As France tries to pressure the rest of the EU into lifting the arms embargo on China, some readers might remember that Christine Deviers-Joncour -- the erstwhile mistress of former French foreign minister Roland Dumas whose tell-all books played a serious role in clarifying details of the scandal surrounding the kickbacks involved in Taiwan's purchase of Lafayette frigates in the early 1990s -- once wrote a book about herself called The Whore of the Republic.
The former lingerie model's right to this title is now under severe challenge from France's Defense Minster Michele Alliot-Marie, who last week said -- and you should probably reach for your sick bags now -- "France has the strictest, most stringent rules applying to the sale of weapons of the European Union and probably in the world." As the American writer Fran Lebowitz once said: "To the French, lying is simply talking."
In Taiwan we know about French arms sales -- principally how they are manipulated so that everyone in on the deal can pocket huge wads of cash at the taxpayers' expense. According to Dumas himself, the sum involved in the Lafayette case was US$500 million with People First Party Chairman James Soong's then office, the Chinese Nationalist Party's (KMT) secretariat general, acting as bagman. What could Alliot-Marie's "strict rules" be? Perhaps she means a strict scale of bribes.
The English poet Coleridge, of Ancient Mariner fame, once said that ""Frenchmen are like grains of gunpowder, -- each by itself smutty and contemptible, but mass them together and they are terrible indeed." How well the arms embargo case illustrates this. The desire to sell arms to a tyranny like China is smutty and contemptible indeed. But when those who have influence can persuade the government to do their bidding, the result may quite possibly be terrible -- France conniving at the destruction of a liberal democracy simply to enrich its "merchants of death" and their politician friends.
President Chen Shui-bian (
Deeds, as well as words, should also be considered. The arms ban is EU-wide, but the pressure to lift it is almost entirely driven by France, with a little help from the Germans. Taiwan should let it be known that should the ban be lifted it will immediately act against French interests in Taiwan and will subsequently do the same thing with any other EU country that sell weapons to China.
What sort of actions should be taken? The immediate cessation of visa-free privileges and an astronomical raising of visa fees, the closing of cultural institutions, the ending of scholarships for French students, refusal to grant or renew French nationals alien residency, refusal to accept documents authenticated by the French government, the severing of air agreements -- most of these measures are quite feasible and were used against South Korea in the early1990s.
But Taiwan should go further and impose a massive tariff, say 100 percent, on all goods made by French companies; the proceeds, such as they might be, should go to the defense budget. That this violates WTO protocols bothers us as much as the UN bothers US Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld. That the French might retaliate makes us laugh. Let them double the price they pay for information technology if they want; much of it simply cannot be sourced elsewhere. Taiwan, however, will survive more expensive Louis Vuitton bags.
Recently, China launched another diplomatic offensive against Taiwan, improperly linking its “one China principle” with UN General Assembly Resolution 2758 to constrain Taiwan’s diplomatic space. After Taiwan’s presidential election on Jan. 13, China persuaded Nauru to sever diplomatic ties with Taiwan. Nauru cited Resolution 2758 in its declaration of the diplomatic break. Subsequently, during the WHO Executive Board meeting that month, Beijing rallied countries including Venezuela, Zimbabwe, Belarus, Egypt, Nicaragua, Sri Lanka, Laos, Russia, Syria and Pakistan to reiterate the “one China principle” in their statements, and assert that “Resolution 2758 has settled the status of Taiwan” to hinder Taiwan’s
Can US dialogue and cooperation with the communist dictatorship in Beijing help avert a Taiwan Strait crisis? Or is US President Joe Biden playing into Chinese President Xi Jinping’s (習近平) hands? With America preoccupied with the wars in Europe and the Middle East, Biden is seeking better relations with Xi’s regime. The goal is to responsibly manage US-China competition and prevent unintended conflict, thereby hoping to create greater space for the two countries to work together in areas where their interests align. The existing wars have already stretched US military resources thin, and the last thing Biden wants is yet another war.
As Maldivian President Mohamed Muizzu’s party won by a landslide in Sunday’s parliamentary election, it is a good time to take another look at recent developments in the Maldivian foreign policy. While Muizzu has been promoting his “Maldives First” policy, the agenda seems to have lost sight of a number of factors. Contemporary Maldivian policy serves as a stark illustration of how a blend of missteps in public posturing, populist agendas and inattentive leadership can lead to diplomatic setbacks and damage a country’s long-term foreign policy priorities. Over the past few months, Maldivian foreign policy has entangled itself in playing
A group of Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) lawmakers led by the party’s legislative caucus whip Fu Kun-chi (?) are to visit Beijing for four days this week, but some have questioned the timing and purpose of the visit, which demonstrates the KMT caucus’ increasing arrogance. Fu on Wednesday last week confirmed that following an invitation by Beijing, he would lead a group of lawmakers to China from Thursday to Sunday to discuss tourism and agricultural exports, but he refused to say whether they would meet with Chinese officials. That the visit is taking place during the legislative session and in the aftermath