On Thursday, US Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage announced in a televised interview that the US has some specific hopes regarding the May 20 inauguration speech of President Chen Shui-bian (
High-ranking Presidential Office staff members immediately indicated in private that the so-called "five noes" pledge will be reiterated in the inauguration speech, although not in exactly the same words.
Because this all came about after a US visit by Presidential Office Secretary-General Chiou I-Jen (
Reviewing Chen's first term, despite controversies and debates regarding the cross-strait policy, it is safe to conclude that he kept his word. Neither Lee's "special state-to-state" discourse nor Chen's own talk about "one country on each side" of the Taiwan Strait, which many deem to be a continuation of Lee's policy, have been incorporated into the Constitution. The defensive referendum held simultaneously with the presidential election, which had supposedly caused much concern in the US, had nothing to do with the independence-unification issue.
However, does this mean that the cross-strait status quo has been maintained? Obviously this is not the case. For one, consistent with the rise of nativist consciousness in Taiwan in past decades, the Taiwanese sense of national identity has reached an all-time high -- although many still feel that there is a long way to go in this regard. This is demonstrated by Chen's electoral defeat of KMT Chairman Lien Chan (
Moreover, one can hardly argue that the cross-strait status quo is being maintained when the imbalance between the military powers on both sides of the Taiwan Strait has reached a new extreme. This was confirmed by US Assistant Secretary of State for East Asian and Pacific Affairs James Kelly during a congressional hearing last week, in which he said that over the past 25 years China has repeatedly reassured the US of its willingness to peacefully resolve the Taiwan issue, but in practice it has continued to increase the number of missiles targeting Taiwan by 50 to 75 each year.
So while all expectations are on Taiwan to exercise self-restraint, which Taiwan has largely done, what is being done to keep China from losing control? Can anything be done to accomplish that goal?
If maintaining the status quo means that Taiwan cannot have any presence in the international community -- even when sensitive sovereignty issues are not touched, as in the inability of Taiwan to merely obtain observer status as a "health entity" -- it is no wonder that the popular will in Taiwan is hungrily looking for other options.
Because much of what former US president Donald Trump says is unhinged and histrionic, it is tempting to dismiss all of it as bunk. Yet the potential future president has a populist knack for sounding alarums that resonate with the zeitgeist — for example, with growing anxiety about World War III and nuclear Armageddon. “We’re a failing nation,” Trump ranted during his US presidential debate against US Vice President Kamala Harris in one particularly meandering answer (the one that also recycled urban myths about immigrants eating cats). “And what, what’s going on here, you’re going to end up in World War
Earlier this month in Newsweek, President William Lai (賴清德) challenged the People’s Republic of China (PRC) to retake the territories lost to Russia in the 19th century rather than invade Taiwan. He stated: “If it is for the sake of territorial integrity, why doesn’t [the PRC] take back the lands occupied by Russia that were signed over in the treaty of Aigun?” This was a brilliant political move to finally state openly what many Chinese in both China and Taiwan have long been thinking about the lost territories in the Russian far east: The Russian far east should be “theirs.” Granted, Lai issued
On Tuesday, President William Lai (賴清德) met with a delegation from the Hoover Institution, a think tank based at Stanford University in California, to discuss strengthening US-Taiwan relations and enhancing peace and stability in the region. The delegation was led by James Ellis Jr, co-chair of the institution’s Taiwan in the Indo-Pacific Region project and former commander of the US Strategic Command. It also included former Australian minister for foreign affairs Marise Payne, influential US academics and other former policymakers. Think tank diplomacy is an important component of Taiwan’s efforts to maintain high-level dialogue with other nations with which it does
On Sept. 2, Elbridge Colby, former deputy assistant secretary of defense for strategy and force development, wrote an article for the Wall Street Journal called “The US and Taiwan Must Change Course” that defends his position that the US and Taiwan are not doing enough to deter the People’s Republic of China (PRC) from taking Taiwan. Colby is correct, of course: the US and Taiwan need to do a lot more or the PRC will invade Taiwan like Russia did against Ukraine. The US and Taiwan have failed to prepare properly to deter war. The blame must fall on politicians and policymakers