Abstract

A World of Turmoil is part of the Michigan State University Press series “US-China Relations in the Age of Globalization.” As Stephen J. Hartnett writes in a preface to the series, “This series . . . strives to practice what Qingwen Dong calls ‘edge ball’: Getting as close as possible to the boundary of what is sayable without crossing the line of being offensive.” At the beginning, Hartnett calls himself “a participant-observer in the reemergence of China as a global power” and, importantly, “a supporter of the ongoing successes of Taiwan” (xxvii). He addresses an interdisciplinary audience, including researchers in “communication, history, international studies, political science, globalization, and more” (li). It's clear from the content of the book that he does not expect his readers to be intimately familiar with the history of postwar U.S.-Taiwan-China relations, although readers well-versed in this history will also benefit from his communication-based perspective. Focus is on “moments of rupture and innovation” in U.S.-Taiwan-China relations because they illustrate how the disruption of communicative patterns in moments of political crisis led to new ways of communicating (xlvi). Therefore, he focuses on five “case studies” of communicative challenges: The period from the end of World War Two to 1952 (the end of the Truman administration), when Chiang Kai-shek lost the Civil War with the Communists and escaped to Taiwan, and the United States separated the Communist and Nationalist forces;The beginning of the Eisenhower administration and the first Taiwan Strait Crisis of 1954–55 (also known as the Quemoy-Matsu Crisis);Nixon's and Kissinger's visits to China and negotiations over the Shanghai Communiqué in the early 1970s;Lee Teng-hui's presidency, his visit to Cornell, the third Taiwan Strait Crisis of 1996, and the Clinton administration's “Three Noes” policy; andThe Tsai and Trump administrations of 2016–present.Hartnett analyzes the cases using rhetorics that he argues characterize the communicative dynamics of relations among the United States, China, and Taiwan: “China's rhetoric of traumatized nationalism,” in which the Chinese Communist Party (CPC) draws upon China's “century of humiliation” beginning in the nineteenth century to accuse the West of continuing to suppress China's rise as a major geopolitical power;U.S. “rhetoric of geostrategic deception,” a phrase used to describe how the United States has used misinformation and sown confusion in the pursuit of global influence;“United States’ treatment of Taiwan via the rhetoric of marginal significance” (xxix), which belittles Taiwan and treats the people as minor participants in their own future;Taiwan's “rhetoric of democracy as conversion,” which during the Lee Teng-hui period portrayed Taiwan as a model for a future democratic China; andTaiwan's “rhetoric of democratic disdain” (xxx), a more recent response to CPC pressure on Taiwan, casting the Communists as a hidebound authoritarian government that has nothing to offer the Taiwanese.Chapter one covers the Truman administration's relations with China and the Kuomintang (KMT) regime in Taiwan. The chapter focuses on the rhetorical contexts for two of Truman's speeches on U.S.-ROC relations, which Hartnett argues show how the president's policy on Taiwan changed between January and June of 1950 due not only to the Chinese involvement in the conflict on the Korean peninsula but also to McCarthy era accusations of appeasement. Hartnett argues that Truman's eventual involvement in the Taiwan-PRC conflict treated Taiwan with “the rhetoric of marginal significance” by protecting both Taiwan from attacks by the PRC and China from attacks by the Chiang regime. Still, China reacted with the “rhetoric of traumatized nationalism,” viewing U.S. involvement as yet more western imperialism.The second chapter focuses on the Eisenhower administration and the first Taiwan Strait Crisis of 1954–55. Hartnett argues that although Eisenhower entered the White House with a clear anti-communist stance, intending to release Chiang from his U.S.