A former US defense official has called for major changes in Washington’s policies toward Taiwan.
“Despite Taiwan’s great achievements in building a democratic society and robust economy, Washington still treats Taipei as a second-class global citizen,” American Enterprise Institute director of Asian Studies Dan Blumenthal said.
Writing in Foreign Policy magazine, Blumenthal, who served as the Pentagon’s senior director for China and Taiwan, said the US needs all of its Asian friends to help resist Chinese aggression.
“Taiwan is still strangled by Cold War legacies,” he said.
“There is no reason, legislative or otherwise, to have such abnormal relations with the island,” he said. “Instead, it is our own stubborn refusal to reinterpret rules we authored unilaterally back when Jimmy Carter was [US] president.”
Blumenthal said that high-level Taiwan visits by US diplomatic and military officials are banned.
“It is up to low-ranking US defense officials to oversee our intensifying defense relations,” Blumenthal said.
“Normally, when we work to improve a friend’s deterrent capability, our bilateral relations are run by generals, admirals and even secretaries of defense — not so in Taiwan, even though the country faces a daunting challenge from China,” he added.
Blumenthal said Taiwan is kept out of many of the region’s more important multilateral organizations and was not invited to be a member of the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) even though its economy is far more advanced than that of many of the other members.
He said Taiwan is shut out of talks on the future of the South China Sea maritime territorial disputes even though it has a claim to Itu Aba Island (Taiping Island, 太平島) and part of the Spratly Islands (Nansha Islands, 南沙群島), and is located in a geostrategically important position relative to the South China Sea.
Blumenthal said that US President Barack Obama recently visited Cuba and that if the White House wanted to end Cold War legacies, Obama could “take a real geopolitical risk by gradually changing the nature of our awkward and self-defeating relations with Taiwan.”
Blumenthal said that Obama could invite president-elect Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) to Hawaii for a meeting and send a team of high-ranking military officials to Taiwan to help Tsai assess her security needs.
“This change in policy is not forthcoming — our president wants easy, symbolic photo-ops, not policy changes that actually matter,” Blumenthal added.
He said that upgrading US relations with Taiwan would serve both strategic interests and US values by supporting a liberal democratic partner.
Blumenthal said that China’s growing economic stagnation and consequent internal political problems are real and could affect Taiwan.
“We are in for an unpredictable ride that will require much more strategic coordination with the island at the highest levels,” he said. “China is less stable, but still very powerful. Stirring up trouble with Taiwan is the easiest way for the Chinese leadership to distract from problems at home.”
‘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