Describing the US' "one China" policy and the term "status quo" as politically dangerous and misleading, a conservative US think tank called on Washington to adopt a more relevant policy that favors Taiwan.
In a new book released on Wednesday, the Washington-based Heritage Foundation said that times have changed since the US policy was enunciated in 1972, when then US president Richard Nixon made a historic visit to China, and in 1979, when the US switched diplomatic recognition from Taipei to Beijing.
The book -- Reshaping the Taiwan Strait -- said that US policy should be formulated based on the premise that only the Taiwanese be allowed to determine the nation's future.
Speaking at the Heritage's conference room on Wednesday, John Tkacik, the book's editor and a senior Heritage fellow, and four other contributors, demanded a change in US policy toward Taiwan.
Tkacik is a leading proponent among a small but vocal cadre of academics and former US government officials campaigning for the scrapping of the US' "one China" policy.
"The `one China' policy is outdated," said Bruce Jacobs, a professor at Monash University in Melbourne, Australia. "Taiwan is not a part of China ... The status quo has no relevancy today."
"The notion that there is such a thing as the status quo is false. There is no such thing," said Dan Blumenthal, a member of the blue-ribbon US-China Security and Economic Review Commission, a congressional panel, and a former Pentagon China specialist in the office of the US Secretary of Defense.
"So the notion that [the situation in Taiwan] is static and that a one-China policy can continue is just not right," he said.
"The US policy toward Taiwan has been very delusional. We delude ourselves into thinking there are certain circumstances under which we would allow Taiwan to go [to China]. That leads to drift and crises. That is how catastrophes happen," he said.
The "one China policy" encourages Beijing to think that the US would allow it to take over Taiwan, Blumenthal said.
"We don't mean we acknowledge China's right to Taiwan. Actually, we are trying to wait it out until China becomes democratic and then it changes its policy [toward] Taiwan," Blumenthal said.
"We mislead China by constantly repeating we acknowledge its position and somehow one day they will actually unify [with] Taiwan. This encourages China to be more aggressive and to lay the diplomatic groundwork around the world for a more aggressive policy," he said.
Tkacik foresaw a scenario in which the pan blues would dismantle Taiwan's defenses by allowing China to take over gradually.
"I can see a situation in which a new leader of Taiwan basically says, `My policy is to improve relations across the Taiwan Strait. I want to create confidence-building measures. want to increase the number of Taiwanese going to China. I want to increase the number of Chinese coming to Taiwan. I want to drop the investment restraints so that there are no restrictions on cross-strait movements,'" he said.
"At one point, the people of Taiwan will wake up and say, `It looks like we really are part of China, after all,'" he said.
"And I think you already see in the words of some Taiwan political leaders that they don't believe Taiwan needs to divest itself from China," and Taiwan will become in effect a part of China, Tkacik said.
Other members of the book launch panel were contributors Jaque deLisle, a law professor at the University of Pennsylvania, and Richard Kagan, a professor at Hamline University in St. Paul, Minnesota.
‘DENIAL DEFENSE’: The US would increase its military presence with uncrewed ships, and submarines, while boosting defense in the Indo-Pacific, a Pete Hegseth memo said The US is reorienting its military strategy to focus primarily on deterring a potential Chinese invasion of Taiwan, a memo signed by US Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth showed. The memo also called on Taiwan to increase its defense spending. The document, known as the “Interim National Defense Strategic Guidance,” was distributed this month and detailed the national defense plans of US President Donald Trump’s administration, an article in the Washington Post said on Saturday. It outlines how the US can prepare for a potential war with China and defend itself from threats in the “near abroad,” including Greenland and the Panama
A wild live dugong was found in Taiwan for the first time in 88 years, after it was accidentally caught by a fisher’s net on Tuesday in Yilan County’s Fenniaolin (粉鳥林). This is the first sighting of the species in Taiwan since 1937, having already been considered “extinct” in the country and considered as “vulnerable” by the International Union for Conservation of Nature. A fisher surnamed Chen (陳) went to Fenniaolin to collect the fish in his netting, but instead caught a 3m long, 500kg dugong. The fisher released the animal back into the wild, not realizing it was an endangered species at
The Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) is maintaining close ties with Beijing, the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) said yesterday, hours after a new round of Chinese military drills in the Taiwan Strait began. Political parties in a democracy have a responsibility to be loyal to the nation and defend its sovereignty, DPP spokesman Justin Wu (吳崢) told a news conference in Taipei. His comments came hours after Beijing announced via Chinese state media that the Chinese People’s Liberation Army’s Eastern Theater Command was holding large-scale drills simulating a multi-pronged attack on Taiwan. Contrary to the KMT’s claims that it is staunchly anti-communist, KMT Deputy
The High Prosecutors’ Office yesterday withdrew an appeal against the acquittal of a former bank manager 22 years after his death, marking Taiwan’s first instance of prosecutors rendering posthumous justice to a wrongfully convicted defendant. Chu Ching-en (諸慶恩) — formerly a manager at the Taipei branch of BNP Paribas — was in 1999 accused by Weng Mao-chung (翁茂鍾), then-president of Chia Her Industrial Co, of forging a request for a fixed deposit of US$10 million by I-Hwa Industrial Co, a subsidiary of Chia Her, which was used as collateral. Chu was ruled not guilty in the first trial, but was found guilty
RSS