“Act prudently.” This was the
warning addressed to the E.U. by China’s president Xi after the European
Parliament voted 432 to 60 on October 24, 2024 on a resolution urging China to
immediately cease its “continued military operations,” “economic coercion,” and
“hostile disinformation” directed at Taiwan.[1]
Whereas in the West, warning by shouting and slamming a fisted hand on a
tabletop may be viewed as signaling vehement protest, the relative soft-spoken,
be prudent connotes a very serious threat. The early twentieth-century
U.S. president, Theodore Roosevelt, would likely miss the force of Xi’s intent
to retaliate against the E.U. should it interfere with China on Taiwan. If my
reading of Xi is correct, (and this may seem a leap), then the world coming to
grips with constructing a global order commensurate to address global risks,
such as climate change, starvation, and war in a nuclear age will face
entrenched resistance in departing from the noxious principle of absolutist
national sovereignty that has stymied collective, multilateral action. How
dare you even hint that you will encroach on China’s sovereignty! This is
essentially what President Xi was saying. Even in the post World War II global
order of sovereign nation states, China’s claim that its sovereignty includes Taiwan
is dubious, which in turn can be taken as evidence that resting the global
order on the sovereignty of nation-states is problematic. In short, that
principle allows for over-reaching without accountability.
In reacting officially to the
E.U.’s resolution, China got right to the point, “warning that ‘the Taiwan question
concerns China’s sovereignty’ and ‘it is a red line that must not be crossed.’”[2]
The pith in the determination alone suggests that China would fight “tooth and
nail” to hold onto all of its sovereignty rather than delegate some portion of
it to a multilateral entity on the global level even so carbon-emission targets
could be enforced on otherwise self-aggrandizing economic nation-states.
In explaining its warning, China also
stated that it “strongly deplores and opposes this egregious breach of the
one-China principle and interference in China’s internal affairs.”[3]
But at the time, did the China-Taiwan dispute fall under China’s internal affairs?
On the one hand, the UN Resolution 2758, which had been adopted in 1971,
recognizes the People’s Republic of China (PRC) as “the only legitimate representative
of China to the United Nations” and removed the seat that had been assigned to
the “representatives of Chiang Kai-shek” (in other words, Taiwan).[4] Even in 2024, “the E.U., the U.S. and most”
of the unitary single-states in the world maintained diplomatic relations only
with the government of mainland China, “leaving [Taiwan] without official
recognition.”[5] The
resolution does not imply, however, that China has the UN’s permission to
invade Taiwan, as the resolution does not even mention Taiwan (or the Republic
of China). The E.U.’s resolution says as much, as it recommends “Taiwan’s
meaningful participation” in international organizations.[6]
It would be silly to say Taiwan can participate, but not exist apart from
mainland China.
A more fundamental problem with
China’s internal affairs claim centers on the ethical conflict of
interest in one party of a dispute claiming the unilateral or sole authority to
decide the question. That whether Taiwan was at the time included in
China’s internal affairs was not definitely answered can be immediately
realized by recalling the statement of Taiwan’s president, William Lai, that
Taiwan was already de facto independent and thus did not even need to declare
independence from the mainland. China’s claim of internal affair thus
represents an overreach in terms of China’s beliefs and perception regarding
its own sovereignty, and, by implication the lack thereof of Taiwan’s own. In
other words, a nation-state’s own view of its sovereignty is subject to expansiveness
and this in itself can give rise to state conflict internationally. Basing
a global order on an absolutist interpretation of the sovereignty of the
nation-state unit of political organization is inherently problematic. The absolutist
interpretation includes the conflict of interest such as the one that China
was exploiting in presuming to have the sole authority to decide what constitutes
its sovereignty even in respect to territory that is in dispute with another
nation-state. This is like a corporation’s management declaring that it would
take over the National Labor Relations Board’s authority in the U.S. and rule
on complaints made by the company’s labor union unilaterally without even
bothering to put of the façade of being an impartial intermediary. At the time,
Starbucks’ management would have liked to assume such a role; it could have
cited China on the Taiwan question.
So in addition to the national
sovereignty basis of the extant global order making enforcement of UN
resolutions and international law nearly impossible, absent a voluntary “coalition
of the willing” among nation-states—which can no means be relied upon even on an
occasional basis—the sovereignty of nation-states is itself a problematic
doctrine. Interpreted to be absolutist, national sovereignty even contains an unethical
conflict of interest. I have elsewhere argued that even unexploited conflicts
of interest are unethical, given the foreseeable tendencies in human nature; exploited
conflicts, as evinced by China, are most definitely unethical. A global order
that allows for such a thing is inherently flawed; that global-scale threats to
our species have both increased and become more severe in the twenty-first
century just adds to the urgency in replacing the flawed system, even if China
warns us to be prudent in doing so.
It would be most imprudent to let
China hold the world back from catching up with the twenty-first century. It is
precisely such absolutist opportunist nation-states that justify extending sovereignty
beyond the regional, or “empire-scale,” historically compounded polities, such
as Russia, India, the E.U., the U.S., and China to the global level.
1. Jorge Liboreiro, “’Act
Prudently’: China Slams E.U. Parliament over Taiwan Resolution, Warns of Red
Lines,” Euronews.com, October 25, 2024.
2. Ibid.
3. Ibid, italics added.
4. Ibid.
[5]
Ibid.
[6]
Ibid.
