The US supports cross-strait military confidence-building measures (CBM), but there is no policy of actively promoting them, a Washington roundtable discussion was told on Tuesday.
“That is an important distinc-tion,” said Bonnie Glaser, a consultant for the US government on East Asia.
The cross-strait agenda, whether it is CBMs or other issues, is up to the two sides of the Taiwan Strait to determine, she said.
“We don’t push, we don’t pressure Taiwan in any dialogue or any issue that Taiwan judges to be premature,” said Glaser, who works on Chinese foreign and security policy with the Center for Strategic and International Studies.
President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) is worried that if Taiwan pursues military CBMs with China it will result in a reduction or an end to arms sales from the US, she said.
“I have heard the president profess this concern several times,” she said.
However, Glaser said at the roundtable organized by the Sigur Center for Asian Studies at George Washington University that this was not likely to be an outcome of certain kinds of CBMs between Taiwan and China.
Glaser, a frequent visitor to Taiwan, said the US had the “utmost confidence” that Taiwan could decide for itself what was in its interests.
She said claims that the US had “strongly told” the Ma administration not to talk about military CBMs with China were “nonsense.”
Some kinds of CBMs — for example an emergency “hotline” — could enable both sides to avoid an incident from escalating.
“The US supports CBMs if and when Taiwan is ready to discuss them,” Glaser said.
Former US president George W. Bush convinced Beijing that the US does not support Taiwanese independence, she said.
“Bush told Beijing leaders privately that the US opposed Taiwan independence,” she said.
However, China is not confident that the US will accept peaceful unification.
“US arms sales to Taiwan pretty clearly are not for a Taiwan offensive against the mainland [China],” she said. “The logic that makes sense is that China reduces the threat opposite Taiwan and Taiwan might then reconsider or factor into the decisions it makes about the arms it needs to buy and about the defense capabilities it needs to have,” Glaser said.
She said that maybe then Taiwan would feel it did not need to buy weapons from the US.
Alan Romberg, director of the East Asia program at the Stimson Center, said that Beijing maintained a large missile force opposite Taiwan to deter independence.
“Even though I believe the possibility of any Taiwan leadership moving towards de jure independence is somewhere between zero and minus-70, Beijing fears the consequences of saying that it would not use force in any circumstances,” Romberg said.
“Until the day of unification the PLA [People’s Liberation Army] is going to be required to maintain the capability to deal with any move toward independence,” he said.
Romberg said that China was not “looking for a fight” and wanted to achieve its goals by diplomacy, but there was concern Beijing would “lose patience.”
Despite China’s suspicions to the contrary, the US relationship with Taiwan was not part of “some strategy to constrain China and limit its power much less to advance Taiwan independence,” he said.
“The US does not favor or support Taiwan independence, but if the two sides miraculously agreed to it we would certainly be happy to go along,” Romberg said.
Even though Taiwan remained a potential cause of friction between Washington and Beijing, Romberg said, the situation had evolved to the point where all three parties were being careful not to create turmoil or crisis.
“In this situation, over time, certain kinds of CBMs might be considered,” he said.
However, Li Da-jung (李大中), an associate professor in the Graduate Institute of International Affairs and Strategic Studies at Tamkang University, said that cross-strait negotiations were moving into a new phase, with Taipei trying to set the pace.
He said Taiwan was carefully choosing the issues on the negotiating table, but that there was a lack of domestic consensus in support of CBMs.
‘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