“The empire, long divided, must unite; long united, must divide. Thus it has ever been.”
三国演义 ~by Luo Guangzhong
Earlier I promised to post my plan to prevent a war between the United States and China over Taiwan. I’ve traveled and met with Taiwanese diplomats. They are some of the most sophisticated operators I’ve ever encountered. Taiwan is a highly advanced technological country. Very wealthy, with a sophisticated full coverage heath care system and a vibrant democracy. Furthermore, based on the Shanghai Communique issued on February 27, 1972 by Nixon and Mao, both mainland China and the USA formally acknowledged that “all Chinese on either side of the Taiwan Strait maintain there is but one China”.
The Communique goes on to state the US side does not accept a violent solution to the unification of the two parties and the Chinese side retains the option to violence if Taiwan ever declares independence, paraphrasing here, folks. It’s been a long time since reading my Kissinger.
Conversely, I have traveled seven times to China. Here is an idea most Americans will probably never understand. China’s potential to utilize enormous amounts of soft power is profound. This is based on China’s circular view of history and that China has been invaded and ruled by foreign powers many times in its history. In each and every case China has overcome said invaders very differently than the way the Russians have. Or anyone else for that matter. Where the Russians trade space for time to husband their resources for a great counter attack and push the invader out of the country, China seduces the invader, with its ancient, deep, amazing and incredibly seductive culture. I cannot emphasize enough the depth, breadth, and tantalizing sophistication of its culture, be it material, artistic, political or spiritual. I do, after all, practice Chinese Chan Buddhism in my own life. Every time China has been invaded and completely taken over by a foreign power this strategy works. Even today we’re watching Chinese movies on Netflix. That is the use and export of soft power. And unlike America, that has only 250 years of history to draw upon its soft power, China has almost 4000 years of history to draw upon. The efficacy of Chinese soft power is not to be underestimated. It is indeed seductive.
Now the question moves to goals and intentions. And here an understanding of Chinese history can aid us in a better understanding of the present Chinese leader, Xi Jing Ping.
What are Xi Jing Ping’s true goals? Simple, he seeks membership among the greatest of Chinese emperors. The greatest of Chinese emperors are judged by a single metric: did they unify all of China? As the opening sentence of the great Chinese novel, The Romance of the Three Kingdoms, I quoted at the beginning of this essay, unification is the way the Chinese see themselves when in a golden age.
This compulsion to unify all of China is the defining source of Xi’s ambitions. And that means Taiwan. Taiwan is the last remaining province of a fully unified China. China equal to that ruled by the Qin Shih Huang Di, the very first emperor to unify all of China, or the great conqueror Han Wu Di, or Li Shimin of the mighty T’ang or Zhu Yuanzhang of the wall building Ming. It is to this rank of Chinese men that Xi aspires.
What should America do? I have spent a lot of time thinking about how to avoid a war with China that most people are certain is inevitable. They call it the “Thucydides Trap.” But, if the study of history has taught me anything it is that nothing is inevitable, contingencies matter, and human agency means the most. We may live in a complex adaptive system, but nothing, nothing is inevitable. Therefore, America must find a way tone down its arrogance and find a way to peacefully unite Taiwan with China.
Here is how I would do it if I were president.
First, I would engage in a series of CBM’s (Confidence Building Measures in diplospeak) with Xi Jing Ping regarding our naval stance in the Straits of Taiwan. I would make it policy that no American naval ships traverse the Straits of Taiwan any longer. Then I would halt the sale of advanced weapons to Taiwan.
Second, I would begin preparing the Taiwanese to consider peaceful unification with the mainland along the lines of the British handover of Hong Kong to China in the 90s. I would make it clear that we would not consider unification unless Taiwan was allowed to keep its democracy, and democratic traditions for a minimum of 80 years. I would do this to assuage the Taiwanese about a possible authoritarian takeover of the island in the case of unification. China did one nation, two systems successfully once before. They can do it again.
Third, I would secretly engage Xi Jing Ping with the following proposal: the United States of America would fully encourage and accept the unification of Taiwan with the mainland under the following conditions. Number one, Taiwan would have three representatives on the politburo, one of which would be a power ministry, either interior, defense, or foreign affairs. My fallback position, which is my true goal of course, would be the acceptance of two politburo members from Taiwan, but I would not relent on one serving as a power minister in one of the three ministries aforementioned.
