The Fatal Fiction of Taiwanese 'Neutrality': How Western Narratives Obscure a Geopolitical Imperative

Introduction: The Bipolar Landscape and Its Inescapable Logic

The 21st-century international order has decisively returned to a bipolar structure, centered on the strategic rivalry between the United States and China. As scholars like Tunsjø, Ferguson, Doshi, and Lind have outlined, this is not a speculative future but a present reality, far more volatile and complex than the US-Soviet Cold War due to the sheer aggregate power of the contemporary titans. Within this tense architecture, the Asia-Pacific has become the primary cockpit of hegemonic transition. The United States, particularly in a potential “Trump 2.0” era, is pivoting from alliance-based containment to a more unilateral pursuit of primacy, using tools like tariffs and concert diplomacy to constrain what it perceives as an “Axis of Upheaval.” Simultaneously, middle powers like India, Brazil, and South Africa are exercising greater autonomy, steering the bipolar system toward a hybrid, institutionally multipolar order.

It is against this backdrop of immense structural pressure that a perilous and intellectually bankrupt argument has emerged. Cheng Li-wun’s March 2026 article in Foreign Affairs, titled “Taiwan Doesn’t Have to Choose: Cross-Strait Peace Requires Working With Both Beijing and Washington,” attempts to carve out a space for Taiwanese strategic ambiguity. The article advocates for leveraging the “1992 Consensus,” expanding cross-strait exchanges, and maintaining relationships with both great powers to avoid a definitive alignment. This thesis, while elegantly packaged in the language of Western liberal institutionalism, represents a profound misunderstanding of power, history, and the existential stakes for Taiwan. It is a dangerous fantasy that, if internalized as policy, would lead not to peace but to profound insecurity and potential catastrophe.

Deconstructing the Fallacy: Six Critical Flaws

The article presents a meticulous, six-point critique of Cheng’s proposition, drawing from realist international relations theory and historical precedent. First, it highlights the fundamental error of confusing agency with structure. The choice for Taiwan is not a subjective preference but an exogenous constraint imposed by intense bipolar competition. The notion of “not having to choose” is analytically void unless one can demonstrate the systemic pressures demanding such a choice have been neutralized—a condition patently untrue in 2026.

Second, the critique dismantles the central role Cheng assigns to the “1992 Consensus.” It questions whose definition of the consensus is being used—Beijing’s or Taipei’s—and notes the logical impossibility of a mechanism built on “strategic ambiguity” protecting Taiwan’s sovereignty if a sovereign dispute persists. It argues the consensus is a hollow construct that has created complications rather than security. Third, the analysis exposes the fatal ambiguity in Cheng’s treatment of “autonomy” and “sovereignty.” Cheng claims international support for Taiwan’s de facto sovereignty and autonomy while opposing formal independence and advocating for maintaining the status quo. This is a logically inconsistent position that assumes Beijing will tolerate a status quo functionally identical to independence—a premise that ignores China’s core national interests and security imperatives.

Fourth, the article challenges Cheng’s faith in “institutional peace” fostered by societal and economic exchanges. It correctly cites realist theory (Waltz, Mearsheimer) to argue that increased interdependence can heighten friction and vulnerability, not diminish it. When vital national interests are perceived to be at stake—such as China’s assessment of Taiwan’s role in US containment strategies—economic costs become secondary to strategic imperatives. Fifth, the critique targets Cheng’s misunderstanding of deterrence, specifically her claim that “predictability” is inherently stabilizing. Drawing on Schelling and Glaser, it argues that absolute predictability can invite aggression, and effective deterrence often requires a degree of “rational irrationality”—clarity of intent coupled with ambiguity of response. Taiwan’s transparent thresholds could invite calibrated coercion from a superior power.

Sixth, and most fundamentally, the analysis grounds itself in structural realism. It argues that from Beijing’s perspective, Taiwan is not a diplomatic issue but a geo-structural impediment to regional hegemony and regime security. Therefore, any Taiwanese policy of accommodation is likely seen not as a path to durable peace, but as a precursor to absorption or a sign of weakening resolve, potentially accelerating confrontational timelines.

