The end of the Iraq war has led us to a world drastically different from the one we had a month ago. Not only has the Middle East political landscape been fundamentally changed, but also the global geopolitical arrangements and the rules of international engagement have been radically reframed. Those changes present important political and security implications to Taiwan.
It is critically important to understand what kind of global structural arrangements the Iraqi war and North Korea crisis triggered in order to assess the impact on Taiwan.
One month ago, the world was confronting two WMD (weapons of mass destruction) issues simultaneously -- Iraq and North Korea. The question of whether to go to war with Iraq for its violation of UN resolutions has caused deep divisions within Europe, and consequently the unity of Europe has been undermined. Not only were there open disputes between Great Britain and the Continental European countries, but differences between Eastern and Western Europe also emerged.
The first casualty of these developments is the relationship between NATO and the EU. Another victim is the eastern expansion of the EU, due to the cloudy outlook of the European integration process.
In addition, France and the US look more like competitors than allies. This division has its roots in something deeper than personal differences between the current leaders on either side of the Atlantic. In fact, it is expected that after the conclusion of the Iraq war that Europe's future and its global outreach will remain uncertain for some time.
In Asia, the North Korean nuclear crisis and the differences between the US and South Korea in managing the crisis has resulted in uncertainty in the East Asian security architecture. The crisis management mechanisms created for the 1994 first North Korea nuclear crisis have broken down. In addition, the current ambiguous state of the Washington-Seoul alliance could spill-over to the US-Japan alliance and arouse China's anxiety, thus greatly affecting the stability of the Asia-Pacific region.
Fortunately, since the pattern of the international interactions in the North Korean crisis is very similar to the Iraqi issues in Western Europe, the process and outcome of the Iraqi war has greatly influenced the calculation of the Asian players in the North Korea crisis. Kim Jong-il and the Beijing leadership must have watched closely how former Iraqi president Saddam Hussein and France fared in this war.
South Korea and Japan also gauged their international response to the Iraq war according to their respective security needs in the Korean Peninsula, and the outcome of the Iraqi war would consequently have a significant impact on their attitudes toward North Korean nuclear issue.
The initiation of the North Korea-US-China trilateral "talks about talks" testifies to how the outcome of the Iraqi war has affected the behavior of the regional players in the Korean Peninsula nuclear crisis.
Besides the geopolitical architecture in both Europe and Asia, the third area being affected is the perceived rules of international engagements. The US military operation in Iraq is the first war under its "pre-emptive self-defense" policy.
The Iraqi war not only announces the death sentence for the arms-control mechanism -- the prevailing post-Cold war practice to meet the challenges of WMD -- it also seriously undermines the centrality and the credibility of the UN in global security affairs. The latter development is exactly the reversal of the first Iraq war, which pushed the UN to the apex of the post-Cold War global security framework.
Before new rules of engagement are firmly established, it can be expected that the international situation will be more fluxed and the stable friends and foes will be harder to identify. However, since the war has transformed the US from an international superpower into a global empire and the "reluctant sheriff" has become a fierce warrior, we probably will soon witness the dawn of the Pax Americana.
We need to ask the following questions:
First, in the post-Iraqi war era, what kind of challenges and opportunities does the decline of the UN and the reformulation of the international rules of engagement bring to Taiwan? How will this affect Taiwan's perception of the UN and its strategy for the participation in the "international civil community?"
Second, what are the challenges and opportunities for the "rebalancing" of the security architecture in the Asia-Pacific region? How does the newly adjusted US presence in this region affect Taiwan's surrounding security environment.
Third, to what degree will the cross-strait situation be affected by the changes of the regional environment surrounding Taiwan and China?
These are critical questions demanding immediate attention of the Taiwanese people.
Lai I-chung is director of foreign policy studies of Taiwan Thinktank. This is the first article in the series on "War on Iraq and the Korean Peninsula Crisis: View from Taiwan."
Congressman Mike Gallagher (R-WI) and Congressman Raja Krishnamoorthi (D-IL) led a bipartisan delegation to Taiwan in late February. During their various meetings with Taiwan’s leaders, this delegation never missed an opportunity to emphasize the strength of their cross-party consensus on issues relating to Taiwan and China. Gallagher and Krishnamoorthi are leaders of the House Select Committee on the Chinese Communist Party. Their instruction upon taking the reins of the committee was to preserve China issues as a last bastion of bipartisanship in an otherwise deeply divided Washington. They have largely upheld their pledge. But in doing so, they have performed the
It is well known that Chinese President Xi Jinping’s (習近平) ambition is to rejuvenate the Chinese nation by unification of Taiwan, either peacefully or by force. The peaceful option has virtually gone out of the window with the last presidential elections in Taiwan. Taiwanese, especially the youth, are resolved not to be part of China. With time, this resolve has grown politically stronger. It leaves China with reunification by force as the default option. Everyone tells me how and when mighty China would invade and overpower tiny Taiwan. However, I have rarely been told that Taiwan could be defended to
It should have been Maestro’s night. It is hard to envision a film more Oscar-friendly than Bradley Cooper’s exploration of the life and loves of famed conductor and composer Leonard Bernstein. It was a prestige biopic, a longtime route to acting trophies and more (see Darkest Hour, Lincoln, and Milk). The film was a music biopic, a subgenre with an even richer history of award-winning films such as Ray, Walk the Line and Bohemian Rhapsody. What is more, it was the passion project of cowriter, producer, director and actor Bradley Cooper. That is the kind of multitasking -for-his-art overachievement that Oscar
Chinese villages are being built in the disputed zone between Bhutan and China. Last month, Chinese settlers, holding photographs of Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平), moved into their new homes on land that was not Xi’s to give. These residents are part of the Chinese government’s resettlement program, relocating Tibetan families into the territory China claims. China shares land borders with 15 countries and sea borders with eight, and is involved in many disputes. Land disputes include the ones with Bhutan (Doklam plateau), India (Arunachal Pradesh, Aksai Chin) and Nepal (near Dolakha and Solukhumbu districts). Maritime disputes in the South China