Regime Watch: Beijing

In the race for the U.S. presidency, it has become common for some of Senator Barack Obama’s supporters to claim that a McCain presidency would simply be a third term for George Bush…the implication being that there is really no difference between Senator McCain and President Bush. Yet with regard to China/Taiwan/U.S. relations, it appears that it is Senator Obama who is more closely aligned with the Bush Administration’s policy of appeasment toward Beijing in order to maintain the “status quo” between China and Taiwan, while Senator McCain is more openly pro-Taiwan (though still opposed to a unilateral declaration of independence from China by Taiwan).

From the Taipei Times last year concerning a speech that Senator Obama made on the floor of the U.S. Senate in May 2007:

While the US should welcome a peaceful rising China, he said, “at the same time, we must remain prepared to respond should China’s rise take a problematic turn.”

In this, Obama took a script from the underlying US policy toward cross-strait relations that has guided Washington’s approach to the US-Taiwan-China triangle since the US recognized the People’s Republic of China at the end of 1978.

In talking about responding to a “problematic turn,” Obama said, “this means maintaining our military presence in the Asia-Pacific region, strengthening our alliances and making clear to both Beijing and Taipei that a unilateral change in the status quo in the Taiwan Strait is unacceptable.”

What Sen. Obama had to say is eerily familiar to what U.S. Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice had to say last year about Taiwan’s referendum on United Nations membership. From the New York Times in December 2007:

During a State Department news conference, Ms. Rice said: “We think that Taiwan’s referendum to apply to the United Nations under the name ‘Taiwan’ is a provocative policy. It unnecessarily raises tensions in the Taiwan Strait and it promises no real benefits for the people of Taiwan on the international stage.”

Ms. Rice’s sharp comments, addressing one of a handful of issues that she raised without prompting by reporters, were meant to send a signal to both China and Taiwan.

While she reiterated the administration policy — that the United States “opposes any threat to use force and any unilateral move by either side to change the status quo” — she placed the United States solidly on the side of China on the issue of Taiwan’s referendum. China regards Taiwan as a breakaway province that should ultimately be reunited with the mainland, by force if necessary.

Compare the rhetoric of both Sen. Obama and the Bush State Department with that of Senator McCain from a 2006 interview:

And I would also make it clear to the Chinese that we’re not happy with some things, like the currency exchange. We’re not happy with their repression of democracy. We’re not happy with their failure to progress recently on a path to a free and open society.

And we will continue our steadfast belief that Taiwan will only be reunited to China if it’s done in a peaceful manner and the people of Taiwan desire to do so. Until then, we will protect them.

So for now It appears that regardless of who is is the next U.S. president, the archaic “one China” policy will continue, and the U.S. will continue to advocate maintaining the “status quo” between Taiwan and China. But it is likely that President McCain would be a more avid supporter of democratic Taiwan, and a fiercer critic of the regime in Beijing, than President Obama.