But amidst the global threat that is Xi Jinping’s modern, hegemonic Chinese Communist Party, perhaps now is the time to revisit those 1970s-era decisions. Should the U.S. now formally establish relations with Taiwan—or would doing so risk an unprecedented, disastrous conflict with a rising People’s Republic of China?
For the latest Newsweek “Debate of the Week,” author, commentator and Newsweek columnist Gordon G. Chang debates Council on Foreign Relations adjunct senior fellow and NYU School of Law professor Jerome A. Cohen on an urgent, much-discussed question: Is now the right time for the U.S. to formally recognize Taiwan?
We hope you enjoy this highly pertinent Debate.
Josh Hammer, Newsweek opinion editor, is also a syndicated columnist and of counsel at First Liberty Institute.
On January 1, 1979, the United States switched recognition from Taipei to Beijing as the sole government of China. American strategists thought they needed the help of the People’s Republic of China in the Cold War.
Immediate prospects for resolving any of these disputes are slim. After veering from pillar to post on various aspects of China policy, the Trump administration has finally decided to mobilize the American people against the “People’s Republic of China” (PRC) or, as the Trump group now sometimes calls it, “the Chinese Communist Government.” Trumpists hope that dramatizing their “whole of government” campaign will bolster Trump’s chances for re-election. In 1972, President Nixon also made China the focus of his re-election campaign, but he sought to improve a long-hostile relationship. Trump, by contrast, is playing the China card to “decouple” the U.S. from the PRC. And Xi Jinping’s government, while expressing concern about this disturbing trend, refuses, unlike Deng Xiaoping’s government of the 1970s, to brook any compromise.
