Taiwan watchers in the US may have been surprised by media reports on Wednesday that the military has already begun deployment of its newly developed Hsiung Feng II-E cruise missile and is on the verge of starting mass production. The White House must have been aware of this well in advance.
Several conservative think tank academics in the US -- most notably at the Cato Institute -- have been highly critical of Taiwan, accusing it of over-reliance on the US and claiming it is unwilling to defend itself.
The US government, meanwhile, is eager to hold up Taiwan's democracy as an example to the world, but when Taiwan asserts the US administration's favorite buzzword by holding a referendum, Washington changes the rules, criticizes Taipei and holds back on previously agreed weapons sales.
Then, when Taiwan, in its frustration over the lack of weapons available, begins to develop means of defending itself, the US frowns upon it and takes prompt action to block any move.
Washington, it seems, wants to have its cake and eat it too.
The document that dictates US policy on Taiwan -- the Taiwan Relations Act (TRA) -- states that the US is only allowed to sell Taiwan weapons "of a defensive character." Nowhere does it give the White House the right to dictate what the Taiwanese military can or cannot do.
Of course, the TRA also stresses the need to "help maintain peace, security and stability in the Western Pacific," but calling the Taiwanese government's UN referendum campaign a threat to regional stability -- as influential US officials have done -- is grossly exaggerating matters.
Let us not forget why the nation needs the means to defend itself in the first place: the ever-present threat of invasion from its enormous and authoritarian neighbor.
Taiwan, on the other hand, poses no threat to anyone. The former ruling Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) has long given up public expressions of "retaking the mainland."
The sole reason for developing these missiles is to counter Beijing's military intimidation.
The US' decades-long policy of strategic ambiguity over the Taiwan issue means no one -- including the Taiwanese government and the US itself -- knows whether Washington would send US troops to help defend Taiwan in the event of a Chinese attack.
Meanwhile, the Bush administration's "war on terror" and the unlimited nature of such a conflict means the US military is already stretched to its limits and will remain so for the foreseeable future. While its forces remain bogged down in the Middle East, there would be little domestic appetite for US troops to get involved in another war far from its shores.
This means that if the White House continues to hold back on weapons sales, then Taiwan must forge ahead and develop and build its own -- even at the risk of upsetting its best friend.
But even the mass production of these domestic missiles is now in jeopardy, as Washington has begun to put the squeeze on the export of key engine components, while the pan-blue camp has slashed the budget for production.
Washington has said many times in the past that it wants Taiwan to be in a strong position militarily to enable it to negotiate a peaceful settlement to the cross-strait issue with China on an equal footing.
The US' recent actions, juxtaposed with the relentless pace of China's military build-up, have shown those assertions to be nothing more than lip service.
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