A Chat in Taipei with U.S. Representative Ami Bera

On Saturday China announced that it was preparing three days of military exercises around Taiwan following Taiwan president Tsai Ing-wen’s (蔡英文 Cài Yīngwén) meeting with U.S. House Speaker Kevin McCarthy.

The announcement came as a bipartisan House delegation led by Foreign Affairs Committee chair Michael McCaul was wrapping up with a three-day visit to Taipei. The delegation met with Taiwanese legislators from both main parties as well as business and tech leaders, with a Saturday afternoon meeting scheduled with Tsai.

Representative Ami Bera (D, California) is the ranking Democrat on both the Taiwan delegation and the House’s Indo-Pacific subcommittee that oversees Taiwan and cross-strait matters. Bera sat down Saturday morning in Taipei with The China Project to discuss how things have gone for the delegation, which he said was not caught off-guard by Beijing’s announcement.

“We expected that they would do something, I think it’s par for the course” Bera said.

The maintaining of the cross-strait status quo, in which Taiwan is effectively an independent country, has underpinned peace and stability in the region for decades, he said, adding that China has been one of the biggest beneficiaries of that peace and stability.

“Why would we want to change that dynamic and change that future trajectory?” he asked. “Look at Vladimir Putin’s decision to invade Ukraine — how’s that working out for Russia? I’d say not very well.”

Bera was on his third trip to Taiwan, and first since the global COVID-19 pandemic.

“I was in Kyiv a few weeks before the Russian invasion, and there it was a little more tense, but even there, there was a sense that life was moving along,” he said. “You don’t feel a heaviness here — certainly the meetings are a little bit different than before.”

Strong bipartisan support

In a politically polarized United States, Taiwan is one of the few things that both parties find themselves in agreement on Capitol Hill. Highlighting that across-the-aisle support is important, said Bera, who is co-chair of the bipartisan Taiwan caucus, one of the largest caucuses in Congress.

“I think you’re going to see more delegations visiting Taiwan to demonstrate that within Congress there’s bipartisan support,” Bera said. “How we talk about Taiwan, the rhetoric and language the two parties use are a little different, but the values I think are pretty similar.”

The House delegation visit to Taiwan followed stops at the United States Indo-Pacific Command (INDOPACOM) in Hawaii, as well as South Korea and Japan. It was the first delegation led by McCaul, who took over as House Foreign Affairs Committee chair in January, and comes at a time when Japan and South Korea’s once-chilly ties are warming — a prospect that Bera said is positive for Taiwan.

“For mature democracies like Japan and South Korea that respect rule of law, that respect freedom of navigation, they have to have real concerns about what’s happening in the Taiwan Strait,” he said.

“I think everyone in the region wants to maintain the status quo,” he said, pausing before making a reference to China. “Well, almost everyone.”

Bera argued that it’s in China’s benefit to maintain the status quo as well, saying an invasion or even steps in that direction that fall short of a hot war would have major negative repercussions for Beijing.

Changed trajectory under Xi

Beginning in late 2016, when U.S. president-elect Donald Trump took a congratulatory phone call from Tsai, the Trump administration’s more public approach to the unofficial American relationship with Taiwan drew fire from experts and commentators in the U.S. who saw economic engagement as a tool for nudging Beijing towards becoming a more open and responsible member of the international community.

“I think 10 years ago, there was still some thought that China was headed in that direction, but that’s all been tossed out the window now,” Bera said, calling it the result of decisions by Chinese leader Xí Jìnpíng 习近平.

“Xi Jinping’s aggressiveness, changing the posture of China — what he did in the South China Sea, what he did in Hong Kong — has just accelerated this real concern about where China’s headed, and that has rekindled this real interest in Taiwan,” he said. There is now widespread recognition that Taiwan sits at the center of the conflict between autocratic states and democracies, he added, a development that was further accelerated by the invasion of Ukraine.

China’s non-transparent handling of the pandemic, which included blocking Taiwan’s participation in the World Health Assembly, has also hurt its international standing, the representative argued. A medical doctor himself, he praised Taiwan’s handling of COVID-19 and said that the country should have been allowed to participate more in the international response.

“Taiwan should be a part of the international community,” he said, “even if only with observer status.”

‘Pro-Taiwan, not anti-China’

In the House delegation’s meetings prior to visiting with Tsai on Saturday afternoon, both Taiwanese government officials and representatives from the private sector expressed a desire to harden Taiwan, with a focus on deterring Chinese adventurism, Bera said. Tsai, who will finish her second term as president in 13 months, has shown that she understands the stakes and “is treading carefully, but in a confident manner.”

Bera lamented that there have been multiple moments during this period of growing Chinese threats to Taiwan that U.S.-China communication, only to be derailed by Beijing.

“It seems like every time we make a little bit of progress, there’s some ham-handed decision that really just makes it difficult,” he said. “Like, who thought it was a good idea to fly a spy balloon over the United States?”

Bera emphasized that it is possible for the U.S. to be pro-Taiwan without being anti-China.

“I think it’s a mistake for us as American politicians to think about this as one or the other,” he said, adding that pushing countries in the region to choose between Taiwan or China was also unhelpful.

“I think the Taiwanese would agree,” he said. “They’re not looking for conflict with China, they just want to live side-by-side, in peace.”