The US, China and Taiwan all knew that the arms package was in the pipeline, that both supplier and recipient had, as a practical matter, given the deal their political consent and that it excluded the most sensitive capabilities (submarines and advanced F-16’s) originally mooted. Yet this very old news was instantly transformed into a political firestorm when the Obama administration notified the Congress of its intent to proceed with the deal on 29 January 2010.

China seeks the freedom to require Taiwan to think about its future as a simple choice between the status quo – de facto independence, but as completely devoid of the trappings of statehood and as isolated from the rest of the world as Beijing can make possible – or voluntary reunification with the mainland. Beijing would prefer to see the coercive capacity of its military power become a more important and continuous element in shaping Taiwanese attitudes toward independence and re-unification. US arms sales to Taiwan are seen, quite naturally, as an insulting defiance of the position that Beijing wants to put Taiwan in and feels entitled to put it in. Lurking in the background, of course, are the military and strategic ramifications of Taiwan remaining outside China’s defence perimeter.

Washington, though somewhat battered and bruised at the present moment, is equally at a point where any conspicuous concession to Beijing would be likely to have disproportionate political consequences. Barak Obama is under pressure from conservatives in the US and in some allied circles, to acknowledge that reaching out to China, Russia, the Muslim world, Iran and the DPRK has by and large not delivered commensurate returns and that some ‘push back’ by the United States has become urgent.  It should be borne in mind that the US position on Taiwan – a preference (shading into a requirement?) that the issue be resolved peacefully is (at this stage of the post-Cold War era) a particularly prominent symbol of the obligations and responsibilities that it assumed when its relative power was at its height, and of its image as the world’s pre-eminent state. The fact that it is defending a ‘decent’ position on Taiwan helps a lot too. Any perception of bowing to Chinese pressure over Taiwan would echo strongly and unpredictably into US relations with allies, friends and adversaries and so will be resisted strenuously

This is not a good place for either power to be in. Taiwan is an issue that touches the deeper roots of the mounting psychological struggle between Washington and Beijing on power, influence and leadership. Taiwan is dangerous ground because both great powers are prone to bring these deeper instincts to bear and, perhaps, to discount more practical, hard-headed assessments of gains versus costs.

It is worth recalling some history. Washington was unsettled by the communist victory in China’s civil war in 1949. But Washington did not question China’s sovereignty over Taiwan (or Tibet and Xinjiang for that matter). Declassified records indicate that the US assessed and accepted that China would move quickly against the residual Nationalist forces that had fled to Taiwan. In the event, China elected to first endorse (together with the Soviet Union) Kim Il Sung’s plans to invade South Korea and bring the entire Korean peninsula under communist control. That venture instantly generated a resolve in Washington to fully embrace the concept of containing the Soviet bloc in a Cold War of indefinite duration and to resisting communist gains through force of arms wherever this was attempted. The US both assembled a coalition to defend South Korea and took the first step toward a security commitment to Taiwan by deploying the US navy to the Taiwan Straits. As we know, the North Korean invasion came within a whisker of success, but when it foundered in September/October 1950, China and the US stumbled into war which, among other things, cemented the US and Taiwan onto the path of an enduring relationship.

China has miscued over Taiwan in the past. The concern now has to be that China again perceives that events and developments – both China’s own gains and the mistakes or misfortunes of others – have conspired to provide China with an opportunity to capitalise on the surge in its global status. Has Beijing come to some judgement about Obama’s backbone, that he is more likely than Bush to yield to pressure? Is Beijing still tempted, periodically, to road-test its escalating ‘comprehensive national power’ and see what it delivers in practice? Whatever might be the case, Beijing has clearly chosen to elevate this development into an incipient crisis.

Although the politics of this triangle has exquisite complexities, Washington must never forget that it is helping to keep Taiwan in an anomalous position and that this assistance is, first and foremost, an affront to China. Equally, Beijing must never forget that this situation came about in significant part as a result of deliberate choices that China made, and that America’s stake in the situation is every bit as large as China’s.