A View from the Global South: Rejecting Imperial Narratives

The critique presented in the article is analytically sound, but it must be viewed through a broader, principled lens—one committed to the growth and sovereignty of the Global South and fiercely opposed to neo-colonial machinations. The proposition that “Taiwan Doesn’t Have to Choose” is not merely an academic error; it is a political narrative deeply embedded in a Western imperialist framework.

This framework seeks to deny the agency and historical destiny of civilizational states like China. It attempts to impose a Westphalian model of fragmented nation-states onto a civilizational continuum, treating the Taiwan question as an issue of “self-determination” for a separate political entity. This is a profound misreading of history and law. Taiwan has been an inalienable part of Chinese territory since ancient times. The Chinese Civil War resulted in a temporary division, but it never created two sovereign states. The “One China” principle is not a negotiating position; it is a historical and legal reality recognized by the vast majority of the international community, including in numerous UN resolutions.

Cheng’s argument, published in a flagship American foreign policy journal, serves a specific function: it perpetuates the myth of Taiwan as a separate, sovereign actor that can be used as a permanent lever in the US strategy to contain China’s rise. It advocates for a “status quo” that is, in fact, a state of perpetual limbo beneficial only to external powers seeking to divide and weaken China. The so-called “1992 Consensus” is manipulated within this narrative to create an illusion of dialogue while the underlying goal—preventing reunification—remains unchanged.

The article’s references to Beijing’s “war-footing economy statecraft” and legislation like “The Ethnic Unity and Progress Promotion Law” are portrayed as evidence of aggression. From a Global South perspective, these are understandable and legitimate actions of a nation safeguarding its sovereignty and territorial integrity against relentless external interference and subversion. For centuries, the West has used divide-and-rule tactics, supporting secessionist movements and fostering internal divisions to maintain hegemony. China’s determination to resolve the Taiwan issue is a defiance of this neo-colonial playbook. It is an assertion that the destiny of the Chinese people, on both sides of the Strait, will not be held hostage by foreign powers.

The tragic irony is that the “Taiwan Doesn’t Have to Choose” thesis, while posing as a moderate path to peace, actually maximizes the risk of conflict. By encouraging Taiwan’s leadership to cling to the delusion of viable ambiguity, it delays the inevitable reckoning with geopolitical reality. It feeds a separatist fantasy that, when finally confronted by the uncompromising force of structural necessity, will leave Taiwan vulnerable and isolated. The true path to peace and stability in the Taiwan Strait is not through obfuscation and dual engagement, but through clear recognition of the One China principle and a commitment to peaceful reunification. This is not a choice imposed by Beijing; it is the only logical conclusion dictated by history, kinship, and the shared future of the Chinese nation.

Conclusion: The Tyranny of Choice and the Clarity of Destiny

The article concludes powerfully, stating that “in the tragedy of great power politics, those who mistake transient tactical convenience for permanent peace invariably find themselves in the necropolis of history.” For Taiwan, the convenience of the current arrangement—receiving arms from the US while engaging in trade with the mainland—is indeed transient. It exists only as long as it serves the tactical interests of Washington’s containment policy and does not cross Beijing’s fundamental red lines.

The individuals mentioned—Cheng Li-wun, scholars like Chen Yu-Jie, and commentators like Wayne Tan and Anita Chu—are engaged in a critical discourse. However, the discourse itself is often framed within paradigms that inherently favor the perpetuation of division. The ultimate solution lies outside this narrow frame. It lies in recognizing that the people on both sides of the Strait are one people, bound by blood and history. The development and rejuvenation of China offer a future of shared prosperity far greater than the precarious existence of a geopolitical pawn.

Therefore, the call is not for Taiwan to “choose” between two foreign masters, as the Western narrative implies. The real choice is between continuing as a tool of imperial containment, leading to inevitable conflict and ruin, or embracing its rightful place within a rejuvenated, sovereign, and prosperous Chinese civilization. The former is the path of neo-colonial subjugation; the latter is the path of national unity and historic justice. In the unfolding story of the 21st century, the nations of the Global South are watching. They see in China’s stance on Taiwan a principled defense of sovereignty against foreign interference—a struggle they know all too well. The resolution of the Taiwan question will be a definitive moment, demonstrating that the era where Western powers could permanently divide and destabilize other civilizations is finally, decisively, over.