In May, China held military exercises around Taiwan that simulated the opening maneuvers of a full-scale invasion. China has launched ballistic missiles over the island, and incursions by Chinese fighter jets into Taiwanese airspace are a daily occurrence. But while Beijing’s military provocations grab global headlines, its relentless campaign of diplomatic pressure and legal warfare—lawfare for short—to damage and delegitimize Taiwan has drawn much less attention. Yet this campaign is just as much an existential threat to Taiwan as any military attack.
China’s military actions are a form of shock and awe. They are designed to unleash fear among the Taiwanese population and bully the island’s international supporters into inaction. China’s lawfare is a silent killer, attempting to slowly strangle Taiwan’s ability to function as an autonomous, self-governing entity. If the world’s democracies do not act to relieve the pressure on Taipei, it will soon be too late.
In May, China held military exercises around Taiwan that simulated the opening maneuvers of a full-scale invasion. China has launched ballistic missiles over the island, and incursions by Chinese fighter jets into Taiwanese airspace are a daily occurrence. But while Beijing’s military provocations grab global headlines, its relentless campaign of diplomatic pressure and legal warfare—lawfare for short—to damage and delegitimize Taiwan has drawn much less attention. Yet this campaign is just as much an existential threat to Taiwan as any military attack.
China’s military actions are a form of shock and awe. They are designed to unleash fear among the Taiwanese population and bully the island’s international supporters into inaction. China’s lawfare is a silent killer, attempting to slowly strangle Taiwan’s ability to function as an autonomous, self-governing entity. If the world’s democracies do not act to relieve the pressure on Taipei, it will soon be too late.
At the United Nations, where global leaders recently met for the annual General Assembly, Taiwan was absent. A conflict in the Taiwan Strait could set off a regional or even superpower war that would create an estimated $10 trillion hole in the global economy, yet the word “Taiwan” remains taboo at the world’s most important intergovernmental organization.
In 1971, the U.N. General Assembly passed Resolution 2758, which gave the People’s Republic of China the seat as the only legitimate representative of China at the U.N. From 1945 until 1971, the Republic of China, now better known as Taiwan, held that seat, including on the U.N. Security Council. In 1971, Taiwan was still under the iron rule of President Chiang Kai-shek, who stubbornly believed that he should have won the Chinese Civil War that ended in 1949 rather than his nemesis, Chinese Communist Party leader Mao Zedong. The one thing the two autocrats had in common was their insistence that there was only one China to rule, that each man was its sole legitimate leader, and that the other had no right to represent China on the world stage.
In the lead-up to the U.N. vote, Chiang’s stubbornness led him to refuse proposals—including from Washington—to try to secure a separate U.N. seat for Taiwan. Had that attempt been successful, it would have put Taiwan on a much surer footing as the independent and democratic country it has, for all intents and purposes, become. After all, the two Koreas are both U.N. members, as were the two Germanys.
When U.S. President Richard Nixon and U.S. National Security Advisor Henry Kissinger visited mainland China in 1972, Mao told them that he could wait a hundred years for a resolution of the Taiwan issue, kicking the question far down the road. The current Chinese president, Xi Jinping, seems much less keen on waiting until 2072. He wants Taiwan’s subjugation—in his words, “reunification”—while he is in office, and he is ready to use military means to do so, even if it risks war with the United States.
Since 1971, China has used its position as a permanent member of the U.N. Security Council and its growing clout in various U.N. bodies to push for its own distorted interpretation of the U.N. resolution, which, in Beijing’s view, denies Taiwan any right to participate in international organizations and reduces it to a province of China.
The facts tell a different story. Resolution 2758 is brief. It only refers to the rights to represent China within the U.N., transferring those rights, including the seat on the U.N. Security Council, to Beijing and expelling “the representatives of Chiang Kai-shek.” There is no mention of Taiwan’s status, and the words “Taiwan” or “Republic of China” do not appear. As long as it does not call itself “China,” Taiwan could arguably be represented at the U.N. without violating Resolution 2748. Thus, when the U.N. Office of Legal Affairs caved to Chinese pressure and agreed to list Taiwan as “Taiwan, province of China” in official U.N. documents, this interpretation was not covered by the resolution.
