The biggest failure of US President Barack Obama administration’s policy toward China was “ignoring and underestimating Taiwan,” former American Institute in Taiwan (AIT) director William Stanton told a Taipei symposium yesterday.
“The US policy toward China has been pretty consistent since 1972, but it does not mean our policies have been correct or successful,” said Stanton, who is now director of the Center for Asia Policy at National Tsing Hua University.
“In my view, US policy is often proved wrong with regard to China, and by ‘wrong’ I mean they failed to promote US interests or to achieve US goals,” he said.
Photo: Wang Min-wei, Taipei Times
In his speech, titled “US policy toward Xi Jinping’s [習近平] China,” Stanton said that the Cold War geostrategic argument that the US should cooperate with China to counterbalance a possible Sino-Soviet alliance was “proved wrong” by the continuing strengthening of Sino-Russian partnership on both military and diplomatic fronts.
“In the absence of shared values, geostrategic partnerships are inherently unstable,” Stanton said.
“You can have a geostrategic relationship between the US and the United Kingdom, maybe, which are two democracies. But do not depend on it if [the potential partner is] a communist autocracy and [you are] a democracy,” he added.
Another argument that calls for cooperation with China in order to resolve regional and global problems “has been largely illusory when you search for concrete positive outcomes from a US perspective” due to China’s size, power and status as a permanent member of the UN Security Council, Stanton said.
The economic argument, which expects increased trade with China and states that continuing improvement in the Chinese economy would facilitate political change, has started to be called into question, he said.
The assumption that the US economy has benefited from trade with China has also been rebuffed by studies, he added.
“Another US policy error from the start was ignoring Taiwan’s interests and underestimating its potential,” he said.
“If Washington policymakers in 1972 had foreseen [Taiwan’s evolution into a vibrant democracy and robust economy], perhaps they would not have written off Taiwan so easily, just as no one would have ever thought of abandoning Australia,” he said.
“A lack of knowledge about and understanding of Taiwan continues. Some of our key policymakers on China under the Obama administration have never even visited Taiwan, or visited it rarely, meeting with junior officials and academics,” Stanton said.
This partly explains why “some Washington observers were taken aback by the Sunflower movement [in the spring of last year] and reacted angrily,” he said.
“In my view, the biggest failure of the Obama administration’s policy toward China has been its handling of Taiwan. An example was the omission of any references to Taiwan in describing the US policy of a reorientation to Asia,” Stanton said.
He said Washington gave a “far more hospitable and objective reception of [Democratic Progressive Party Chairperson] Tsai Ing-wen [蔡英文] this year [than in 2011], and it was an “important positive step by Washington in support of an even-handed approach to, and support for, Taiwan’s democracy.”
Other key areas where the US needs to support Taiwan are “defense cooperation and trade,” Stanton said.
“While the US must cooperate [with China] where it can, it also needs to continue to be very clear about its own values and interests,” he said.
“While the US should never assume that China is necessarily an enemy, we should also always be aware that the China with which we now deal also does not regard us a friend either,” he added.
‘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