Following the recent resignation of US Secretary of State Colin Powell, US President George W. Bush appointed National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice as Powell's successor. Rice's deputy, Stephen Hadley, will be replacing Rice. All signs point to members of the "Vulcans," Bush's foreign policy team during the 2000 presidential election campaign, directing foreign policy in his new cabinet. Yet decisionmakers such as conservative hawks Vice President Dick Cheney and Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld still seem to view China as a strategic competitor. This looks positive for Taiwan. But are things really as they seem?
The most interesting thing is Hadley's appointment. Hadley was a lawyer, and during the 1970s he was a policy analyst in the defense department. He was later assistant secretary of defense during Bush senior's term in office, specializing in nuclear and conventional arms control issues.
In George W. Bush's first term, he made Hadley his deputy national security adviser hoping that Hadley, with his experience in arms control issues, would be able to explain the US missile defense plan to concerned countries. China is the greatest obstacle to the implementation of the US missile defense plan in the Asia-Pacific region, so Hadley should understand the strategic importance of Taiwan's geopolitical position. As a result, the new Bush government's strategic evaluation can be expected to lead to a deepening of security cooperation between Taiwan and the US, rather than to the abandonment of Taiwan.
There are possible compromises that could be made by realist members of the Vulcan group, based on consideration of actual international political benefits and interests. One example: although they are hoping for changes in the Pyongyang government, tough behavior might induce a Chinese reaction. This could seriously affect the region's strategic balance, so they might then take a softer, multilateral approach to handling the North Korean nuclear issue.
In the future, the new US government will face several new diplomatic challenges, such as the reconstruction of Iraq, the Israeli-Palestine situation following the death of Palestinian president Yasser Arafat and the North Korean nuclear issue. Doubtless they would be glad to see stability in the Taiwan Strait and the Asia-Pacific region so that they can concentrate on these other issues.
In particular, the US worries that nuclear weapons could fall into the hands of terrorist organizations and lead to terrorist attacks on US soil. Opposition to nuclear arms proliferation, therefore, is at the top of the US foreign policy agenda. Following this logic, China will become its most important partner when it comes to global non-terrorism and anti-proliferation efforts. Based on a realistic appraisal of the international political situation, the members of the Vulcan group will expand cooperation with China and downplay differences of opinion.
In other words, if the Vulcans want to see China as a diplomatic partner in the 21st century, it would be impossible for them to oppose Beijing over the question of Taiwan.
Based on Washington's objective of strategic balance in the Asia-Pacific region, stability in the Taiwan Strait will be an important pillar of US security, and Taiwan will be key in supporting this strategic balance. From this perspective, Bush's new team will not rashly abandon Taiwan, and the US is unwilling to tie any other issue to its arms sales to Taiwan.
But this support for Taiwan is not a blank check for Taiwan to use any which way. Although Bush didn't repeat the statements Powell made at a press conference in Beijing while meeting with Chinese President Hu Jintao (
In other words, the most important goal of US cross-strait policy is still to maintain the status quo, as defined by the US. If Taiwan's government continues to misjudge the international situation, and US statements lead them to believe that the storm following Powell's statement has blown over, it may continue to move toward independence by, for example, holding a Taiwan independence referendum, or amending the law to allow changing the national emblem. This may cause the situation in the Taiwan Strait to deteriorate and maybe even give rise to a fourth cross-strait crisis.
In future, it is possible that Washington will issue a fourth communique with Beijing, to avert a crisis and guarantee stability in the Taiwan Strait and in East Asia. A fourth communique could clearly state that Taiwan does not enjoy sovereignty and that the US opposes Taiwan's independence, and even change the tactic of "pushing for dialogue" to "pushing for unification" in order to restrain Taiwan's actions. This could be even more harmful to Taiwan.
For the sake of its national interest, the most urgent task for Taiwan's government is to show restraint, strive for cross-strait stability, rebuild mutual trust between Taiwan and the US and put the US-Taiwan relationship back on track. This is the only way that the nation can continue to exist and develop.
Yu Pen-li is an assistant professor in the Graduate Institute of American Studies, Tamkang University.
Translated by Perry Svensson
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