I am relatively certain that Xi and the current politburo would agree to this proposal. It would serve to put Xi in the exhalted ranks of Chinese leaders in which he craves to be included. Mos timportantly, it would not harm a single vital national interest of the United States. The Chinese might have a salient in the first island chain, that being the island of Taiwan, but the United States would still have Korea, Japan, Okinawa, and the Philippines. Not to mention the defenses in depth that the second island chain provides us in the Pacific ocean. Much less the great fortress of the third island chain of Midway, Wake and Hawaii. Defenses in depth matter much more than a salient in the first island chain.
Now, I recognize this goes against every national security intellectuals thinking. It is completely contrarian. But the more I’ve thought about it over the last few years the more I believe that is the best way to avoid general warfare between two nuclear great powers from the Straits of Malacca to the South China Sea and into the deep blue waters of the Pacific.
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ibaien
“I would make it clear that we would not consider unification unless Taiwan was allowed to keep its democracy, and democratic traditions for a minimum of 80 years.”
or…what? you may as well say 8 or 800 years. if reunification is successful, taiwan will immediately be 1) stripped of what is a very robust democracy and 2) hypercapitalized into yet-more chinese megacity projects. it remains one of my favorite places on earth specifically because it’s a brave liberal democracy living under the sword of damocles with fairly limited foreign investment. citizens there believe in their neighbors and in their country in a way americans can’t begin to imagine.
cc
1. “the USA formally acknowledged that “all Chinese on either side of the Taiwan Strait maintain there is but one China”.”
2. “Taiwan is the last remaining province of a fully unified China.”
3. “America must find a way tone down its arrogance”
4. “our naval stance in the Straits of Taiwan. I would make it policy that no American naval ships traverse the Straits of Taiwan any longer. Then I would halt the sale of advanced weapons to Taiwan.”
5. “America must [..] find a way to peacefully unite Taiwan with China.”
6. “under the following conditions. Number one [..]”
Parts 1, 2, 3, and 4 make sense. But perhaps drop the word “advanced”, unless you think the US should be able to continue to sell non-advanced weapons to a province of another country for some reason.
But parts 5 and 6 don’t make sense.
The US is the very reason Taiwan was not reunited with China long ago. Why not just do part 4 and then let the “Chinese on either side of the Taiwan Strait” find a way to peacefully reunite on their own? As you stated they have done “one nation, two systems successfully.”
Given 1 and 2, by what right is it even up to the US to “find a way” and to impose conditions for a country to reunite its province and its people?
Why should the US or a President Sean Paul Kelly have the right to dictate to another country – on the other side of the world – how it must choose its leadership, right down to specific numbers and positions?
With all due respect, isn’t that continuation of the arrogance you mentioned at 3? Isn’t it also imperial?
Sean Paul Kelley
ibaien: I present you with a stark choice: peaceful, unification, or violent unification. China agreed to let Hong Kong have its traditions for 50 years after it joined the mainland that was a part of the agreement.
Here is a link to wht China honored and what it did not in its agreement with the UK.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Handover_of_Hong_Kong#Before_and_after_handover
Not perfect, but not draconian as you predict either. So which would you rather have a peaceful unification or a violent one? That also was a part of a potential nuclear usage great power war? Please answer the question.
Sean Paul Kelley
cc: I’m trying to avoid a generalized global and potentially nuclear war.
I’m not trying to be imperial. I did not use the words “force” Taiwan into anything. I said I would try to convince and I would try to prepare. Please read my words more carefully before you say things like I’m being imperial.
This is probably the most anti-imperial proposal for Chinese Taiwanese unification I can possibly imagine.
I’m offering a reality based solution here. What is yours? Just abandon an ally of 80 years?
ibaien
well i wouldn’t have compelled them to abandon their nuclear program, as the US did in ’87. nothing dissuades great power bullying more than a credible threat to glass a city or two – cf. ROK & DPRK.
as far as these latter days, it hardly matters what i would do – the west shot their wad on UKR and won’t have the stomach or materiel for another war. all TW can do is make it clear to the PRC that they’ll go down swinging & that an invasion across the strait won’t be easy meat. truth be told, as the housing crisis in TW intensifies (taipei now more expensive per sq m than singapore or tokyo), i expect the PRC will work more with the KMT to push a soft reunification. lots of people around the world would give up democracy for a lower cost of living…
Sean Paul Kelley
ibaien: thank you for a sincere and fair reply.
cc
The Anglo imperial tactic has long been to divide-and-conquer. Arm one side to pit as a proxy against another. That’s what Taiwan is – a proxy, a tool, a pawn – not an “ally”. The same can be said of Ukraine and even Israel. Of course, the US and its puppet regimes will let the prospective or actual cannon fodder think that they’re “allies”, as opposed to tools to be used and then discarded. Ukraine foolishly fell for it, hopefully the people of Taiwan won’t.
