In his State of the Union address in 2002, then-US president George W. Bush used the expression “axis of evil” to describe Iran, North Korea and Iraq. The phrase was a deliberate evocation of the Axis powers of World War II — Nazi Germany, fascist Italy and imperial Japan — whose actions eviscerated the peace of the period between the two world wars and plunged the world into another conflagration.
The expression drew significant criticism in the US and abroad. Critics said that the three countries were not sufficiently aligned to be an “axis.”
However, hindsight shows that the Bush administration was half right. An axis of evil was forming, but the shock of the terror attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, distorted US foreign policy and diverted attention from the key protagonists: China and Russia.
Today, China’s rapid militarization, neo-imperialist foreign policy and Han-Chinese ultra-nationalism are well-documented, but it has taken Russian President Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine to rouse the international foreign policy establishment from its intellectual torpor over his similarly nefarious designs and revanchist foreign policy.
Perhaps nothing typifies the myopic nature of Western foreign policy over the past few decades more than former US president Barack Obama’s ridicule of then-Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney during a televised debate in 2012. Mocking Romney for warning that Russia posed the greatest geopolitical threat to the US, Obama said: “The 1980s are calling. They want their foreign policy back. The Cold War’s been over for 20 years.”
Since his 2002 address, the Bush administration’s warnings over Iran and North Korea have been vindicated. Iranian leaders and the Islamic Revolution Guard Corps have repeatedly vowed to “eradicate Israel off the face of the Earth,” while its scientists are on the cusp of developing nuclear weapons.
Meanwhile, North Korea continues to develop its nuclear arsenal and ballistic missile technology, while its leadership appears increasingly unpredictable.
However, by declaring a “war on terror,” the US and its allies threw everything but the kitchen sink at the Middle East in a fruitless search for “weapons of mass destruction” and regime change. Their tunnel vision over al-Qaeda and terrorism afforded Beijing the space to engage, virtually unchallenged, in an unprecedented peacetime military buildup.
Having spent decades remodeling itself to fight a terrorist insurgency in the desserts of Iraq and Afghanistan, the US military — and those of its allies — are unprepared to fight a state-on-state war.
There are concerning signs that China and Russia have formed an alliance of convenience. Many analysts suspect that when Putin and Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) met face-to-face prior to the Beijing Winter Olympics, they agreed to “scratch each other’s backs,” with China turning a blind eye toward Ukraine and Russia reciprocating as China invaded Taiwan. The cozy “bromance” between Putin and Xi might be turning into something more.
A CNN report said that a US diplomatic cable shared intelligence with Washington’s allies in Europe and Asia that showed the Kremlin approached Beijing for assistance in its invasion of Ukraine. The provision of military assistance from China to Russia would raise the prospect of a Cold War-style proxy conflict in Ukraine, akin to the wars in Vietnam and on the Korean Peninsula, with East ranged against West, democracies pitted against autocracies.
The globe appears to be dividing into two geopolitical hemispheres, with Taiwan, the US, European countries, India, Japan and South Korea on one side and an authoritarian bloc — China, Russia, Iran, Pakistan and North Korea — on the other.
As the world unwinds from a historically unprecedented period of peace, Taiwan finds itself on a new geostrategic fault line, and on the front line against the real “axis of evil.”
To The Honorable Legislative Speaker Han Kuo-yu (韓國瑜): We would like to extend our sincerest regards to you for representing Taiwan at the inauguration of US President Donald Trump on Monday. The Taiwanese-American community was delighted to see that Taiwan’s Legislative Yuan speaker not only received an invitation to attend the event, but successfully made the trip to the US. We sincerely hope that you took this rare opportunity to share Taiwan’s achievements in freedom, democracy and economic development with delegations from other countries. In recent years, Taiwan’s economic growth and world-leading technology industry have been a source of pride for Taiwanese-Americans.
Next week, the nation is to celebrate the Lunar New Year break. Unfortunately, cold winds are a-blowing, literally and figuratively. The Central Weather Administration has warned of an approaching cold air mass, while obstinate winds of chaos eddy around the Legislative Yuan. English theologian Thomas Fuller optimistically pointed out in 1650 that “it’s always darkest before the dawn.” We could paraphrase by saying the coldest days are just before the renewed hope of spring. However, one must temper any optimism about the damage being done in the legislature by the opposition Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) and Taiwan People’s Party (TPP), under
To our readers: Due to the Lunar New Year holiday, from Sunday, Jan. 26, through Sunday, Feb. 2, the Taipei Times will have a reduced format without our regular editorials and opinion pieces. From Tuesday to Saturday the paper will not be delivered to subscribers, but will be available for purchase at convenience stores. Subscribers will receive the editions they missed once normal distribution resumes on Sunday, Feb. 2. The paper returns to its usual format on Monday, Feb. 3, when our regular editorials and opinion pieces will also be resumed.
This year would mark the 30th anniversary of the establishment of the India Taipei Association (ITA) in Taipei and the Taipei Economic and Cultural Center (TECC) in New Delhi. From the vision of “Look East” in the 1990s, India’s policy has evolved into a resolute “Act East,” which complements Taiwan’s “New Southbound Policy.” In these three decades, India and Taiwan have forged a rare partnership — one rooted in shared democratic values, a commitment to openness and pluralism, and clear complementarities in trade and technology. The government of India has rolled out the red carpet for Taiwanese investors with attractive financial incentives
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