The last month has been a succinct demonstration that the US policy toward Taiwan is in shambles. We have seen the Department of Defense confirm that starting next year US military attaches will be posted at the American Institute in Taiwan. It is also a matter of perhaps not so common knowledge that relations between the US military establishment and its Taiwanese counterpart are the best they have been for 20 years -- so far so good.
Compare this to the State Department's behavior: "O what a falling off was there," to quote Hamlet. November saw US Secretary of State Colin Powell, that sorry wreck of a once principled man, trying to buy China's help over the North Korean nuclear program by denigrating Taiwan's status, in absolute contradiction of both international law and 30 years of US policy. Then there was the furor over Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage's statements.
Taiwan has whipped itself into a frenzy over the perfectly obvious, while the real viciousness of Armitage's statement has been ignored. Alarmingly, when prompted to name a "landmine" in US-China relations, Armitage named Taiwan. Yet isn't this obvious? China wants Taiwan, the US doesn't want China to have Taiwan. Taiwan is therefore a source of conflict between the two -- and this has nothing to do with anything Taiwan does.
Some find it appalling to learn that the US is not committed under the Taiwan Relations Act to defend Taiwan in the event of an attack. Since the TRA was passed in 1978, one would think that Taiwan's punditry and politicians would have got around to reading it over the last 26 years. But nobody ever bothers, and as a result the TRA has become like the Magna Carta -- notable for what people think it's about, rather than what it actually says.
Armitage's remarks concerning US intervention in case of China's attack being decided by Congress were a sleight of hand. Actually, it is up to the president under the War Powers Act, and Congressional approval only comes two to three months down the line. On the other hand, Congress has always been far more supportive of Taiwan than the White House.
If there was a time Taiwan should have raised its voice over Armitage's remarks, it was over his highly offensive "We all agree that there is but one China, and Taiwan is part of China." Who is this "we?" The US has never agreed that there was only one China. At best it has said that since the two sides of the Strait agreed there was only one China it would not challenge that position. After breaking relations with Taiwan, it "recognized" Beijing as the sole government of China but only "acknowledged" that Beijing claimed Taiwan. Acknowledgement does not mean approval or agreement. It is simply a statement that one understands the other side's position, not that one supports it.
Challenging Armitage on the "we" was the first thing TECRO should have done after the PBS broadcast -- otherwise what do we have diplomats for? Amazingly, this has still gone uncommented on in Taiwan.
Armitage's remarks could only be understood as saying everyone agrees that Taiwan is part of the People's Republic of China. This is of course untrue; also in no way does it reflect US government policy. Here Taiwan should have kicked up a stink, but the amateurishness of its political class is such that it doesn't even realize the difference between speaking the truth and real harm to its interests.
Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) caucus whip Fu Kun-chi (傅?萁) has caused havoc with his attempts to overturn the democratic and constitutional order in the legislature. If we look at this devolution from the context of a transition to democracy from authoritarianism in a culturally Chinese sense — that of zhonghua (中華) — then we are playing witness to a servile spirit from a millennia-old form of totalitarianism that is intent on damaging the nation’s hard-won democracy. This servile spirit is ingrained in Chinese culture. About a century ago, Chinese satirist and author Lu Xun (魯迅) saw through the servile nature of
In their New York Times bestseller How Democracies Die, Harvard political scientists Steven Levitsky and Daniel Ziblatt said that democracies today “may die at the hands not of generals but of elected leaders. Many government efforts to subvert democracy are ‘legal,’ in the sense that they are approved by the legislature or accepted by the courts. They may even be portrayed as efforts to improve democracy — making the judiciary more efficient, combating corruption, or cleaning up the electoral process.” Moreover, the two authors observe that those who denounce such legal threats to democracy are often “dismissed as exaggerating or
Monday was the 37th anniversary of former president Chiang Ching-kuo’s (蔣經國) death. Chiang — a son of former president Chiang Kai-shek (蔣介石), who had implemented party-state rule and martial law in Taiwan — has a complicated legacy. Whether one looks at his time in power in a positive or negative light depends very much on who they are, and what their relationship with the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) is. Although toward the end of his life Chiang Ching-kuo lifted martial law and steered Taiwan onto the path of democratization, these changes were forced upon him by internal and external pressures,
The Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) caucus in the Legislative Yuan has made an internal decision to freeze NT$1.8 billion (US$54.7 million) of the indigenous submarine project’s NT$2 billion budget. This means that up to 90 percent of the budget cannot be utilized. It would only be accessible if the legislature agrees to lift the freeze sometime in the future. However, for Taiwan to construct its own submarines, it must rely on foreign support for several key pieces of equipment and technology. These foreign supporters would also be forced to endure significant pressure, infiltration and influence from Beijing. In other words,
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