Ex-diplomat faults US diplomacy on China

United States foreign policy is not focused enough on reducing tensions in the Taiwan Straits, according to J. Stapleton Roy, a former US ambassador to China.

“Taiwan remains the single most important issue in the US-China relationship,” Roy said at a China Forum webinar held on Oct 27 by the US-China Policy Foundation, a US nongovernmental organization working to improve bilateral ties.

“Our policy has always been committed to finding a peaceful resolution to its (Taiwan”s) status,” he said. “So, maintaining the status quo is preferable to any current alternatives－this should be sustained for as long as possible in the hope that better alternatives will emerge in the future. But for the moment, we don’t have a stable status quo.”

Roy is a former senior US diplomat who specialized in Asian affairs. He was born in China and raised there until he was 15 years old. Roy was assigned to Taipei in the 1950s and 1960s and served as the top US envoy in Beijing from 1991 to 1995.

At a town hall hosted by the CNN network on Oct 21, US President Joe Biden affirmed that Washington had a “commitment” to defend Taiwan if Chinese mainland forces attacked it.

In a statement, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken called on countries to support Taiwan’s “meaningful participation in the UN system”.

Strong objection

Although the administration downplayed Biden’s comments by stressing that US policy on Taiwan had “not changed”, the president’s statements contradict the official and long-standing position of the US on Taiwan－the one-China policy. The comments elicited a strong objection and a stern warning from China.

In Roy’s view, maintaining a one-China framework, which is also in the interest of Taiwan and the US, is one reason why Beijing’s focus on Taiwan has increased.

“Unless the status quo could be stabilized, chances for a military conflict are likely to increase. The only viable way to stabilize the status quo is to increase China’s confidence in the American one-China policy, which is the stable framework within (which) Taiwan has been able to develop so dramatically successfully over the last 40 years,” said Roy.

He added that “we (the US) also don’t understand that we should stop advising other countries on how to run their domestic affairs”, stressing the importance of “skillful diplomacy” rather than military power.

“In my judgment, there is no problem in the US-China relationship that cannot be handled (and) bandaged through skillful diplomacy－there is no issue in US-China relations that could be successfully managed through military power,” Roy said. “So, diplomacy is the way to deal with China, and it has to be the policy that is based on a realistic understanding of both our own strengths and weaknesses and the strengths and weaknesses of China.”