Taiwan’s peaceful transfer of political power offers further evidence that the regime in Beijing is wrong when it suggests democracy is not possible in China.
Taiwan remains an embarrassment to Beijing’s aging leadership who condescendingly assert that market-based democratic traditions are inconsistent with Chinese culture. In the blogosphere Chinese are increasingly asking: “If Taiwan can democratically elect a president, why can’t we?”
Beijing is undergoing an increasingly uneasy leadership change, where not one member of the Chinese power structure is directly elected by the people. A corrupt Chinese Communist Party (CCP) looks increasingly entitled, repressive and cut-off from the Chinese people.
US policymakers need to understand Taiwan’s political and social significance to China’s transition now underway. Failure to do so only serves to re-enforce attitudes among ultra-nationalists in Beijing who would gladly snuff out Taipei’s experiment in freedom. Based on their statements, a growing number of People’s Liberation Army (PLA) hardliners seem to feel that former Chinese chairman Mao Zedong’s (毛澤東) famous statement to then-US secretary of state Henry Kissinger four decades ago, that: “We can wait 100 years for Taiwan,” is now outdated.
Rather than engage Taiwan as a partner, whose political and social history offers a useful roadmap to greater democracy at home, Beijing sees Taiwan’s emerging democracy as a threat. Since the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, the PLA has pivoted much of its military assets away from China’s northern border and to its east coast instead. We know from experts’ analysis of PLA military planning that a large part of the US$100 billion in annual military expenditures now undertaken is directed at Taiwan-related contingencies.
The loss of Taiwan to Chinese domination would have far-reaching repercussions. From Seoul in the north to Canberra in the south, such a policy retreat would likely raise questions among our Asia-Pacific allies about the US’ Pacific staying power. Some of our old friends might even decide that the time has come to cut their losses and seek an accommodation with Beijing before it is too late.
With control of Taiwan, Beijing would be able to dictate terms of engagement with both Tokyo and Seoul. The PLA Navy would dominate the crucial sea lanes around Taiwan and its seizure would also break the current freedom of navigation in the first island chain off the Asian coast, allowing Beijing to pursue its strategy of denying access to the US Navy.
As China’s air and sea power rapidly expands, it is key that the US approve Taiwan’s request for next generation F-16 jets to replace an aging fleet provided at the end of the Cold War. Taiwan also needs diesel submarines to counter Beijing’s rapidly expanding submarine fleet.
Leaving Taiwan exposed to Beijing’s incessant bullying and potential aggression is not the answer. Inaction on provision of defensive weapons as mandated by the US Congress in the Taiwan Relations Act (TRA) is a prescription for disaster. I have put forward legislation, known as the Taiwan Policy Act, to enhance the TRA and to strengthen our ties with Taiwan.
Beijing seeks to marginalize US strategic and commercial interests in the world’s most economically vibrant region. Any success would have a direct impact on lives of US citizens. Without access to Asian markets, the US economy would decline.
If the 21st century is the “Asian century,” then a democratic Taiwan free of mainland domination remains a lynchpin for curtailing Chinese hegemony over the Asian continent. Thus, the US must stand by Taiwan to ensure our shared strategic and economic interests are protected.
US Representative Ileana Ros-Lehtinen chairs the US House of Representatives’ Foreign Affairs Committee.
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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