China has been increasingly successful in promoting its interpretation of the “One-China” principle by misinterpreting the resolution as the international legal authority to assert sovereignty over Taiwan.
Beijing uses the resolution as a justification for blocking all contact between U.N. agencies and representatives of Taiwan. This leads to petty, farcical results, such as Taiwanese school children being banned from U.N. buildings and Taiwanese labor representatives barred from attending conferences at the International Labor Organization.
It also has far more dangerous real-world consequences. Because China has succeeded in barring Taiwanese specialists from the World Health Organization (WHO), no contact was possible when the COVID-19 pandemic hit. Taiwan developed one of the most successful global strategies to contain the spread of the disease, beginning with the screening of travelers from Wuhan, China, in December 2019. However, due to Beijing’s intransigence, Taiwan could not share essential information with the WHO during the crucial initial stage of the pandemic, contributing to the global spread of the disease.
The most dangerous part of Beijing’s lawfare campaign at international organizations is the narrative that Taiwan is a purely domestic Chinese matter. In that light, any military move to subjugate Taiwan would classify as an exercise of China’s sovereign rights. If China succeeds in cementing this interpretation, it could also argue that any attempt by the United States or other allies to deter or otherwise prevent such an outcome is unlawful.
For a long time, China’s legal warfare campaign appeared to be slipping under the radar of Taiwan’s allies. Finally, that appears to be changing. Washington opposes Beijing’s attempts to redefine Resolution 2758, and the Biden administration has been pushing back. In August, the Australian Senate unanimously passed a motion stating that Resolution 2758 has no bearing on Taiwan’s status and in no way validates China’s claims with respect to the island and its citizens. Soon afterward, the Dutch Parliament backed a similar proposal. Even if these resolutions are nonbinding, they set a solid foundation for challenging China’s interpretation.
Such actions show that the democratic world is finally starting to wake up to the danger of allowing China to write its own interpretation of international law. For too long, China has used its power in the U.N. to block Taiwan’s representation in international affairs and justify its aggression and coercion against the island.
If Taiwan’s allies want to deter a military attack, they must show they are prepared to stand up against Beijing’s legal aggression, too. Legislators around the world should follow the example set by their Dutch and Australian counterparts.
Taiwan’s allies should shine a light on how China is using its economic clout within multilateral organizations to spread its agenda. For starters, they should demand that all agreements signed by various U.N. bodies with China be made public. There is evidence, for example, that China is using completely unrelated U.N. funding agreements to secure the ostracism of Taiwan. The U.N. needs to make the entire web of Chinese lawfare transparent for all to see.
Pushback against Chinese lawfare on the status of Taiwan is crucial if the world’s democracies are to stand up to Chinese bullying. China uses its economic dominance to coerce countries into accepting its interpretation of the island’s status. China aggressively inserts its interpretation of the “One China” principle in various agreements with governments, universities, and even private companies. That works if countries are unaware of the systematic campaign they have become a part of, but it is far less effective if like-minded governments present a common front. The United States, members of the European Union, and the Pacific democracies—including Japan, Australia, and South Korea—should together make clear that they will not accept any attempt by China to change the status quo with Taiwan by force. In parallel, they should make a concerted effort to support partners from the global south in responding to Chinese coercion, both in the U.N. and in bilateral negotiations.
If China’s willful misinterpretation of international law goes unchallenged in the U.N. and elsewhere, it heightens the risk of miscalculation in the Taiwan Strait. That would not only be devastating for the 23 million Taiwanese citizens living peacefully in a democratic system, but it would also have disastrous global consequences. By jointly pushing back against China’s legal warfare now, the world’s democracies would lessen the risk of a military conflict in the future.
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