Following the withdrawal of the U.S. forces from Afghanistan and the Taliban’s abrupt takeover of Kabul, Chinese commentators rushed online to draw comparisons between Taiwan and Kabul on social media. Many questioned whether the United States could be a reliable ally in withstanding potential Chinese military efforts to ‘unify’ with Taiwan. But as some pointed out online, the analogy is misleading.
Taiwan became an autonomous state after the ruling party of the Republic of China (ROC), the Kuomintang, also known as the China National Party, fled the continent in 1949 upon its defeat in the Chinese Civil War. Despite Taiwan’s autonomy, the People’s Republic of China (PRC), under the leadership of the Chinese Community Party (CCP), has long upheld a ‘One China Policy’ which asserts that Taiwan and mainland China are inalienable parts of a single ‘China.’ In recent years, China has maintained that it will not rule out military operations to unify with Taiwan.
To withstand Beijing’s political pressure, Taiwan president Tsai Ing-wen has reached out to other countries to build diplomatic alliances, citing the United States as a key ally. The United States has adopted a strategically ambiguous policy regarding Taiwan since 1979. However, former President Donald Trump’s administration loosened restrictions on the official U.S.-Taiwan relationship. Over the last two years, the U.S. dispatched warships across the Taiwan Straits and recently landed U.S. military aircraft in Taipei, which many viewed as a signal that the U.S. wants to strengthen diplomatic ties with Taiwan.
Against such a background, criticisms about the messy withdrawal of U.S. troops from Afghanistan have stirred anxiety in Taiwan, as many have questioned whether the U.S. is still capable of protecting and supporting its allies.
Pro-China unification politician and the Chairman of Broadcasting Corp of China Jaw Shaw-kong was among the first to use the Taiwan-Afghanistan analogy to question Tsai’s diplomatic alliance with the U.S. on Facebook on August 15:
Jaw’s view spread widely on Facebook and Weibo, and within days many had weighed in on the comparison. For example, Taiwanese politician Lei Chien said, ‘Taiwan is less important than Afghanistan,’ implying the U.S. will abandon Taiwan if China launched a military attack. International relations scholar Huang Jie-jeng also questioned America’s determination to back Taiwan in a hypothetical invasion from China.
In response to the discussion, Taiwan Premier Su Tseng-chang rebuked the comparison and slammed Jaw for ‘emboldening the enemies’:
In mainland China, state-run news outlet Global Times used Jaw’s analogy to warn Taiwan:
The Global Times further discredited U.S. credibility in overseas military interventions:
Many people cannot help but recall how the Vietnam War ended in 1975: The US abandoned its allies in South Vietnam; Saigon was taken over; then the US evacuated almost all its citizens in Saigon. And in 2019, US troops withdrew from northern Syria abruptly and abandoned their allies, the Kurds.
But Wang Hao, a Taiwanese writer on international affairs, invited others to read the news from a different angle:
Independent journalist Melissa Chan countered the political analogy with views taken from law professor Donald Clarke and foreign relation expert Andrew Small:
More importantly, as pointed out by some Taiwanese journalists, the comparison is very misleading as it suggests that the U.S. still has troops based in Taiwan. However, the fact is — the U.S. withdrew all troops from Taiwan back in 1979, yet the country still stands independent today.
