China-Taiwan-United States Relations
Article: https://www.nytimes.com/2022/09/06/technology/china-apple-iphone.html
With the highly anticipated release of the iPhone 14 right around the corner, there are more eyes on Apple now, more than ever. Although this high tech company claims to be a worldly competitor, the company’s recent decisions have shown it moving further and further away from China. With tensions rising between China and Taiwan, the American based company has made an effort to return to the nationalistic spirit, and diminish concerns in Washington abouot China’s ascent as a techonlogy competitor. However, despite the wishes of Apple and political leaders in Washington, the move away from Chinese intelligence and production is serving to be harder than expected.
The notion of structural balance can help shed light on how these rising tensions will have international repercussions. The United States claims to have a neutral relationship with both of these countries, but neutrality is next to impossible when considering foreign relations. Given the relationships between the United States, China and Taiwan are applicable to the Structural Balance Property rules, either all relations between China, Taiwan, and the United States must be positive, or there must be only one positive relationship in order to maintain structural balance. However this notion is much easier to theorize than its application. Having all positive relations between these countries is next to impossible. As the United states must remain friendly with both, but tensions between Taiwan and China over the countries independence continue to simmer. However, there is the option for there to be two negative relationships and a positive relationship between these three countries. China and Taiwan presumably already have a negative relationship. Which leaves the United States with two options, form a negative relationship with China, or with Taiwan. Switching to a negative relationship with either of these two countries would not only be devastating politically, but the United States has become so intertwined with both of these countries that it is next to impossible to cut off all/any forms of trade and goodwill. Therefore, as the current moment remains, these three countries rest in an unbalanced structure.