Illustration: Chen Xia/Global Times

The Taiwan authorities held a so-called "Ketagaland Forum" on Tuesday, and invited retired anti-China politicians from the US, Japan and other countries to hype up on the Taiwan question. At the meeting, Kelly Craft, former US ambassador to the United Nations, claimed that the fate of Taiwan is related to US national security and the US could lose the Indo-Pacific region without Taiwan. She also expected Taiwan to join Japanese naval exercise and included in the so-called Quadrilateral Security Dialogue(Quad) as a "plus one" member. She said that Taiwan and Afghanistan are completely different and the US has a firm commitment to Taiwan's "defense."

Craft's words would be music to the ears of Taiwan's separatist authorities as the island has long been seeking to join the US' Indo-Pacific Strategy. Craft's former position in the UN makes her remarks quite "representative" of Washington's current orthodoxy which can be used to build up public opinion for Taiwan's regional leader Tsai Ing-wen. Besides, Craft is good at political tricks - she showcased dried pineapple and black bear puppets, Tsai authorities' propaganda tools, during her speech. This also became the biggest "highlight" of the political theater on show during the video conference.

However, the facts are likely to disappoint Taiwan's authorities. For one thing, Craft currently has little influence over US diplomacy, not only because she used to be a member of Trump's team, but also because she was a diplomatic "outsider." She served as ambassador to Canada and the UN for just over three years combined, and was absent for most of that time, according to members of Congress. Second, Craft has a personal vendetta against China after her planned trip to the island of Taiwan in January was allegedly cancelled under pressure from the Chinese government, so she might simply want to vent her dissatisfaction using this opportunity. 

Still, Craft's performance plays into a dangerous tendency of the US to intensify support for Taiwan secessionist authorities and play the "Taiwan card" harder. US President Joe Biden not only ignored Tsai's previous support for Trump during the US presidential election, but has been even more "friendly" to Taiwan than Trump was. This shows that Taiwan, as a pawn of the US, has still retains strategic and rhetorical value. 

What is certain, however, is that the pawn will eventually be discarded, and the value of Taiwan is not so great as to exceed the value of peace and stability within US-China relations. The US cannot afford a sheer confrontation with China and will not engage in direct military conflict with China over Taiwan. The US policy makers still believe they should stick to their vagueness when it comes to their "Taiwan security commitment" (strategic ambiguity rather than strategic clarity) after more than half a year of assessment. Based on such policy, US' so-called "support" for Taiwan is only to provoke and annoy China, not for the sake of Taiwan's "security," let alone providing something Taiwan can rely on.

At the very least, even if Taiwan is included in the Quad as a "plus one" member, will US' commitment be credible? Not to mention the history of Taiwan's authority being abandoned by the US in the 1970s, but shouldn't pro-US groups in the island see what is happening now in Afghanistan as an instructive lesson to the perils of unchecked interference overseas? Although Craft stressed that Taiwan is not Afghanistan in her speech, the current consensus in the island is: "Afghanistan today, Taiwan tomorrow."

More importantly, such action by the US will definitely trigger a strong response from the Chinese government, making peace and stability in the Taiwan Straits even more uncertain. 

The Chinese mainland has intensified its preparations for a military struggle against Taiwan and conducted a number of military exercises due to some separatist activities on the island and its collusion with the US. 

PLA exercises in the southeast and southwest of the Taiwan island demonstrate that it is fully capable of safeguarding national sovereignty and territorial integrity and can block foreign interference on the Taiwan question. If Taiwan were to join the Quad, it would clearly cross the bottom line of the Taiwan question and violate China's Anti-secession Law. That way, resolving the Taiwan question by non-peaceful means would be a live option, rather than simply military exercise. 

The author is an associate research fellow of the Institute of Taiwan Studies. opinion@globaltimes.com.cn