Chinese leaders, including its generals, will have to weigh whether they can win a war if they ever attack Taiwan and if at all, can they sustain the subsequent devastation, notes Rup Narayan Das.
The summit between President Donald Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping which concluded in Beijing on Friday raised much anxiety with regard to Taiwan which China regards a renegade province.
Unification of mainland China with Taiwan has been a guiding objective of Chinese foreign policy ever since the leader of the nationalist Kuomintang (KMT) party Chiang Kaishek fled to Taiwan and proclaimed the Republic of China in 1949, the official name of Taiwan.
Ahead of the Trump-Xi summit meet, Chinese State media reiterated that the Taiwan question is the most important issue in China-US relations.
The anxiety was, however, put to rest when US Secretary of State Marco Rubio said in Beijing that US policy on Taiwan has not changed following the summit.
Contentious issues didn't jettison the reset of the frayed relationship between the two major powers; even the vexed Taiwan issue did not cast its shadow on the reset.
While Trump was effusive in his praise, Xi was stoic and frugal in his utterances.
When the Chinese media mentioned that the Taiwan issue is the most important issue in China-US relations, it simply reiterated the Chinse stance on Taiwan as articulated in the historic Shanghai Communique signed between the two countries in February 1972 which led to establishment of diplomatic relations between the two countries in January 1979 after China stabilised under Deng Xiaoping.
Deng's policy of opening up the Chinese economy offered huge opportunity for US investment in China.
China's membership of the United Nations terminated Taiwan's membership in the world body.
It is not a coincidence that then US president Richard Milhous Nixon reached out to Mao Zedong and Zhou Enlai after India's victory in the 1971 War.
Taiwan became a sacrificial goat in the normalisation of relations between the USA and China in which Pakistan was the main interlocutor.
Be that as it may, three months after the USA recognised China, it enacted the Taiwan Relations Act in April 1979 which clarified that 'the United States' decision to establish diplomatic relations with China rests upon the expectations that the future of Taiwan will be determined by peaceful means.'
The Act also stated that any effort to determine the future of Taiwan by other than peaceful means, including by boycott, or embargoes, a threat to peace and security of the Western Pacific are matters of concern to the United States.
The Act also committed to providing Taiwan with arms of a defensive nature and to maintain the capacity of the United States to resist any resort to force or other forms of coercion that would jeopardise the security or the social or economic systems of the people of Taiwan.
The Act mentioned that the US president and the US Congress shall determine the nature and quantity of such defence articles and services based solely upon their judgement of the needs of Taiwan.
The Act further said that such determination of Taiwan's defence shall include a review by the United States military in connection with the recommendation to the president and Congress.
If the words in various clauses of the Act and the Shanghai Communique are decoded, the 'strategic ambiguity' of the US stance is very evident.
Although the Shanghai Communique 'acknowledged' that there 'there is but one China and that China is a part of China', the Taiwan Relations Act mentions that the future of Taiwan will be determined by peaceful means.
China doesn't recognise the Taiwan Relations Act and contends that it is domestic US legislation and China is under no obligation to take cognisance of it.
Although unification with Taiwan continues to be a main objective of Chinese foreign policy, Taiwan has repeatedly rejected the idea of unification and emphasised peace and stability across the Taiwan Strait.
Taiwan spurned the idea of 'one country, two systems', adopted in Hong Kong which was reverted to China on July 1, 1997 after the expiry of the Sino-British Treaty leasing Hong Kong to the United Kingdom.
Even the Opposition KMT, which is friendly towards China, rejected the idea of unification, although the party is inclined to maintain channels of communication with the mainland.
A sticking point with regard to US-China relations is the US resolve of arms sales to Taiwan.
Pre-empting any possible Chinese reference to the sensitive and delicate issue, Trump ahead of his visit to China said he would speak with Xi about US arms sales to Taiwan.
The issue figured in conversations between the two sides and Beijing made it clear its objection to arms sales.
Asked whether Xi had requested Trump to stop arms sales to Taiwan, Rubio said the issue had been discussed in the past, but did not feature prominently in last week's talks.
In Taiwan's parliament, the ruling TPP and the Opposition KMT passed the NTS 780 billion arms purchase from the US ahead of the Xi-Trump summit.
The Asia Reassurance Initiative Act, which was passed during Trump's tenure, provided for arms sales to Taiwan.
It mentions that the president should conduct regular threats from transfer of defence articles to Taiwan that are tailored to meet the existing and likely future threats from China, including supporting Taiwan's efforts to develop and integrate asymmetric capabilities.
All these stipulations envisaged in various documents enables the US to sell arms to Taiwan which helps America's military-industrial complex.
None of the documents including the Taiwan Relations Act, Six Assurances and the Asia Reassurance Initiative clearly mention if the US will come to Taiwan's defence if attacked by China after the abrogation of the 1954 US-ROC Mutual Defence Treaty in 1979.
The USA, however, had despatched the 7th Fleet in 1958 during the Taiwan Strait Crisis after the outbreak of the Korean War.
In 1995, during the Taiwan Strait Crisis, then US president Bill Clinton had sent the USS Nimitz aircraft carrier to the Taiwan Strait to deter China.
The USA, however, has shown restraint when provoked by China through its escalatory military drills in the Taiwan Strait such as during then US speaker of the House of Representative Nancy Pelosi's visit to Taiwan in August 2022.
This raises the question: Can China attack Taiwan?
Chinese leaders, including its generals, will have to weigh whether they can win a war if they ever attack Taiwan and if at all, can they sustain the subsequent devastation.
Perhaps, a better option for China would be recourse to the precept of its strategic guru Sun Tzu -- 'how to win a war without fighting one' as envisaged in The Art of War -- through 'gray zone' tactics, cognitive warfare and 'united front' tactics.
Can China bring Taiwan under its control through coercive methods? If so, will the citizens of Taiwan long used to democracy and a democratic life style ever reconcile to a totalitarian regime?
Will the USA allow China to be the sole superpower and global hegemon?
In the given situation, perhaps the status quo is the best bet not only for Taiwan, but also all the stakeholders including China and the USA.
That is perhaps very thoughtfully why Xi mentioned that a 'Thucydides Trap' may not occur between China and the USA.
But recall what Singapore's late leader Lee Kuan Yew once said: 'When elephants fight, the grass suffers; but when elephants make love, the grass also suffers'.
Rup Narayan Das is a former Taiwan Fellow and a former senior fellow at the Manohar Parrikar Institute for Defence Studies and Analyses. The views expressed are personal.
Feature Presentation: Aslam Hunani/Rediff