Abstract

The report introduces the focus of the Taiwan Policy Act, which contains two key elements: military and diplomatic concerns. First, the U.S. Congress hopes to raise the level of military support to the Taiwan authorities and Taiwan's position amid the U.S. military alliance through the Taiwan Policy Act. Second, the Taiwan Policy Act requires the Secretary of State to repeal any internal regulations that do not allow Taiwan to display the flag or military uniforms of the Republic of China in federal institutions. At the same time, the bill also proposes to hedge against Beijing's "diplomatic isolation" from the Taipei authorities by actively promoting The Global Cooperation and Training Framework. It is worth noting that the Taiwan Policy Act has not yet been formally enacted into law. The next step is for the bill to be passed by both the House and the Senate before the end of the current U.S. Congress (January 2023) and then sent to President Biden for signature.

The Taiwan Policy Act is a product of the incongruity between the U.S. Congress and the Biden Administration on the Taiwan issue. Hawkish members of the U.S. Congress have long believed that the Biden administration is weak against China on the Taiwan issue and therefore wanted to put pressure on the U.S. administration by introducing the bill. Although the Taiwan Policy Act is not a qualitative breakthrough in terms of content compared to the Taiwan Relations Act, its passage indicates an important trend in U.S. policy toward Taiwan: the U.S. has lost its bottom line and control over Taiwan policy. This trend shift is done by changes in the internal power structure of the United States.

This report argues that a new understanding of the U.S. policies toward Taiwan should be based on the status quo of U.S. domestic affairs. Therefore, a new judgment should be made, and China's Taiwan policy can be formulated, at least in terms of five perspectives:

1) solving the Taiwan issue based on a “divide-and-conquer” strategy

2) hardening the “stick”

3) sweetening the “carrot”

4) strengthening the struggle over international discourse and

5) preventing a possible internal color revolution.

to rethink the issue of Taiwan and the reunification between mainland China and Taiwan.