The ‘Clash of Nationalisms’ in the Contentious USA–Taiwan–China Relations

Why is it that cross-strait tension has been at its highest since the missile crisis of 1996? Why is the USA–Taiwan–China relations so contentious since 2016? This article argues that one oft-neglected factor—nationalism and identity politics—needs to be considered as a contributing factor to the heightened tension in this triangular relationship. In all three states, audience costs have significantly increased as domestic leaders and elites appeal to populist and nationalistic positions and rhetoric. Though studies of foreign policy often claim that ‘politics stop at the water’s edge,’ populist and nationalist rhetoric in the domestic politics almost always spill over to the international arena. The convergence of Trump’s America First and the US’ obsession with its global primacy underpins and drives America’s approach to its strategic competition with China. China’s continual reference to the hundred years of humiliation in the nineteenth century and early twentieth century and Xi Jinping’s ‘China Dream’ are ethnonationalist appeals that drives China’s fight for its ‘rightful place’ in the global pecking order. Taiwan’s deepening national identity and sociopolitical de-Sinicisation while contributing the development of a separate nation-state is a direct clash to the People’s Republic of China (PRC’s) claim of Taiwan as part of its one-China principle. This article will trace and examine the role of domestic nationalism and how it has contributed to make the Taiwan Straits a ‘hotspot’ in global geopolitics and geoeconomics.