Hugging giants in Beijing: US gives Taiwan basket – risk of war rising now?

The relationship between the two most powerful countries in the world is currently extremely tense (keyword Taiwan, Uighurs, Chinese spy balloons over America). The visit of Antony Blinken (61) to Beijing proves that the giants in Minne want to get along again. Xi Jinping, 70, wants “stable conditions” and Blinken made a diplomatic gift to the Chinese, emphasizing that the United States would not recognize Taiwan’s independence. That is good news for the world for the time being, except for pro-independence Taiwan.

That the long period of uncertainty continues. Since pro-independence president Tsai Ing-wen (66) took office in 2016, China has stepped up military provocations against the island. Xi has repeatedly threatened to use military force to “reunite” Taiwan and China if necessary. Taiwan relies on “porcupine tactics” for its defense; a Reduit-esque defense strategy that counts on the Chinese not being able to take the coastal cliffs of Taiwan. Without US aid, things would still be tight for Taiwan. The Taiwanese have not received more than a few verbal promises from US President Joe Biden (80).

China sees the island (24 million inhabitants, almost the size of Switzerland) as a Chinese province. However, the government of Taiwan emphasizes Taiwan’s independence. The disputes between the two sides date back to 1949, when supporters of the Kuomintang Party lost the Chinese Civil War to Mao Tsetung’s communist forces and defected to the island.

Bern has no diplomatic relations with Taiwan and does not recognize its independence. It wasn’t until April that the Federal Council again made it clear how delicate it would be to establish diplomatic relations with Taipei. In response to a parliamentary question, he referred to the Baltic state of Lithuania, which opened a Taiwanese embassy in Vilnius in 2021 and was punished by China with an immediate severance of all trade relations.

No. Direct talks are no guarantee of peace. This is evident from the Biden-Putin summit in Geneva in the summer of 2021. Then the American and Russian presidents would have exchanged views in person. Six months later, Putin launched his war of aggression in Ukraine. China’s conduct in this war (the Chinese remain a close ally of Russia, even though they have not yet sent arms to Moscow) could at any moment lead to another rift in US-China relations.