Beijing ’s Bullying of Taiwan Is Backfiring

            Beijing continues to intensify its diplomatic campaign to isolate Taiwan internationally, and as I describe in arecent article inChina-U.S. Focus, that bullying strategy threatens to trigger dangerous tensions between China and the United States.  Chinese leaders were shocked and angered when Taiwanese voters endorsed Tsai Ing-wen and her pro-independence Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) in the 2016 elections.  The communist regime soon moved to adopt an aggressive strategy of diplomatic strangulation.  During her presidency, Beijing ha s induced five of the 22 countries (mostly small, poor nations in Africa and Latin America) that had still recognized Taipei when she took office to switch ties to Beijing.  The latest defector is El Salvador.             Although the Chinese strategy appears to be paying off in the narrow sense of achieving its primary objective, it may ultimately come at an unacceptably high price.  The campaign is producing the opposite reaction in Taiwan of what Beijing seeks.  Tsai and her government hav e adopted a stance ofoutright defiance, making it clear that Taipei will not be bullied into taking steps toward reunification with the People ’s Republic of China (PRC). More ominously, American supporters of Taiwan are pushing back firmly, and they are moving to increase Washington ’s support of the island’s de facto independence.  The State Department immediately issued a statement that Washington was “de...
Source: Cato-at-liberty - Category: American Health Authors: Source Type: blogs