The US should simply stop trying to use Taiwan against China, honour its One China agreement and fully admit that Taiwan is an integral part of China, and that as such, the province can’t be an “ally” to have state-to-state diplomatic ties to. That means dropping its blatantly dishonest “strategic ambiguity” game. That means no more deliberately inflammatory visits like Nancy Pelosi’s or the hosting of pro-independence leaders from Taiwan in Washington DC. That also means no more selling weapons, advanced or otherwise, to a province of another country. And that also means no more provocative passage of hostile Western warships and warplanes through the territorial waters between a country’s mainland coast and its island. How is that so much to ask?
Why should the US feel the right to condition its acceptance of the reunification of a distant country with its province to anything, let alone who its interior, defense, or foreign affairs ministers are to be? That’s the arrogance and imperial mindset behind it that I’m referring to. The idea of “containing” other countries, on the other side of the world in Eurasia, a euphemism for keeping them down, is also a product of an imperial mindset.
I’m with you on the 5 points that I already agreed with (1-4, as well as “one nation, two systems successfully”) and now on the need to avoid a global war. But the solution is not so hard: stop trying to divide-and-conquer the world, stop trying to dictate to others and respect their sovereignty.
It’s only hard if your “true goal” is to avoid a hot war while still maintaining Western hegemony just to keep your standard of living.
Sean Paul Kelley
@cc: I suppose, since the US can no longer be relied up to be seen as a rational actor in foreign affairs and can no longer truly be trusted by its allies in the East, meaning South Korea and Japan, that your solution might just work. I’ll concede the point to you, bu tnot with you some final words.
You might be right. I’d like you to be right. But, the way the world is now, I think you’re wrong.
Regardless, thanks for the honest debate.
cc
@Sean, thanks for the exchange.
Readers may find this article from Canadian Matthew Ehret interesting:
https://risingtidefoundation.net/2024/01/06/sun-yat-sens-advice-to-young-revolutionaries/
(I believe it was from 2022, not long after the Western attempt to stir up unrest in Hong Kong, even though the new URL says 2024.)
Over a hundred years ago, Sun Yat-sen, revered as the founding father of post-imperial China, both on the mainland and the island of Taiwan (Republic of China), already understood well the Anglo modus operandi of divide-and-conquer. Unfortunately some in Taiwan, and around the world, have lost heed of the lessons of this long-repeated historical pattern, and some (Ukraine being the current example) are paying the price of having allowed themselves to be used by the Anglo-American empire and corrupted self-enriching local comprador elites. Hopefully enough of the rest of the world has learned, though unfortunately there are always some local elites that the West manages to corrupt.
Sean Paul Kelley
@cc: what the Brits did to the Chinese to solve their crippling balance of payments problem with China in 1839 and then again in 1856 were two of the greatest international crimes of the 19th century. The Brits were buying too many Chinese goods and the Chinese were keeping the gold. So the Brits endeavored to get the entire fucking nation hooked on opium. Utterly criminal.
cc
@Sean, yes, a form of enslavement (where the chains were chemical instead of metal.) And I think it’s very important to point out that it wasn’t just the Brits but also the Americans. As American historian James Bradley pointed out in his book ‘China Mirage”, much of the US East and perhaps what’s referred to as the “US establishment” was built on the proceeds of that vast criminal enterprise:
“Opium money funded any number of significant institutions in the eastern United States. John Perkins Cushing’s profitable relationship with Howqua helped finance the construction of America’s first great textile manufacturing city, Lowell, Massachusetts. America’s great East Coast universities owe a great deal to opium profits. Much of the land upon which Yale University stands was provided by Russell family money.
A Russell family trust still covers the budget of Yale’s Skull and Bones Society, and Russell funds built the famously secretive club’s headquarters. Columbia University’s most recognizable building is the Low Memorial Library, honoring Abiel Abbot Low, who worked in China with Warren Delano in the 1830s. John Cleve Green was Delano’s immediate predecessor as a senior partner in Russell and Company, and he was Princeton University’s single largest donor, financing three buildings. (Green also founded America’s oldest orthopedic hospital— Manhattan’s Hospital for Special Surgery—from his opium fortune.)
Among the railways financed with opium money were the Boston and Lowell (Perkins), the Michigan Central (Forbes), the Chicago, Burlington, and Quincy (Forbes), and the Chesapeake and Ohio (Low), among others.
