In a report submitted to the US Congress on Friday, the Pentagon raised doubts about China's promise to resolve the Taiwan issue peacefully. The report said China is threatening Taiwan in a variety of ways, including the deployment of short-range ballistic missiles -- currently numbering 350 and increasing by 50 per year -- and the purchase of submarines from Russia. These military modernization moves are also posing a threat to the US military and the entire Asia-Pacific region, the report said.
On the same day, President Chen Shui-bian (
Both the Pentagon report and Chen's speech reflect the contents of another report that is scheduled to be released today by the US Congress' US-China Security Review Commission. The commission is responsible for reviewing the national security implications of trade and economic ties between the US and China. Its report is expected to warn that China is using its massive economic and strategic interests to tackle the US and that Washington should take tougher actions to counter Beijing's military and economic threats, as military modernization will allow China to export weapons to countries that sponsor terrorism and to expand its influence in the Asia-Pacific region.
China is not only putting the US' security interests in the Asia-Pacific region at risk, but is also becoming the godfather of what Washington calls "rogue states." How Taiwan should protect itself and continue to prosper in the face of threats from such a country is a question that every person should think about seriously.
The similarity in evaluations from the US and Taiwan indicate that the two countries share the same basic values -- a belief in safeguarding freedom and democracy and a belief in the capitalist system. If Washington and Taipei had not joined hands to defend these values over the last 50 years, there would not be a Taiwan as it exists today.
The crux of the tensions across the Taiwan Strait and in the Asia-Pacific region today is China's behavior, not the actions of Taiwan. Beijing is also the main obstacle to the resumption of cross-strait dialogue. Today, the last remaining communist empire is still unwilling to remove its communist signboard, give up its habit of wantonly engaging in military aggression and join the international community as a normal country.
Most countries in the free world are worried exactly because China is not a normal country. It continues to use every means possible to incite nationalistic sentiments exactly because it is not a free and democratic country. The Chinese government is using nationalism to shield communism, which its people have lost faith in. Nationalism has become the last life jacket for the Beijing regime.
The free world should ponder on how to educate the Chinese leadership about the universal values of freedom and democracy so that China can become a responsible citizen of the world as soon as possible.
Could Asia be on the verge of a new wave of nuclear proliferation? A look back at the early history of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), which recently celebrated its 75th anniversary, illuminates some reasons for concern in the Indo-Pacific today. US Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin recently described NATO as “the most powerful and successful alliance in history,” but the organization’s early years were not without challenges. At its inception, the signing of the North Atlantic Treaty marked a sea change in American strategic thinking. The United States had been intent on withdrawing from Europe in the years following
My wife and I spent the week in the interior of Taiwan where Shuyuan spent her childhood. In that town there is a street that functions as an open farmer’s market. Walk along that street, as Shuyuan did yesterday, and it is next to impossible to come home empty-handed. Some mangoes that looked vaguely like others we had seen around here ended up on our table. Shuyuan told how she had bought them from a little old farmer woman from the countryside who said the mangoes were from a very old tree she had on her property. The big surprise
The issue of China’s overcapacity has drawn greater global attention recently, with US Secretary of the Treasury Janet Yellen urging Beijing to address its excess production in key industries during her visit to China last week. Meanwhile in Brussels, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen last week said that Europe must have a tough talk with China on its perceived overcapacity and unfair trade practices. The remarks by Yellen and Von der Leyen come as China’s economy is undergoing a painful transition. Beijing is trying to steer the world’s second-largest economy out of a COVID-19 slump, the property crisis and
As former president Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) wrapped up his visit to the People’s Republic of China, he received his share of attention. Certainly, the trip must be seen within the full context of Ma’s life, that is, his eight-year presidency, the Sunflower movement and his failed Economic Cooperation Framework Agreement, as well as his eight years as Taipei mayor with its posturing, accusations of money laundering, and ups and downs. Through all that, basic questions stand out: “What drives Ma? What is his end game?” Having observed and commented on Ma for decades, it is all ironically reminiscent of former US president Harry