Despite some academics from renowned US think tanks, such as the American Enterprise Institute and the Center for Strategic and International Studies, as well as a minority of members from the US Senate, House of Representatives and Congress, openly expressing their support for the East China Sea peace initiative proposed by President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九), this does not mean the government of US President Barack Obama will support the Ma administration’s policy ideas when it comes to the disputed Diaoyutai Islands (釣魚台), known as the Senkaku Islands in Japan.
The reason for this is that Taiwan hopes the US can play a neutral role in the Diaoyutais issue and that China, Japan and itself can negotiate on the issue while also sharing resources from the islands.
However, this is not in line with security policies that the US has for the Asia-Pacific region or its strategic military deployment in the area.
Such a scenario could give China and Taiwan the chance to join forces and resist Japan.
This could also give Chinese military forces the opportunity to break what military strategists refer to as the “first island chain,” which would threaten US interests in the Asia-Pacific region.
Comments made by former deputy assistant secretary of state Randall Schriver during a meeting on US-Taiwan relations on Feb. 8 in Washington by the Heritage Foundation highlight this view.
Schriver said that although the US does not have a particular position when it comes to who the Diaoyutais belong to, it is not neutral when it comes to the issue because the Treaty of Mutual Cooperation and Security between the US and Japan states that the islands belong to Japan.
The US does not want to see these islands fall into the hands of China, and without Japan there is also no way the US could carry out its duty to protect Taiwan as stipulated in the Taiwan Relations Act.
The East China Sea peace initiative that Ma proposed on Sept. 9 last year, and his hope that the US can keep a neutral stance on the Diaoyutais issue, is wishful thinking on his part and these ideas are not in line with US strategic interests in the Asia-Pacific.
This is also evident from the way disputes over the sovereignty of the Diaoyutais have been heating up over the past six months, with China and Japan at loggerheads with each other and a high possibility of war.
This can further be seen as the US has not come out in any official way or used the East China Sea peace initiative as a means to solve the disputes over the Diaoyutais. It has instead chosen to keep a hard stance about Japan having jurisdiction over these islands.
Yao Chung-yuan is a strategy consultant at the Association for Managing Defense and Strategies.
Translated by Drew Cameron
Concerns that the US might abandon Taiwan are often overstated. While US President Donald Trump’s handling of Ukraine raised unease in Taiwan, it is crucial to recognize that Taiwan is not Ukraine. Under Trump, the US views Ukraine largely as a European problem, whereas the Indo-Pacific region remains its primary geopolitical focus. Taipei holds immense strategic value for Washington and is unlikely to be treated as a bargaining chip in US-China relations. Trump’s vision of “making America great again” would be directly undermined by any move to abandon Taiwan. Despite the rhetoric of “America First,” the Trump administration understands the necessity of
US President Donald Trump’s challenge to domestic American economic-political priorities, and abroad to the global balance of power, are not a threat to the security of Taiwan. Trump’s success can go far to contain the real threat — the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) surge to hegemony — while offering expanded defensive opportunities for Taiwan. In a stunning affirmation of the CCP policy of “forceful reunification,” an obscene euphemism for the invasion of Taiwan and the destruction of its democracy, on March 13, 2024, the People’s Liberation Army’s (PLA) used Chinese social media platforms to show the first-time linkage of three new
If you had a vision of the future where China did not dominate the global car industry, you can kiss those dreams goodbye. That is because US President Donald Trump’s promised 25 percent tariff on auto imports takes an ax to the only bits of the emerging electric vehicle (EV) supply chain that are not already dominated by Beijing. The biggest losers when the levies take effect this week would be Japan and South Korea. They account for one-third of the cars imported into the US, and as much as two-thirds of those imported from outside North America. (Mexico and Canada, while
I have heard people equate the government’s stance on resisting forced unification with China or the conditional reinstatement of the military court system with the rise of the Nazis before World War II. The comparison is absurd. There is no meaningful parallel between the government and Nazi Germany, nor does such a mindset exist within the general public in Taiwan. It is important to remember that the German public bore some responsibility for the horrors of the Holocaust. Post-World War II Germany’s transitional justice efforts were rooted in a national reckoning and introspection. Many Jews were sent to concentration camps not
RSS