“Why not form diplomatic relations?” has long been a catchphrase for people venting their frustration of Taiwan’s diplomatic isolation.
Due to Taiwan’s intensifying and deepening relations with the US, Japan and other nations, skeptics with a sour grapes mentality have resorted to remarks like “why not form diplomatic relations if things are looking great?”
At a public forum where the American Institute in Taiwan (AIT) proposed converting land from Taipei Municipal Neihu Junior High School into office space, skeptics called on the US to form diplomatic relations with Taiwan so that it is allowed to lease extra land for office expansion.
This is an extreme dualistic perspective that only assesses the relations of two nations by the establishment of diplomatic relations while dismissing de facto relations. Despite having formal ties, does the US enjoy a better relationship with China than with Taiwan?
In past 12 months, former US House of Representatives speaker Nancy Pelosi’s visit to Taiwan; the US bipartisan congressional delegation to Taiwan led by Representative Mike Rogers, chairman of the US House of Representatives Armed Services Committee; and Vice President William Lai’s (賴清德) trip to Japan to offer his condolences in the wake of former Japanese prime minister Shinzo Abe’s murder have all been diplomatic breakthroughs.
Nonetheless, the skeptics chose to overlook that there is a large gray area between formal and informal diplomatic relations, while turning a blind eye to substantial breakthroughs.
The biggest fallacy of blaming other countries for not forming diplomatic relations with Taiwan is to commit a reverse causality error. If China had not been pressuring other countries, or former president Chiang Kai-shek (蔣介石) had not strongly pushed for a “one China” principle by saying that “Gentlemen [Republic of China] cannot coexist with thugs [the Chinese Communist Party]” (漢賊不兩立), Taiwan would not be in such a difficult situation.
The expansion of the AIT’s offices is now twisted as a measure for the US to evacuate its citizens if war ever breaks out between China and Taiwan. This kind of farcical remark remind Vietnamese of the fall of Saigon.
Before the fall of Saigon in April 1975, the US conducted the biggest evacuation in history, where more than 7,000 US civilians and others were evacuated with helicopters from the city.
This April 15, when US Secretary of State Antony Blinken joined a ceremony to break ground on a US$1.2 billion US embassy compound in Hanoi, Vietnamese were more than happy to welcome the secretary as the construction is expected to take six years, create jobs for about 1,800 local people and contribute US$350 million to Vietnam’s economy.
As nations around the world are seeking closer ties with the US, Taiwan cannot afford to be left behind for the presence of a few anti-US people.
Chen Chang-jih
Taipei City
In their recent op-ed “Trump Should Rein In Taiwan” in Foreign Policy magazine, Christopher Chivvis and Stephen Wertheim argued that the US should pressure President William Lai (賴清德) to “tone it down” to de-escalate tensions in the Taiwan Strait — as if Taiwan’s words are more of a threat to peace than Beijing’s actions. It is an old argument dressed up in new concern: that Washington must rein in Taipei to avoid war. However, this narrative gets it backward. Taiwan is not the problem; China is. Calls for a so-called “grand bargain” with Beijing — where the US pressures Taiwan into concessions
The term “assassin’s mace” originates from Chinese folklore, describing a concealed weapon used by a weaker hero to defeat a stronger adversary with an unexpected strike. In more general military parlance, the concept refers to an asymmetric capability that targets a critical vulnerability of an adversary. China has found its modern equivalent of the assassin’s mace with its high-altitude electromagnetic pulse (HEMP) weapons, which are nuclear warheads detonated at a high altitude, emitting intense electromagnetic radiation capable of disabling and destroying electronics. An assassin’s mace weapon possesses two essential characteristics: strategic surprise and the ability to neutralize a core dependency.
Chinese President and Chinese Communist Party (CCP) Chairman Xi Jinping (習近平) said in a politburo speech late last month that his party must protect the “bottom line” to prevent systemic threats. The tone of his address was grave, revealing deep anxieties about China’s current state of affairs. Essentially, what he worries most about is systemic threats to China’s normal development as a country. The US-China trade war has turned white hot: China’s export orders have plummeted, Chinese firms and enterprises are shutting up shop, and local debt risks are mounting daily, causing China’s economy to flag externally and hemorrhage internally. China’s
During the “426 rally” organized by the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) and the Taiwan People’s Party under the slogan “fight green communism, resist dictatorship,” leaders from the two opposition parties framed it as a battle against an allegedly authoritarian administration led by President William Lai (賴清德). While criticism of the government can be a healthy expression of a vibrant, pluralistic society, and protests are quite common in Taiwan, the discourse of the 426 rally nonetheless betrayed troubling signs of collective amnesia. Specifically, the KMT, which imposed 38 years of martial law in Taiwan from 1949 to 1987, has never fully faced its
RSS