America’s Taiwan Test

Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s visit to Taiwan was a watershed event, and not just because it provoked an angry military response from Beijing that threatens to renew fears of a shooting war breaking out over that embattled island democracy. It also marked a point of no return for America’s 42-year-old policy of refusing to recognize our Taiwanese allies as an independent nation.

In deciding how to handle U.S.–Taiwan and U.S.–China relations going forward, we have to confront head-on the many major failures of American China policy since the passage of the Taiwan Relations Act in 1979. As China launches missiles into the Taiwan Strait and our relations with Beijing sour, it’s clear that a new era is upon us — and understanding how we got here is the key to knowing how we should proceed.

About the Author

Arthur Herman

Arthur Herman is a senior research fellow at the Civitas Institute at the University of Texas at Austin and the author of Freedom’s Forge: How American Business Produced Victory in World War II.

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Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s visit to Taiwan was a watershed event, and not just because it provoked an angry military response from Beijing that threatens to renew fears of a shooting war breaking out over that embattled island democracy. It also marked a point of no return for America’s 42-year-old policy of refusing to recognize our Taiwanese allies as an independent nation.

In deciding how to handle U.S.–Taiwan and U.S.–China relations going forward, we have to confront head-on the many major failures of American China policy since the passage of the Taiwan Relations Act in 1979. As China launches missiles into the Taiwan Strait and our relations with Beijing sour, it’s clear that a new era is upon us — and understanding how we got here is the key to knowing how we should proceed.

About the Author

Arthur Herman

Arthur Herman is a senior research fellow at the Civitas Institute at the University of Texas at Austin and the author of Freedom’s Forge: How American Business Produced Victory in World War II.