Large islands, great powers

Taiwan and Cuba

Taiwan is a large island eighty miles off the coast of mainland China. Cuba is a large island ninety miles from the United States. In 1949 Taiwan broke away from China, which has applied various forms of pressure against the island’s government ever since. In 1959 Cuba shook off its longstanding dependence on the United States, which subsequently engaged in diplomatic, economic and intelligence warfare against Cuba. Shortly after its break with the mainland, the government on Taiwan enlisted a foreign protector, the United States, against China. Cuba quickly formed an alliance with the Soviet Union against the United States.

The parallels seemed to diverge when the Soviet Union dissolved in the early 1990s. But the Castro regime clung to power, and its successor still rules Cuba, despite persisting opposition from the United States. Meanwhile the Taiwan government, with continued American support, hangs on against Chinese harassment.

Are there any lessons to be drawn from these two cases? Any observations?

One is that great powers don't need a claim of sovereign legitimacy to bully small neighbors. The United States had treated Cuba as a protectorate for sixty years before the Castro revolution toppled the last of America’s proteges in Cuba, but Cuba had been legally independent all along. America after 1959 couldn't claim that the country was a renegade province. Yet it acted as though Cuba was.

Which suggests that China’s claim to sovereignty over Taiwan, while convenient for Beijing, might not be the crucial motivating factor. China, like the United States vis-a-vis Cuba, simply might not like having a near neighbor that attracts the favorable attention of a great power rival. If the Philippines, for example, were as close to China as Taiwan is, the American presence in the Philippines until the 1990s might have made Beijing equally nervous. Washington didn't like Castro because he was a communist, but it liked him even less once he became a client of the Soviet Union.

To be sure, China's historical claim to Taiwan is not immaterial. But with the exception of a few years after World War II, China has not effectively ruled Taiwan since the 19th century. There would appear to be no pressing need for Beijing to reassert Chinese authority now. Yet the closer Taipei gets to Washington, the greater the incentive for Beijing to act.

The Cuban case might be instructive here. Never did Washington have greater incentive to act against Castro than at the time when Castro was growing closest to Moscow—namely when the Soviets tried to place nuclear missiles in Cuba in 1962. So threatened did the American government feel that it risked general nuclear war to get the missiles out. 

It's not novel to say that closer American ties to Taiwan, designed to forestall a Chinese attempt to take over the island, might have the opposite effect. But the reasoning is slightly different here. The conventional version is that China doesn’t want Taiwan to get away and so would opt to act before the American connection made Taiwan’s escape possible. This version suggests that it would be the American connection per se that would prompt the Chinese intervention.

If this is true, it suggests a possible resolution of the situation, one comparable to the resolution that came out of the Cuban missile crisis. The Soviet Union agreed not to place offensive missiles in Cuba, and the United States agreed not to invade Cuba. In effect, the two great powers agreed to neutralize Cuba. 

It didn't turn out as easy as that. Cuban leaders had minds and agendas of their own. And both the United States and the Soviet Union were tempted to probe the margins of the agreement. But that agreement had the salutary effect of preventing Cuba from again becoming a flash point in the Cold War.

An agreement about Taiwan along the lines suggested here would be even more complicated than that involving Cuba. The government of China is unlikely to surrender its claim, in principle, to Taiwan. But it might agree, perhaps tacitly, not to employ military force to implement that claim. It has refrained from military force in the matter for three-quarters of a century. It could simply continue to refrain. Taiwan has never claimed independence; it could continue not doing so. And the United States could continue withholding support for Taiwan’s independence. Joe Biden did just that recently, saying, “We do not support independence.”

Taiwan has been likened to Hong Kong, which reverted to Chinese control in 1997 when a 99-year lease to Britain ran out. Subsequent political repression in Hong Kong has been interpreted as boding ill for Taiwan's future. But there's a crucial difference. There's no deadline on Taiwan, no ticking clock. The current status quo might go on indefinitely.

Which would be all to the good. The Taiwan problem might be like many problems in life: irresolvable but not unmanageable.