Recently, President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) mentioned in an interview with CNN that Taiwan would not ask the US to go to war on its behalf. On the surface, this shows a recognition of Washington’s difficulties and a promise not to make excessive demands of the US. If we dig a little deeper, though, other issues start to become clear.
If we take a close look at the government’s handling of national security and cross-strait policies, we cannot exclude the possibility that it is actually offering “political gains” to Chinese President Hu Jintao (胡錦濤), a strategic move to secure the signing of an economic cooperation framework agreement (ECFA) between Taiwan and China by the end of next month.
Ma mentioned US intervention in any possible conflict twice during the interview. The first time, he said that Taiwan did “not ask the US to get involved”; the second time, he said that we would “never ask Americans to fight for Taiwan,” adding that this is something that is “very, very clear” to further highlight his statement, as if Taiwan well understood the difficulties of the US.
However, if China really were to attack Taiwan, the US is unlikely to make a unilateral decision to get involved unless Taiwan were to request that it do so. When Ma said that Taiwan would not ask the US to fight for it, he was also hinting to the outside world that Taiwan had no intention of seeking US help even if a war were to break out in the Taiwan Strait. Taiwan-US military cooperation is based on defense against a Chinese military invasion, so his assertions have repercussions that go to the very core of this alliance.
If Taiwan were “never” to ask the US to help defend it, and Taiwan-US military cooperation under Ma’s rule is limited to arms procurements only, the outside world may well ask: Is this cooperation, above and beyond arms deals, still necessary? Should the software and hardware integration stop? Should the government stop inviting US experts to participate in future Hankuang (漢光) military exercises? Should the US Pacific Command scrap its operation scenarios for a war in the Strait?
All these are based on the premise of US intervention, but Ma said he would never seek US help.
Since Ma took office in 2008, he has lowered the budget allotted to the Navy and Air Force, turned the annual Hankuang drill into a biennial drill and changed its strategic mission from defense against China to disaster relief or other unconventional threats.
Obviously, his recent statements have also weakened Taiwan’s defense capacity against China. From Hu’s claim that unification is a cross-strait issue that brooks no foreign interference, I strongly suspect that Ma made the statement on security and political affairs to show his sincerity to China, hoping that Beijing will cooperate with him and sign the ECFA, as hoped, next month.
This is just like his statement describing the Taiwan Strait as “one China, two areas” in August 2008 to make way for the visit of China’s Association for Relations Across the Taiwan Strait Chairman Chen Yunlin (陳雲林), and his proposal of “one China, respective interpretation on the premise of the one China principle” in October last year in exchange for Beijing’s cooperation on an ECFA.
Looked at in this light, we can see that the government’s push to sign an ECFA is not only a great risk to Taiwan’s economy, it may also alter the status quo in the Taiwan Strait.
Lai I-chung is an executive committee member of the Taiwan Thinktank.
TRANSLATED BY EDDY CHANG
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