It is impossible to compare Taiwan with Afghanistan, academics said yesterday in response to claims that the US’ withdrawal proves that Taiwan cannot rely on US military assistance.
Nearly two decades after the US took control of Kabul, the Taliban on Sunday swiftly retook control of the Afghan capital, prompting the nation’s president to flee.
Critics have been quick to compare the situation to the fall of Saigon after the withdrawal of US troops during the Vietnam War, with some suggesting that the US’ track record bodes poorly for Taiwan’s chances in the event of an invasion by China.
“Taiwan is not Afghanistan,” former National Defense University distinguished lecturer Holmes Liao (廖宏祥) said.
The Afghan government is extremely corrupt, while Taiwan enjoys a stable democracy, he said.
Additionally, Taiwan’s defense strategy is based on a standard island military defense, as opposed to the domestic strife and guerrilla warfare that typify the conflicts in Afghanistan and previously Vietnam, he said, calling the two “entirely different.”
The hidden problems facing Taiwan are the belief in a “great Chinese nation,” defeatism and unprofessionalism within all ranks of the military leadership, Liao said.
The US, Japan, South Korea, the EU and G7 nations all support maintaining stability in the Taiwan Strait in recognition of the nation’s strategic placement within the Indo-Pacific region, Taiwan East Turkestan Association president Ho Chao-tung (何朝棟) said.
Considering China’s considerable global influence, using Afghanistan to claim that Taipei cannot rely on the US is an erroneous comparison, he added.
Meanwhile, Democratic Progressive Party Legislator Cheng Yun-peng (鄭運鵬) yesterday condemned some Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) politicians for using the Afghanistan example to warn Taiwan about the dangers of relying on the US.
“Some are saying it should serve as a warning to Taiwan not to get too close to the US, and even use it as a taunt about China mounting a military invasion of Taiwan,” Chen wrote on Facebook. “Has the KMT not learned its lesson after being deceived by the Chinese Communist Party so many times? Or maybe it is a case of KMT politicians manifesting their suffering as ‘Stockholm syndrome’ victims?”
The parallel comparison does not work; US troops are not stationed in Taiwan, so there is no US military to withdraw, Cheng said.
“Taiwan has our own military for national defense, while we collaborate with other militaries and procure arms from the US and other allied countries,” he said.
In response to media queries for comment, Kaohsiung Mayor Chen Chi-mai (陳其邁) said: “The events in Afghanistan are connected to the geopolitics of the Middle East.”
“In a geopolitical context, Taiwan is situated at the forefront of an alliance of democratic countries, with peace and stability in the Taiwan Strait also being in the best interest of countries in the region, which Taiwan can contribute to,” he said.
The Taipei Department of Health yesterday said it has launched a probe into a restaurant at Far Eastern Sogo Xinyi A13 Department Store after a customer died of suspected food poisoning. A preliminary investigation on Sunday found missing employee health status reports and unsanitary kitchen utensils at Polam Kopitiam (寶林茶室) in the department store’s basement food court, the department said. No direct relationship between the food poisoning death and the restaurant was established, as no food from the day of the incident was available for testing and no other customers had reported health complaints, it said, adding that the investigation is ongoing. Later
REVENGE TRAVEL: A surge in ticket prices should ease this year, but inflation would likely keep tickets at a higher price than before the pandemic Scoot is to offer six additional flights between Singapore and Northeast Asia, with all routes transiting Taipei from April 1, as the budget airline continues to resume operations that were paused during the COVID-19 pandemic, a Scoot official said on Thursday. Vice president of sales Lee Yong Sin (李榮新) said at a gathering with reporters in Taipei that the number of flights from Singapore to Japan and South Korea with a stop in Taiwan would increase from 15 to 21 each week. That change means the number of the Singapore-Taiwan-Tokyo flights per week would increase from seven to 12, while Singapore-Taiwan-Seoul
BAD NEIGHBORS: China took fourth place among countries spreading disinformation, with Hong Kong being used as a hub to spread propaganda, a V-Dem study found Taiwan has been rated as the country most affected by disinformation for the 11th consecutive year in a study by the global research project Varieties of Democracy (V-Dem). The nation continues to be a target of disinformation originating from China, and Hong Kong is increasingly being used as a base from which to disseminate that disinformation, the report said. After Taiwan, Latvia and Palestine ranked second and third respectively, while Nicaragua, North Korea, Venezuela and China, in that order, were the countries that spread the most disinformation, the report said. Each country listed in the report was given a score,
POOR PREPARATION: Cultures can form on food that is out of refrigeration for too long and cooking does not reliably neutralize their toxins, an epidemiologist said Medical professionals yesterday said that suspected food poisoning deaths revolving around a restaurant at Far Eastern Department Store Xinyi A13 Store in Taipei could have been caused by one of several types of bacterium. Ho Mei-shang (何美鄉), an epidemiologist at Academia Sinica’s Institute of Biomedical Sciences, wrote on Facebook that the death of a 39-year-old customer of the restaurant suggests the toxin involved was either “highly potent or present in massive large quantities.” People who ate at the restaurant showed symptoms within hours of consuming the food, suggesting that the poisoning resulted from contamination by a toxin and not infection of the