A leading US academic on Taiwan said Beijing understands that it has an interest in keeping President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) and the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) in power and for that reason is “not currently pushing its larger agenda.”
Richard Bush, director of the Brookings Institution’s Center for Northeast Asian Policy, told a Washington conference that how China deals with the Taiwan issue would be a “litmus test” on what kind of great power it would eventually be.
Addressing the conference on regional security in East Asia organized by the Foreign Policy Research Institute and the Reserve Officers Association, Bush said broad support did not “yet” exist among Taiwanese voters for agreements with China on political and security matters.
He added that despite some progress and a lowering of tensions, it remained “most worrisome” on the security front.
“The PLA’s [People’s Liberation Army] acquisition of capabilities relevant to Taiwan continues without reduction. Deployments of advanced assets opposite the island have not eased and the military balance is shifting in China’s favor,” he said.
“Beijing’s policy runs the risk of creating suboptimal outcomes. A continuing military buildup intensifies the Ma administration’s desire for closer security cooperation with the United States, which the PRC [People’s Republic of China] opposes. Beijing’s reluctance to be flexible on international space undercuts its basic goal of winning the hearts and minds of the Taiwan public,” Bush said.
Many expect that the ultimate outcome will be the unification of Taiwan with China and Taiwan’s submission to the PRC, he said.
“I believe there are significant substantive and political obstacles to resolving the cross-strait dispute in the foreseeable future, perhaps in my lifetime,” Bush said.
He said that theoretically there were approaches that would reconcile China’s desire for unification and Taiwan’s claim of sovereignty, but that Beijing had rejected them.
He believed there were now five possible scenarios for the future: The current situation might continue; it could stall; the Democratic Progressive Party could return to power and resume what China perceives as a provocative approach; the stabilization of relations might morph into a resolution of the fundamental dispute; or China might lose patience and use military power to compel Taipei to negotiate on Beijing’s terms.
“My own guess is that either of the first two is the most likely — either continuation of the current process or stalemate,” Bush said.
Continuation of the current stabilization process is positive for US interests, he said, but if that stalls, “I don’t think it is terrible for the US, but it does raise the prospect that the PLA buildup will continue rendering Taiwan more vulnerable.”
If the DPP returned to power with provocative policies, it would not be a good outcome for Washington. He said the US would then have to maintain a delicate balance, which would be extremely difficult because with its power growing, China might be less willing to heed US warnings.
Bush said that unification might well pose “serious challenges” to US interests.
“Of course the terms of unification would be the key. If China conceded to Taiwan on the sovereignty issue that would say something significant and positive about what kind of major power it is becoming. That is not a bad outcome,” he said.
“If, on the other hand, Taiwan accepted both political unification and a PLA presence, the consequences for our security position in Asia are more severe,” he said.
“The possibility that Beijing would lose patience within the context of a shifting military balance would pose a serious challenge to the US. It would represent a failure of the long-term American strategy to shape China into a constructive member of the international community,” Bush said.
However, if current policies begin to accelerate toward unification, and do so on terms that allows China to project military power from Taiwan or threaten freedom of navigation, “Washington would have to consider quietly shaping the negotiations most likely by trying to work with our Taiwan friends,” he said.
“If unification resulted in the PLA’s deployment to the island [Taiwan], Washington would face the challenge of fundamentally adjusting US security policy in Asia and the Pacific,” he said. “If China chose to coerce Taiwan, the US would face the choice of meeting that challenge or standing down and that has broader regional implications.”
An alternative to this scenario would be for Taiwan to engage in a proactive program of “self-strengthening economically, diplomatically, militarily, politically and ultimately psychologically,” Bush said.
However, Bush concluded: “Whether Taiwan has the leadership to undertake that effort is another question.”
An essay competition jointly organized by a local writing society and a publisher affiliated with the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) might have contravened the Act Governing Relations Between the People of the Taiwan Area and the Mainland Area (臺灣地區與大陸地區人民關係條例), the Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) said on Thursday. “In this case, the partner organization is clearly an agency under the CCP’s Fujian Provincial Committee,” MAC Deputy Minister and spokesperson Liang Wen-chieh (梁文傑) said at a news briefing in Taipei. “It also involves bringing Taiwanese students to China with all-expenses-paid arrangements to attend award ceremonies and camps,” Liang said. Those two “characteristics” are typically sufficient
A magnitude 5.9 earthquake that struck about 33km off the coast of Hualien City was the "main shock" in a series of quakes in the area, with aftershocks expected over the next three days, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said yesterday. Prior to the magnitude 5.9 quake shaking most of Taiwan at 6:53pm yesterday, six other earthquakes stronger than a magnitude of 4, starting with a magnitude 5.5 quake at 6:09pm, occurred in the area. CWA Seismological Center Director Wu Chien-fu (吳健富) confirmed that the quakes were all part of the same series and that the magnitude 5.5 temblor was
The Central Weather Administration has issued a heat alert for southeastern Taiwan, warning of temperatures as high as 36°C today, while alerting some coastal areas of strong winds later in the day. Kaohsiung’s Neimen District (內門) and Pingtung County’s Neipu Township (內埔) are under an orange heat alert, which warns of temperatures as high as 36°C for three consecutive days, the CWA said, citing southwest winds. The heat would also extend to Tainan’s Nansi (楠西) and Yujing (玉井) districts, as well as Pingtung’s Gaoshu (高樹), Yanpu (鹽埔) and Majia (瑪家) townships, it said, forecasting highs of up to 36°C in those areas
IN FULL SWING: Recall drives against lawmakers in Hualien, Taoyuan and Hsinchu have reached the second-stage threshold, the campaigners said Campaigners in a recall petition against Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Legislator Yen Kuan-heng (顏寬恒) in Taichung yesterday said their signature target is within sight, and that they need a big push to collect about 500 more signatures from locals to reach the second-stage threshold. Recall campaigns against KMT lawmakers Johnny Chiang (江啟臣), Yang Chiung-ying (楊瓊瓔) and Lo Ting-wei (羅廷瑋) are also close to the 10 percent threshold, and campaigners are mounting a final push this week. They need about 800 signatures against Chiang and about 2,000 against Yang. Campaigners seeking to recall Lo said they had reached the threshold figure over the