The recent publication of a memoir by former US negotiator Jeremy Stone re-ignited a controversy last week over alleged plans under former president Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁) to launch a nuclear weapons program.
Stone’s allegations, which ostensibly were sourced from and corroborated post facto by former National Security Council secretary-general Su Chi (蘇起) — who at the time the controversy emerged was a Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) legislator — are hard to substantiate. That the Chen administration, for all its faults, would have engaged in nuclear adventurism stretches credulity. Though it has the technical know-how to do so (and inside sources say a turnaround could take as little as one year), Taiwan could hardly have launched a nuclear weapons program without the US, let alone China, becoming aware of it.
One does not have to read Stone’s book too closely to realize that the views of the former president of the Federation of American Scientists-turned-cross-strait-troubleshooter are wildly skewed in Beijing’s favor. Nothing makes this more evident than the many variations he uses to portray the Chen administration as a “troublemaker,” which may account for Stone’s credulity on the alleged nuclear program.
Unbeknownst to Stone, this very bias against Taipei — not his alone, but that of the international community — lies at the very heart of Taiwan’s defense malaise. In fact, the inherent imbalance was the main reason behind this newspaper’s decision, in August 2004, to publish an editorial that put the nuclear option on the table (despite what Su and Stone may believe, however, the Taipei Times did not and does not have a direct line to the Presidential Office or Democratic Progressive Party headquarters).
More than six years have elapsed and the balance of power in the Taiwan Strait has only continued to shift in Beijing’s favor. Furthermore, nuclear-armed China continues to threaten Taiwan, the would-be “troublemaker” who at no point under Chen adopted anything that could have been interpreted as a belligerent posture.
Given that this situation appears to be a comfortable “status quo” for the likes of Stone, is it not conceivable that Taiwanese would ponder various means to oppose China militarily and present it with a credible deterrent? In and of themselves, peace and democracy will be of little help against an opponent who plays by different rules, as highlighted by Beijing’s refusal to renounce the use of force against Taiwan amid supposedly warming ties. While nuclear weapons may be an extreme recourse — and an unadvisable one at that — Taiwan cannot afford the gullibility that has marked the course adopted by President Ma Ying-jeou’s (馬英九) administration in cross-strait rapprochement.
While his Cabinet has rightly stuck to less problematic, though by no means inconsequential, matters like economics in its dialogue with Beijing, there is no doubt that in the months ahead — especially as we get closer to Chinese President Hu Jintao’s (胡錦濤) stepping down as head of state — talks will touch on more controversial issues such as identity and sovereignty. Once those topics are tackled, friction is bound to emerge, which could quickly escalate and spin out of control. Any outcome to the 2012 presidential poll in Taiwan that isn’t to China’s taste could also serve as a catalyst for a military option.
In such a situation, Beijing, seeing a weakened opponent, could calculate that it can get away with the use of force at little cost, making military action more likely.
That is why, even amid untested signs of rapprochement, Taiwan must continue to acquire and develop not only the means to protect itself, but solid deterrent capabilities so that any military adventurism on Beijing’s part to fulfill its irredentist dreams would come at great cost. A strong Taiwan means less risk of war, not the other way around.
Does Taiwan need nuclear weapons for this? Probably not, but it certainly needs more than naivety and Ma sloganeering, and more than the dishonest diplomacy exercised by the likes of Stone.
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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