The influence of these opium fortunes seeped into virtually every aspect of American life. That influence was cultural: the transcendentalist Ralph Waldo Emerson married John Murray Forbes’s daughter, and his father-in- law’s fortune helped provide Emerson with the cushion to become a professional thinker. It was found in technology: Forbes’s son watched over his father’s investment in the Bell Telephone Company as its first president, and Abiel Abbot Low provided start-up money for the first transatlantic cable. And it was ideological: Joseph Coolidge’s heirs founded the Council on Foreign Relations. Several companies that would play major roles in American history were also the product of drug profits, among them the United Fruit Company, started by the Coolidge family. Scratch the history of an institution or a person with the name Forbes attached to it, and there’s a good chance you’ll see that opium is involved. Secretary of State John Forbes Kerry’s great-grandfather was Francis Blackwell Forbes, who got rich selling opium in China.”
Combine the take (plundered loot) of the Brits and the Americans, and perhaps some other European powers, and you could say the Anglo-American empire that leads the West was built on the backs of China, India, and Eurasia in general. The US/UK/West relentlessly continue their attempts to get back to those easy lucrative golden days, but for some reason Eurasian countries are “hostile” to being subjugated again.
Soredemos
Chinaboo cultural essentialism is very tiresome. At least you said 4,000 years of history instead of the usual 5,000 propaganda line. Most supposed currents and continuities in Chinese history…aren’t. Its a bit like saying Italians are Romans, or even that Iraqis are Sumerians.
marku52
One problem.– can’t think of a single FP decision the US has made in the last oh, 50 years or so, that has advanced any strategic US interest.
They’ve all been own goals. And that incompetence has only accelerated lately.
So, I’m afraid you are asking for too much….
ibaien
@spk
https://www.theguardian.com/film/2025/sep/12/ten-years-hong-kong-film-festival-dystopia-reality
pretty flippant of you to describe HK’s democracy as ‘traditions’, as though it were akin to lighting incense at a temple. this was a real thing that happened to real people and the west just shrugged. guess we felt bad about our colonialism and didn’t want to poke the dragon. thoughts and prayers for democracy is all it’s gonna get in the 21st century.
Jorge
“Taiwan is the last remaining province of a fully unified China.” (rude sound effect elided)
1. My understanding is that Taiwan (Formosa) used to be mostly Polynesian, and the Han have dominated in only the last 500-1000 years. But don’t quote me. They’re still on Taiwan, pushed to the edges in reservations, which like American Indian reservations are on the worst land of all. They’re called “Aboriginals”. One was a Cabinet member maybe 10-15 years ago. The historical pattern has been: Mongols invade from the North, Han move South and East, some take the boat to Formosa. The last wave of this was the time of the Mulan movies. So the Southeast Han tend to preserve older customs, dialects, etc.
2. The Imperial Russian Empire grabbed a chunk of Northeast China and some would like it back. This includes Vladivostok.
3. China needs to annex Eastern Siberia for the same reason America must annex Canada: Global Baking. I have seen claims that China is slowly exporting farmers to Southern Siberia.
4. This is the most intriguing historical criticism I’ve seen recently: Vietnam’s ancient history is possibly bullshit, and it is possibly a rogue Chinese province. The theory is that China invaded, pushed the locals up into the hills, and dominated the flatlands.
https://postcardsfromvietnam.substack.com/p/what-if-vietnams-ancient-history
I read somewhere once that part of the North/South divide is allegiance to Chinese culture, that the Commie Northerners were a lot more Chinese, and the “Viet” Southerner culturally are more a mix of Han and the locals which China pushed into the hills. This dichotomy would probably show up in a map of family names.
There’s a lotta oil in Vietnam- that’s why the US was there. This would definitely be worth grabbing.
Cheers!
Sean Paul Kelley
@jorge: you bring up an interesting topic vis-a-vis the Vietnamese.
I have long held that “Chinese” is not a single language. And it is not. But, there is one commonality that binds all Chinese together. A person can speak Cantonese–which unlike Mandarin the lingua Franca of China–has six tones and Putongua (Chinese for Mandarin) has only four. A person can speak Fukianese or Sichuanese or Wu, Min, Hakka, Gang, Xiang or Jin and they can all read the news paper. The binding source of Chinese is their system of writing, pictographs. Highly developed of course. But it binds several different languages–I refuse to call them dialects–together in a web of mutual understanding. Why? Because the character for horse is the same across all of them. The character for me is the same. The character for you is the same across all of them.
And yes, there is a very real north south divide in China. China has 55 protected minorities, one of which the Mosuo, is matriarchal and I have visited one of the main towns of the Mosuo.
China is no monolith–although it loves to project that myth to the outside world, a myth of a single toiling Han people working towards their glorious new Golden Age. No way. China is a complex web of varying societies sublimated, frequently by imperial measures but all now participating in a 4,000 year old civilization. It is just not proper to see China as anything but a civilization masquerading as a nation state.