By Rene Chang, 10th grade.

Taiwan, officially the Republic of China, is a country in East Asia. The main island of Taiwan, also known as Formosa, lies between the East and South China Seas in the northwestern Pacific Ocean. Since the 1950s, Taiwan and China have been conflicted about whether Taiwan is a separate country from China. This controversy is also known all over the world, most specifically in the United States for several reasons. 

Currently, Taiwanese companies manufacture nearly 70 percent of the world’s semiconductors and around 90 percent of the most advanced chips. As a result, according to CRC Reports, Taiwan was the seventh-largest U.S. merchandise trading partner in 2023, a key link in U.S. global semiconductor and technology supply chains, and the global center for the production of advanced chips. Furthermore, because of the partnership with Taiwan, the TRA requires the United States to have a policy “to provide Taiwan with arms of a defensive character” and “to maintain the capacity of the United States to resist any resort to force or other forms of coercion that would jeopardize the security, or the social or economic system, of the people on Taiwan”. Since they renounced their protection for Taiwan during the Biden administration, Reuters states, U.S. President Joe Biden said U.S forces would defend Taiwan in the event of a Chinese invasion, his most explicit statement on the issue, drawing an angry response from China that said it sent the wrong signal to those seeking an independent Taiwan.

Due to this, China was “strongly dissatisfied and resolutely opposed” to Biden’s comments and lodged a formal complaint, warning that it reserves the right to take all necessary measures to counter separatism. 

Taiwan’s foreign ministry expressed its thanks to Biden for his reaffirming of the “U.S. government’s rock-solid security commitment to Taiwan”. Taiwan will continue to strengthen its self-defense capabilities and deepen the close security partnership between Taiwan and the United States, the Taiwan ministry said in a statement.

Studies also state that the Taiwan Relations Act of April 1979 required the United States to continue selling defensive arms to Taiwan; PRC officials saw this law as a direct challenge to the normalization agreement finalized a few months earlier.

In December 2024, the Chinese People’s Liberation Army quietly carried out a sweeping military operation in the Western Pacific and around Taiwan—its largest naval deployment since the 1996 Taiwan Strait Crisis. This show of force simulated the interdiction of hostile ships seeking to break a Taiwan blockade. The PLA Navy warships and aircraft simulated attacking foreign ships while the coast guard practiced intercepting commercial vessels and blocking Taiwan’s maritime trade routes. This massive show of force highlights the PLA’s capability to project power eastward into the First Island Chain and was meant as a strong message to the incoming U.S. administration.

Sources:

Taiwan: Background and U.S. Relations. (2024, December 12). Congress.gov. Retrieved March 11, 2025, from https://www.congress.gov/crs-product/IF10275#:~:text=Taiwan%20was%20the%20seventh%2Dlargest,the%20production%20of%20advanced%20chips.

Brunnstrom, D., & Hunnicutt, T. (2022, September 19). Biden says U.S. forces would defend Taiwan in the event of a Chinese invasion. Reuters. Retrieved March 11, 2025, from https://www.reuters.com/world/biden-says-us-forces-would-defend-taiwan-event-chinese-invasion-2022-09-18/

Milestones in the history of U.S. Foreign Relations – Office of the Historian. (n.d.). https://history.state.gov/milestones/1981-1988/china-communique#:~:text=Making%20matters%20more%20contentious%2C%20the,finalized%20a%20few%20months%20earlier.