that kind of solid and clear U.S. obligation to Taiwan arose when China responded to a U.S. visit by then-President Lee Teng-hui in 1995 and Taiwan's initially immediate official political decision in 1996 by terminating rockets toward the island and closing the Taiwan Strait and the airspace above it to global business. On the main event, President Bill Clinton dispatched two planes carrying naval battle groups through the Strait of Hormuz, the first time the U.S. Naval force has crossed it since Nixon drew out the Seventh Fleet 23 years earlier. China pushed back vehemently against the invasion into what it deemed Chinese seas. Washington, rather than simply informing Beijing that the United States and other nations maintain the right to be there, According to global regulations, stated the journey was the result of a climate redirection, undoubtedly conceding that China's approval was necessary.

In December 1995, Chinese officials asked Assistant Secretary of State Joseph Nye directly what the U.S. would do if China attacked Taiwan. Rather than invoking and reaffirming the Taiwan Relations Act by stating that the U.S. will aid Taiwan's self-preservation, Nye said, "We don't have any idea, and you don't have any clue." It would depend on the circumstances." A few months later, Taiwan conducted its first immediate formal political race, and China expressed its displeasure by launching rockets towards Taiwan, this time from both sides of the island. In addition, Clinton deployed a transporter battle gathering to the district. This time, however, Beijing warned that any ships entering the Strait would encounter "an ocean of danger." (a most loved danger of Northeast Asia Communist systems as well as the one in Iran). Washington heard the word, and the boats remained out - both at the time and for the next 10 years.

Only until the Defense Department inspected its Freedom of Navigation program in 2006 did the U.S. Navy begin sending its ships back through the Taiwan Strait, over Chinese concerns. After Beijing abruptly canceled a scheduled altruism United States port visit to Hong Kong in 2007, the Kitty Hawk fight group returned to Japan via the Strait of Japan. China strongly condemned the entry, and Admiral Timothy Keating, commander of the United States Pacific Command, reacted: "We don't need China's permission to travel through the Taiwan Strait. We shall exercise our free right to section when the necessity arises - at whatever moment we determine."

The events demonstrate that it isn't simply the island of Taiwan that is vitally important, but also the Taiwan Strait. Any conflict across the Strait would have a substantial impact on both marine and commercial entrances. Assuming China controls both sides of the Strait, it would have a firm hold on the worldwide flow.

Another facet of Taiwan's security related to its geostrategic location is its role in humanitarian assistance and disaster relief, both as a recipient and a supplier of HADR. The Asia-Pacific region is reliant on some of the world's most disastrous weather and natural disasters. When Typhoon Morakot hit Taiwan in 2009, the U.S. Seventh Fleet dispatched boats and planes to assist the Taiwanese people. When the quake and tsunami devastated Fukushima in 2011, Taiwan promptly despatched salvage organizations and skilled laborers and was the largest financial backer of Japan's recovery effort. Whenever the Philippines felt the effects of Typhoon Haiyan in 2013, Taiwan replied quickly and generously. Taiwan has consistently responded to HADR is required all over the world, from the 2004 Indonesian tsunami to Haiti's earthquake tremor in 2010, Western Sahara's dry season in 2013, and other catastrophic disasters in Asia and beyond.

To summarise, Taiwan's critical significance from a military, monetary, and humanitarian assistance standpoint is clear, even though there have been documented periods when U.S. organizations of the two players appeared to limit it for what they perceived to be the more significant goal of obliging the Chinese government. Taiwanese citizens, on the other hand, have given an entirely new dimension to the country's worth to the West since the 1980s. Taiwan's political opposition, and ultimately its leaders, understood that after official U.S. strategic relations had shifted from Taipei to Beijing for the sake of realpolitik, its survival as a genuine autonomous substance was dependent on moral and political values. Taiwan's methodical planned transition to a majority-rules system implies that Washington and the West no longer possessed the easy "pragmatist" argument - that the Taiwan strategy problem was just a matter of choosing a small, well-disposed regime or seeking to further build ties with a larger, formerly hostile one. Currently, Americans and Japanese may regard Taiwan as a moral and political ideal partner, certainly in contrast to a country governed by the Chinese Communist Party.

For the same reason, Taiwan has become even more of a thorn in Beijing's side as an example of popular governance in Chinese society, destroying the myth that the majority rule government and Confucianism are incompatible. The expected internal push for political change in China grew throughout the 1980s, culminating in the 1989 Tiananmen Square Massacre. Given the worldwide stakes in Taiwan's fate, the U.S. responsibilities enshrined in the Taiwan Relations Act took on far more significance for the United States.