Pundits have busied themselves in the past week trying to determine whether a decision by Taipei to renegotiate US beef imports with Washington will have implications on US security commitments to Taiwan. Already, an unexpected delay in US President Barack Obama’s weapons sale notification to Congress — which had been expected soon after Obama returned from climate talks in Copenhagen last month — had prompted speculation that Washington may be tying economic matters to political ones and retaliating for the about-face.
Not only is it too soon to tell, but 60 years of US-Taiwan ties have shown that Washington, at least in Taiwan’s case, is capable of treating economics and politics as separate matters — as they should be. Likelier explanations for the delay are the conflicting interests of the State Department, the Department of Defense and the White House, as well as Obama’s balancing act with Taipei and Beijing and efforts to avoid derailing cross-strait rapprochement.
Washington handles diplomacy in multi-track fashion in that it usually rewards and punishes within related sectors. As such, it retaliates on trade with trade, and on military matters with military matters, with little cross-pollination.
Failure by Taipei to demonstrate that it takes its own defense seriously, as opposed to freeloading on US security guarantees, would be one way to invite US retaliation on arms sales. Lack of participation in non-proliferation efforts, which were somewhat undermined last month when British intelligence linked Taiwanese private firms to the sale of sensitive equipment to Iran, would be another. US beef, however, isn’t a deal-breaker on defense issues — however strongly some US policymakers feel about the matter.
The US also expects its allies to share the security burden. Nowhere has this been clearer than in Afghanistan, where US generals have made plea after plea on NATO and non-NATO allies to do more. After nine years of counterinsurgency, not only are most Western countries threatening to pull their troops, but the country remains on the brink of collapse. Facing this, the US — which is sending substantial reinforcements this year — will likely turn to those who have yet to play a role in the war-torn country to do their part.
It comes as no surprise, therefore, that Washington would ask Taiwan to play a role in Afghanistan. Last week, a source in the Ministry of Defense told the media that the US wants Taiwan to provide medical or engineering assistance to troops there. This request is not unprecedented: During the Gulf War in 1991, Taipei offered US$300 million toward the war effort, which Washington turned down after pressure from Beijing. More recently, Taiwan has provided medical assistance in Iraq.
Afghanistan is the story of our time, as its future direction will have a direct impact on international security. No country, however isolated, will be unaffected if the US-led alliance fails to avert Afghanistan’s implosion — not even Taiwan. As a wealthy country that has profited from the US umbrella for decades and as the world’s 20th largest military by spending, Taiwan must contribute to global stability, which would not go unnoticed in Washington.
By answering the call, Taiwan would also gain precious combat experience; in Afghanistan, there is no such thing as a non-combat position. With the Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) administration cutting down on military exercises, combat experience would provide invaluable training — the type of training that could make a difference if Taiwan were attacked one day.
Taiwan must step up to the plate, otherwise it may be kicked out of the game altogether.
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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