-imposed restrictions on attacking China, eventually the U.S. government found itself back in the role of restraining Chiang even as it moved from an unintentional “rhetoric of geostrategic deception” (unintentional because, Hartnett argues, it was more a reaction to events than a purposeful strategy) to a chillingly clear rhetoric which found the U.S. for the first time threatening nuclear strikes on China's military assets. Hartnett intriguingly proposes that the Eisenhower administration's use of “fuzzing,” which is often seen as the origin of “strategic ambiguity” and an example of Eisenhower's brilliant Cold War strategizing, was actually the result of confusion, disagreement, and lack of information about China's purposes in shelling the offshore island of Quemoy. According to Hartnett, evidence shows that Mao Zedong never intended to use the shelling of Quemoy as a precursor to invading Taiwan—in fact, Hartnett argues that Mao did not want Chiang to give up Quemoy because such a retreat would result in a “Two Chinas” or “One China, One Taiwan” scenario that was unacceptable to the Communists. However, not everyone in the Eisenhower administration agreed about Mao's intentions, which resulted in the frightening statement that the United States would consider using “tactical” atomic bombs on China (43). An eventual result of this miscommunication was that the PRC was able to get from the Soviets materials to develop its own nuclear weapons.In the third chapter, Hartnett argues that Nixon's approach to the China-Taiwan problem was more intentional than that of Truman or even Eisenhower. Hartnett contrasts the formal written product of negotiations between Nixon/Kissinger and Chou Enlai (Zhou Enlai)/Mao Zedong with the—until recently—classified conversations that the two parties had, illustrating how unwritten (or at least confidential or classified) aspects of negotiation, where there's an attempt to be ambiguous in the product, can result in the meaning or effect of the document getting away from the intentions of the authors. Nixon expected to get reelected and be in power until 1976, and what he and Kissinger said to Zhou depended on that. Pro-Taiwanese advocates reference the text of the Shanghai Communiqué to say that “acknowledg[ing] that all Chinese on either side of the Taiwan Strait maintain there is but one China and that Taiwan is a part of China” is not the same as “accepting” that position; according to Hartnett, however, this is not what Nixon and Kissinger told Zhou Enlai (71). In fact, they exercised what Hartnett calls a “rhetoric of abeyance,” tied to the “rhetoric of geostrategic deception,” to persuade the CPC of Nixon's plan to tell the American people and the government of Taiwan that the Communiqué did not signal any change in relations with China or Taiwan.Chapter four covers most of Lee Teng-hui's twelve years as the president of the Republic of China (Taiwan). As the first president to be directly elected by the people of Taiwan and as a Christian, Lee embodied the “rhetoric of democracy as conversion” in his speech and interactions with the PRC. Hartnett begins, however, with a brief discussion of the 1978 U.S. decision under President Carter to break off official relations with the Republic of China and normalize relations with the People's Republic of China. Accompanying normalization, however, was the Taiwan Relations Act (TRA), which made many of the official interactions with Taiwan unofficial and established “the non-governmental, embassy-but-not-an-embassy ‘American Institute in Taiwan’ (AIT)” (87). While losing official relations with the United States made Taiwan once again the victim of the “rhetoric of marginal significance,” the TRA also made the PRC once again the victim of “the rhetoric of geostrategic deception.”When Lee became the first Taiwanese president of Taiwan ten years later, he asserted that a democratic Taiwan was a model for what the PRC could become if it turned away from authoritarianism. Hartnett argues that Lee's approach to China also signaled to the United States that Taiwan would not accept being treated through the rhetoric of marginal significance anymore. Unfortunately, Lee's popular reelection in 1996 amidst threatening Chinese military exercises was followed by what Hartnett calls U.S. President Clinton's “slow motion betrayal of Taiwan” (109). Clinton's “Three Noes” (no support for Taiwan independence, for “Two Chinas” or “One China, One Taiwan,” or for Taiwan's participation in international organizations that require statehood) shook Taiwan. Clinton once again treated Taiwan to a dose of the rhetoric of marginal significance, while arguably capitulating to Chinese leader Jiang Zemin's “rhetoric of postcolonial colonialism,” which advanced a vision of a postcolonial China “striv[ing] for national greatness by trying to absorb [its] less powerful neighbors” (102).In the fifth chapter, Hartnett jumps ahead to the administrations of Donald Trump