When US President Barack Obama took office one of his first tasks was to improve the world’s battered perception of the US. Although he had his work cut out, his efforts contributed to him being awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. Comments from other quarters of late, however, have been less positive.
The Economist, for example, has said that, as time has gone on, Obama seems to have resorted more and more to bullying tactics.
The US is engaged in a series of joint military exercises with South Korea and Japan in East Asia and many have voiced concern about the implications of this for Taiwan, given its geographical location. President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) maintains that relations between Taiwan, China and the US have never been so good, but this is mere whistling in the dark to convince himself there is nothing nasty lurking out there.
Taiwan just so happens to be located, geo-politically speaking, right at the intersection of Southeast Asia and East Asia. Following the end of the Cold War, the US formed alliances with Japan and South Korea, and China with North Korea, which added to political tensions in the region. Southeast Asia, originally caught between the US and Russia, now finds itself stuck between the US and China.
This situation has led to an East-West tension extending through the US, Japan, North Korea, South Korea and China.
In the absence of a war in the region, Taiwan has remained out on the margins, away from this linear zone of tension. However, as tensions in Northeast Asia fell, Taiwan also lost much of its geopolitical significance.
In the 1990s the US relocated military operations from Europe to the Asia Pacific, reinstated arms sales to Taiwan and signed a new Guidelines for Japan-US Defense Cooperation, all of which ensured that Taiwan’s importance once again increased. There then followed a series of events that reversed this trend.
The US became mired in Iraq, the policies of former president Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁) angered the US, China started its rise to global prominence, the legislature in Taiwan rejected the military procurement budget and Ma came to office with a set of pro-China policies.
The succession of military exercises and alliances conducted and established this year by Washington on one side and Beijing on the other have caused tensions in East Asia to escalate to a level not seen since the end of the Cold War.
Widely-held assurances that such saber-rattling will come to naught do little to reassure those who have the most to lose. In addition, it is not at all obvious when these tensions might be defused.
China is rising according to plan, at least economically, signing trade pacts and integrating well into the global economy. In terms of military alliances, however, it has been left somewhat out in the cold. I do not give much credence to the suggestion that China has succeeded in re-establishing the old imperial order.
Some people believe that China has already developed considerable soft power and that the US continues to exploit its hard power, through superior military might, to intimidate East Asian nations to side with it. This is yet another point of view to which I do not subscribe.
Countries surrounding powerful nations are nowadays, almost without exception, resistant to the idea of following an agenda set by their illustrious neighbors. Many Latin-American countries conspicuously refuse to toe the US line, and several countries in the neighborhood of India — not just Pakistan, but also Iran, Burma and even Bangladesh — are more pro-China than they are pro-India. The trend seems to be that less powerful countries are reluctant to side with the dominant regional power.
The tensions in East Asia precipitated by the sinking of the Cheonan, involving nations from both the north and south, are more regional in nature than the linear relationship described above.
Looked at from a broader perspective, most countries in East Asia are experiencing a rise of their own, albeit not at quite the same speed as that of China. In other words, the phenomenon is not restricted to one country, which makes it hardly surprising that there are regional tensions. These extend down from the Sea of Okhotsk through the Sea of Japan and the Yellow Sea, all the way to the South China Sea. It really is quite something that the Taiwan Strait has been passed over and, up until now, war has yet to break out there.
In the past decade or so various theories have been expounded to explain this phenomenon and account for the decline in Taiwan’s geo-political importance after the end of the Cold War. These include the fact that modern missile technology has become so advanced that it reduces the importance of the first island chain (a line through the Kurile Islands, the Ryukyu Islands, Taiwan, the Philippines and Indonesia, demarcating a maritime zone that extends from China’s coast and forms part of Beijing’s offshore defense strategy); the policy of engagement pursued by the US in the region; the rise of China and the necessity of international cooperation on anti-terrorism work.
Regional tensions actually tend to follow the line of this first island chain. In purely geometric terms then, Taiwan is located at the point where the north-south and east-west lines of tension intersect. War has been kept at bay by various historical and political factors, but Taiwan finds itself in a precarious position in terms of the geography of the region.
In addition, the political, military and economic complexities this creates are undeniable. This also has repercussions for regional security, indirectly making Taiwan a buffer against the outbreak of war. In other words, had Taiwan conspicuously chosen one side over the other it would have significantly destabilized the delicate regional balance.
As a result, all the countries in the region have been walking on eggshells, not wanting to rock the boat, but nevertheless putting out occasional feelers to test the status quo.
The US has reinstated arms sales to Taiwan. Beijing has, for the first time, let it be known that it might consider removing the missiles it has pointed at Taiwan. However, conditions are always going to be attached to such offers, as both side try to pull Taiwan this way or that.
China says it is going to put military mutual trust on the negotiating table and then sends officials to Taiwan to discuss the idea of “one China.” Following the signing of the Economic Cooperation Framework Agreement, there is an expectation that Taiwan will dispatch an envoy to the US to explain it all.
The Taiwan Strait appears to be peaceful on the surface, but underneath there are dark currents. Whilst the situation offers both opportunities and dangers, navigating the geopolitics waters is undeniably treacherous. Unfortunately, I find myself questioning whether the government is up to the task.
Lin Cho-shui is a former Democratic Progressive Party legislator.
TRANSLATED BY PAUL COOPER
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