The US position on Taiwan is absurd. And it's probably essential

America doesn’t recognize Taiwan, but is sworn to defend it against the world’s most populous country. That's odd, but so is life.

Sunset over Tapei (Thomas Tucker via Unsplash)

The list of America’s international buffooneries is rich and diverse, from George W. Bush’s failure to find weapons of mass destruction in Iraq to Donald Trump’s adoration of Vladimir Putin and flirtations with Kim Jong Un. But for sheer absurdity that endures for decades, it is tough to top Taiwan.

America’s policy toward the island (actually an archipelago) is again in the news this week because of a visit by its president, Tsai Ing-Wen, who was in the United States last week enroute to Central America and is returning this week on the way home in two of history’s most circuitous “transits.”

The visits are being officially thus described in order to avoid calling them visits – since  the United States doesn’t have diplomatic relations with Taiwan, known as the Republic of China. It recognizes instead the concept of “One China,” which seems to suggest a conviction that Beijing should rule what it views as its breakaway province. Except that no such conviction exists – certainly not while the “People’s Republic of China” remains a communist dictatorship.