and Tsai Ing-wen, where Taiwan's stance toward China changed from Lee's “rhetoric of democracy as conversion” to a “rhetoric of democratic disdain,” mocking the CPC's outdated authoritarianism in response to misogynistic rhetorical attacks on Tsai. Internally, Tsai exercised what Hartnett calls a rhetoric of “postcolonial nationalism” that sought transitional justice to heal the wounds the people suffered under the previously authoritarian state (128). This rhetoric also acknowledged the need to recognize Taiwan's Indigenous people and its colonial past in order to move forward; notably, moving forward meant moving away from a Chinese identity and toward “a Taiwanese version of postcolonial cosmopolitanism” (129). Hartnett thus argues that the Tsai administration's celebration of the Republic of China's National Day (October 10) contradicted the effort to build a Taiwanese identity. This chapter also criticizes Donald Trump for sending confusing signals to Taiwan and China, characterizing him as “an anarchist setting into play words and forces meant not to sustain the status quo or build trust, but to release the unpredictable energies of creative destruction” (145).I have doubts about Hartnett's concluding recommendations for peaceful and productive relations among China, the United States, and Taiwan, including his suggestion that Taiwan should simply stop calling itself the Republic of China and change its constitution. Hartnett implies that the changes he recommends for the United States, China, and Taiwan are all interdependent: Taiwan cannot change its name and constitution without believable assurances from the CPC that it is willing to change what has basically motivated its relationship with Taiwan since 1949—the belief that Taiwan is part of China and needs to “return” to China. However, as Hartnett points out, the CPC is stuck in a stance toward Taiwan that accepts no compromise regarding Taiwan's fate. It is not clear to me what would lead the current CPC leadership to change their stance toward Taiwan.Hartnett also recommends that the United States should engage more with China as an equal partner in areas that recognize the PRC's status as a rising power. But U.S.-China relations inevitably encompass U.S.-Taiwan relations. China terminated climate talks after former Speaker Pelosi visited Taiwan, for instance. It is unclear how the United States can interact with Taiwan in a way that will not result in China exercising the rhetoric of traumatized nationalism or the rhetoric of postcolonial colonialism. That is, in the end, it seems to me that everything depends on China giving up its dream of “reunification” with Taiwan, which is rather unlikely in the foreseeable future.I also disagree with the author's criticism of Taiwan's use of the rhetorics of “democracy as conversion” and “democratic disdain.” Humor or sarcasm can be seen as a “weapon of the weak” to counter the strident rhetoric of the more powerful PRC government. While this kind of humor might anger them, Hartnett's own analysis implies that the rhetorics of traumatized nationalism and postcolonial colonialism that would drive their responses are performative.A minor aspect of A World of Turmoil that might confuse readers not familiar with the nuances of Taiwan's history and politics is the usage of “Taiwanese” to describe the martial law regimes of Chiang Kai-shek and Chiang Ching-kuo as well as the more Taiwan-centric administrations of presidents like Lee Teng-hui and Tsai Ing-wen. It is particularly surprising to see a statement that describes Chiang Ching-kuo as “arguing for Taiwanese independence” (108), rather than saying that the younger Chiang was arguing for the legitimacy of the Republic of China on Taiwan as a sovereign state. There are also some small errors, such as calling Hakka the “dominant” language in Taiwan (xxii).These issues aside, for communications scholars interested in U.S.-China-Taiwan relations, A World of Turmoil will provide an accessible discussion of the problems in international communication among the three countries. Hartnett's reading of the history of U.S.-China-Taiwan relations through the lens of the various “rhetorical dispositions” opens opportunities to rethink what has worked—and, more importantly, what has not worked—during the past nearly eight decades (163). It is also gratifying to see a major work of rhetorical history that focuses at least in part on Taiwan's rhetorical practices. Perhaps this book will serve as a basis for further study of Taiwanese rhetoric.