The next president of the US should consider normalizing relations with Taiwan, a Washington conference was told on Friday.
When the US extends legitimacy to a communist regime and does not recognize a democracy, “what kind of signal does that send to the rest of the world?” Project 2049 Institute executive director Mark Stokes asked.
Stokes was addressing a Hudson Institute conference on what the next US president should do about China’s strategy in Asia.
Stokes, a former Pentagon official, said that the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) strategy toward Taiwan was clear — “unification on Beijing’s terms.”
That would leave the People’s Republic of China (PRC) as the sole representative of “one China” on the international stage, he said.
“The objective reality is that there are two legitimate governments, one on each side of the Taiwan Strait,” Stokes said.
He said that the US went “full bore” in switching diplomatic recognition to the PRC, but that since the first peaceful change of government on Taiwan in 2000, it has become “increasingly difficult to sustain this approach.”
From 1972 to 1979, Washington had relatively normal relations with both sides of the Taiwan Strait, Stokes said.
“There is nothing in our one China policy that would restrict us from moving towards relatively normal relations with both sides of the Strait,” he said.
Regarding the ongoing US presidential campaign and next year’s election, Taiwan should be on the agenda, Stokes said, adding that, at the very least, it was worth having candidates look into the possibility of “balancing” legitimacy on both sides of the Taiwan Strait.
When asked if the next president of the US should sell diesel-electric submarines to Taiwan, Stokes said that he was overwhelmingly in favor of such a move, but that the White House should not wait for a new administration to decide on the issue.
The administration of US President Barack Obama should “sooner, rather than later” allow US companies to assist Taiwan with the development of its own indigenous diesel-electric submarines.
American Enterprise Institute (AEI) Asian studies director Dan Blumenthal said that he was “very pro” selling submarines or submarine technology to Taiwan.
Blumenthal, a former senior director for China and Taiwan at the Pentagon, said that every US ally in Asia had submarines and that it was “obvious” Taiwan should also have modern submarines in its fleet.
If the US public were to be asked if they thought Taiwan should have submarines, the answer would be a “resounding ‘yes,’” he said.
Although strategic competition is not the only dimension of the Sino-American relationship, “it is beginning to define it,” Blumenthal said in a paper published on Friday by the AEI.
He said the challenge for Washington is not that China is richer or more powerful, but rather the kind of power it is becoming under continued one-party rule by the CCP.
China faces internal problems in Xinjiang, Tibet and Sichuan, Blumenthal added.
He said that recent events in Hong Kong were a reminder that China will do whatever it takes to suppress democracy movements demanding more autonomy.
However, “that is not an easy task, particularly in a partially postmodern world in which protest movements can quickly gain international support,” Blumenthal said.
‘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