Business Insider
Date: June 7, 2019
By: Alex Lockie
- The US military recently called Taiwan a country, something that China routinely threatens to go to war over.
- China thinks of Taiwan as a renegade province with a democratic government that’s an existential threat to the Communist party.
- No US president for decades has been so supportive of Taiwan, and the US and China now find themselves in uncharted territory.
Jon Woo/ReutersPresident Donald Trump has engaged China in a trade war that has global markets holding their breath, but his administration recently challenged Beijing on an issue Chinese officials have promised to go to war over.
The US military’s recent Indo-Pacific Strategy paper, published on June 1, goes further than perhaps any US document ever issued in potentially provoking China’s rage over what it sees as the most sensitive issue.
Buried in the paper, which charts China’s efforts to build up a military fortress in the South China Sea and use its growing naval might to coerce its neighbors, is a reference to Taiwan as a “country.”
“As democracies in the Indo-Pacific, Singapore, Taiwan, New Zealand, and Mongolia are reliable, capable, and natural partners of the United States. All four countries contribute to US missions around the world and are actively taking steps to uphold a free and open international order,” the strategy reads. [FULL STORY]
