The administration of President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) has been “obviously deficient” in aligning Taiwan’s defense with diplomacy, charges a paper published on Wednesday by the Brookings Institution in Washington.
“Taiwan must rethink its practices for interagency collaboration and make some tangible action plans,” said Huang Kwei-bo (黃奎博), an associate professor of diplomacy at National Chengchi University, in the paper.
He said that in May 2011, Ma detailed three lines of defense to enhance Taiwan’s international status and security in the face of a rising China.
The first two — institutionalization of cross-strait rapprochement and the utilization of Taiwan’s geographic location, infrastructure and democracy to interact with the rest of the world — have been “implemented with some success.”
However, according to Huang, the third line of defense — “aligning Taiwan’s defense with diplomacy” — is supported by few detailed and deliberate action plans.
“While the outlines of this third line of defense are visible, it is evident that Taiwan has not brought the different strands of this idea together to substantially connect,” he said.
Huang said that maintaining an appropriate self-defense capability while preventing war in a diplomatic way “is a common-sense objective for Taiwan.”
One major problem, according to Huang, is that the Ministry of National Defense (MND) and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA) need better collaboration.
“What Taiwan really needs at this time is stronger initiative and persistent fostering of cross-agency interactions that can facilitate the goal of aligning defense with diplomacy,” Huang said.
“Better and consistent coordination within both MOFA and MND is required,” he said.
Except at the top leadership level, the exchange and sharing of information between the ministries “has not been institutionalized satisfactorily.”
“As neither MND nor MOFA is sufficiently organized and trained to plan, coordinate and integrate the resources and mechanisms available for the establishment of the third line of defense, at the present time Taiwan is not able to achieve this goal,” he said.
US arms sales and political support remain “crucial” for Taiwan’s national security, but are not enough by themselves.
“Taiwan must speed up its interagency collaboration now, beginning with MND and MOFA,” Huang said.
However, it will require political investment from the president.
Ma must know that his national security triad will not function as expected if any of the defense lines is ignored or mismanaged, he said.
“Nevertheless, it remains to be seen whether the in-depth shaping and adjustment of the third line of defense will take place in the near future, especially as the administration is confronting a series of serious and intricate domestic and external challenges,” he said.
TENSIONS: The Chinese aircraft and vessels were headed toward the western Pacific to take part in a joint air and sea military exercise, the Ministry of National Defense said A relatively large number of Chinese military aircraft and vessels were detected in Taiwan’s vicinity yesterday morning, apparently en route to a Chinese military exercise in the western Pacific, the Ministry of National Defense (MND) said. In a statement, the ministry said 36 Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA) aircraft, including J-16 fighters and nuclear-capable H-6 bombers, crossed the median line of the Taiwan Strait or an extension of it, and were detected in the southern and southeastern parts of Taiwan’s air defense identification zone (ADIZ) from 5:20am to 9:30am yesterday. They were headed toward the western Pacific to take part in a
Honor guards are to stop performing changing of the guard ceremonies around a statue of Chiang Kai-shek (蔣介石) to avoid “worshiping authoritarianism,” the Ministry of Culture said yesterday. The fate of the bronze statue has long been the subject of fierce and polarizing debate in Taiwan, which has transformed from an autocracy under Chiang into one of Asia’s most vibrant democracies. The changing of the guard each hour at the Chiang Kai-shek Memorial Hall in Taipei is a major tourist attraction, but starting from 9am on Monday, the ceremony is to be moved outdoors to Democracy Boulevard, outside the eponymous blue-and-white memorial
The Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) supports peaceful unification with China, and President William Lai (賴清德) is “a bit naive” for being a “practical worker for Taiwanese independence,” former president Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) said in an interview published yesterday. Asked about whether the KMT is on the same page as the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) and the Taiwan People’s Party (TPP) on the issue of Taiwanese independence or unification with China, Ma told the Malaysian Chinese-language newspaper Sin Chew Daily that they are not. While the KMT supports peaceful unification and is against unification by force, the DPP opposes unification as such and
CASES SLOWING: Although weekly COVID-19 cases are rising, the growth rate has been falling, from 90 percent to 30 percent, 14 percent and 6 percent, the CDC said COVID-19 hospitalizations last week rose 6 percent to 987, while deaths soared 55 percent to 99, the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) said yesterday, adding that the recent wave of infections would likely peak this week. People aged 65 or older accounted for 79 percent of the hospitalizations and 90 percent of the deaths, the majority of whom have or had underlying health conditions, CDC data showed. The youngest hospitalized case last week was a six-month-old, who was born preterm and was unvaccinated, CDC physician Lin Yung-ching (林詠青) said. The infant had a fever, coughing and a runny nose early this month, but