Taiwan should play a more “positive and constructive” role in the Diaoyutai Islands (釣魚台) dispute, a former US State Department official said on Friday.
“At a minimum Taiwan should not be a problem or an obstacle to constructive resolution,” Project 2049 president Randy Schriver said.
Schriver, a former US deputy assistant secretary of state for East Asian Affairs, said that Taiwan’s good communications with all of the participants could be a “huge asset.” He added that President Ma Ying-jeou’s (馬英九) East China Sea peace plan needed to be taken more seriously.
“Taiwan is the only one that has a plan on the table and we should look at it,” he said in a speech at a Heritage Foundation conference on “Shoring Up the US-Taiwan Partnership.”
“We have a problem in the Senkakus [Japan’s name for the islands] area and if the assessment of Washington is that Taiwan has contributed unfavorably to that problem, it will hurt US-Taiwan relations,” he said.
Schriver said Taiwan should go to “great lengths” to avoid the appearance of any collusion with China on the issue. He said that while the US did not have a position on the sovereignty of the islands, Washington was not neutral.
“Our treaty obligations and our long-term strategic interests do not make us desirous of seeing the islands falling under the sovereignty of the PRC [People’s Republic of China],” he said.
Speaking with great emphasis, Schriver said: “Taiwan should avoid the appearance of collusion because I believe that would be viewed unfavorably.”
“Taiwan should be working positively with Tokyo and trying to improve that relationship [so as] not [to] cause any damage or any rifts,” he said. “Taiwan is stuck between its most important economic partner, China, and its most important security partner, the US-Japan alliance.”
He said the US could not fulfill its defense obligations under the Taiwan Relations Act (TRA) without the US-Japan alliance.
“Japan is arguably Taiwan’s second-most important security partner,” he said. “If Taiwan undertakes activities that cause problems with Tokyo, that will cause problems with the United States and that should be avoided.”
He said Taiwan needed to avoid any activities that created “further uncertainty and chaos in an operating environment that is already uncertain and chaotic.”
Chinese and Japanese military and coast guard “assets” were now operating in close proximity to one another with no rules of the road, no crisis communication and no crisis management capability, he said.
“If Taiwan enters into that fray, it can only be a downside,” he said.
“We do not need a war and as much as you can say we would never fight over a pile of rocks, we have fought over stranger things in the past,” Schriver said.
“The trend lines right now are very dangerous. When the PRC decided to add air activity to this mix, they shortened the time line of decisionmaking to seconds. That’s hard for civilian leadership to maintain positive command and control,” he said.
Schriver said again that the US would “look very unfavorably” on any activity that added to the existing “chaotic operating environment.”
Taiwan should be a “constructive participant,” should avoid risks and do more to help solve the situation.
‘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
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
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
DEADLOCK: As the commission is unable to forum a quorum to review license renewal applications, the channel operators are not at fault and can air past their license date The National Communications Commission (NCC) yesterday said that the Public Television Service (PTS) and 36 other television and radio broadcasters could continue airing, despite the commission’s inability to meet a quorum to review their license renewal applications. The licenses of PTS and the other channels are set to expire between this month and June. The National Communications Commission Organization Act (國家通訊傳播委員會組織法) stipulates that the commission must meet the mandated quorum of four to hold a valid meeting. The seven-member commission currently has only three commissioners. “We have informed the channel operators of the progress we have made in reviewing their license renewal applications, and