On March 13, 2025, James Lee was the featured speaker at the event ‘International History and the Status of Taiwan’, organized by the Taiwan Studies Center at Sapienza University of Rome.
James Lee is a Senior Non-Resident Associate Fellow at the NATO Defense College and Assistant Research Professor at the Institute of European and American Studies at Academia Sinica in Taiwan. He also holds research affiliations with the University of California Institute on Global Conflict and Cooperation (IGCC) and Canada’s Network for Strategic Analysis. His research is at the intersection of political science and diplomatic history, with a focus on U.S. strategy in East Asia and Western Europe.
In his presentation, and in the following interview, he explores shifts in public opinion in Taiwan regarding the status quo, the sustainability of the current balance amid growing tensions between the U.S., China and Russia, and the joint role of Washington and London in handling the Taiwan issue.
The views in this interview are his own and not necessarily those of NATO or the NATO Defense College.
On Status Quo
In your research, have you observed any shifts in Taiwanese public opinion regarding the status quo? Specifically, is there a move toward acceptance of the status quo or toward calls for a decisive break, such as formal independence?
We haven’t observed any major shifts in Taiwanese public opinion regarding the status quo. My research group in Taiwan administers an annual survey called ‘American Portrait’ that polls Taiwanese respondents on how they view U.S.-Taiwan-China relations. The survey includes a question on how respondents view the status quo; we’ve found that the percentage indicating that Taiwan and China are not part of the same country has been around 80%, though it fluctuates by a couple of percentage points from year to year (it was 80.6% in 2024). We also ask respondents about their preferences on the independence/unification issue, and across multiple waves of the survey, we’ve found that most respondents favor maintaining the status quo in some form. For example, in 2024, our survey found that 7% indicated ‘maintain the status quo now, pursue unification later’; 25.4% indicated ‘maintain the status quo now, decided later on unification or independence’; 33.2% indicated ‘maintain the status quo indefinitely’; and 27.4% indicated ‘maintain the status quo now, pursue independence later’. I interpret these results to mean that most Taiwanese want to maintain the status quo, but most Taiwanese also interpret the status quo to mean that Taiwan is not part of China.
In light of recent geopolitical developments involving the U.S., Russia, and China, do you think American policy on the status quo is under pressure to become clearer or to change altogether?
I think there will be some rhetorical changes in how the United States expresses its views on the status quo, which may involve clarification of its position that Taiwan’s status is undetermined, but I doubt the United States will change its position entirely. For example, the U.S. State Department recently revised its fact sheet on relations with Taiwan to remove the reference to not supporting Taiwan’s independence, but it kept the statement expressing opposition to unilateral changes to the status quo by either side. I see this as a rhetorical change because it doesn’t mean that the United States now supports Taiwan’s independence (which would be a substantive change); rather, it means that the United States is no longer putting such a strong emphasis on its assurances to China, and differences of tone and emphasis are largely issues of rhetoric.
In your opinion, how sustainable is the current status quo, given that each party interprets it so differently, without increasing the risk of conflict? How could the idea of status quo be redefined to reduce ambiguity and foster broader international consensus?
I think the status quo is sustainable as long as all sides understand that they interpret the meaning of the status quo differently and that this diversity of interpretation is what has served as the foundation of peace and stability in the Taiwan Strait since 1949. In recent years, Beijing has been trying to advance its interpretation of the status quo (the ‘One-China principle’) and denying the legitimacy of the other interpretations, and I see these actions from the PRC as highly destabilizing.
On UK-US and Taiwan Relations
How do you assess US-UK coordination regarding Taiwan, particularly in light of the declassified diplomatic discussions revealed from 1972? Is there a shared strategy today, or are their approaches diverging?
The U.S. and the U.K. maintain the same position that the sovereignty of Taiwan is undetermined, and archival records show that they were in regular communication when they were pursuing rapprochement (in the case of the United States) and normalization (in the case of the United Kingdom) of relations with Beijing in 1972. Even though the British Foreign Secretary in 1972 described Taiwan as ‘China’s internal affair’, this only meant that the determination of Taiwan’s status required the agreement of both sides of the Strait and did not mean that the U.K. recognized Taiwan as part of China. From a legal perspective, that means that they are both able to support Taiwan as they see necessary without violating China’s sovereignty. The U.S. and the U.K. maintain a broadly shared strategy today, even though the United States is a more prominent actor in the security of Taiwan, because there’s growing recognition that any conflict in the Taiwan Strait would have wide-ranging ramifications for international security and the global economy.
In your view, have the linguistic and translational differences between U.S. and UK official statements had a concrete impact on the international perception of Taiwan’s status?
I don’t think these differences have had a major impact on the two countries’ policies toward Taiwan, as bothWashington and London have been supportive of Taiwan’s meaningful participation in international organizations and critical of Beijing’s attempts to use UNGA 2758 to constrain Taiwan’s diplomatic space. I think the linguistic and translational differences matter in terms of the public understanding of whether or not these efforts to support Taiwan are consistent with existing policy and hence the status quo. The U.K. position is the most difficult to decipher just based on the communique. Some scholars (such as Gray Sergeant at the Council on Geostrategy) have correctly characterized the U.K. position as considering Taiwan’s status to be undetermined; but there is a lot of seemingly contradictory evidence (such as that 1972 reference to Taiwan as ‘China’s internal affair’) that points in the other direction. It gets so confusing that a 2022 research briefing from the House of Commons still links to a 2006 report by the Foreign Affairs Committee in the House of Commons that mistakenly says, ‘The United Kingdom accepts the PRC’s One China principle’ (p. 57), apparently because the authors of the report didn’t know how to parse the language of a statement issued by the U.K. Foreign and Commonwealth Office. I’ve found that in order to reconcile the seemingly contradictory evidence, it’s critical to consult the records at the U.K. National Archives, which clearly show that the United Kingdomdid not accept Beijing’s ‘One-China principle’ in 1972 and never changed its position that Taiwan’s sovereignty was undetermined.
