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Taiwan is just a pawn

The US' ambiguous treatment of the Taiwan question serves its interests well on both sides of the Taiwan Strait. While China continues to prop up the US economy, the US uses Taiwan as subtle leverage to pressure China on many fronts. Now, with the Taiwan Relations Act, the US plays its wild card in an effort to make Taiwan pay a heavy price for this "special" relationship.

Buying billions of dollars worth of weapons (some say antiquated and overpriced ones) for Taiwan would be futile. No matter how well prepared Taiwan thinks it could become, in a conflict with China, without outside assistance (ie, US intervention), China's huge military would be able to control Taiwan in just a matter of days.

Ironically, if Taiwan were really to unite peacefully (or not) with China, the US would lose a great deal of strategic power. China's military would be able to flex its muscles deep into the Pacific Ocean, separating the US' sphere of influence between the North and South Pacific.

Why should Taiwan be forced to play this extremely expensive and dangerous game between two superpowers? One of my Taiwanese friends has an ideal solution: if Taiwan really wants to remain a democracy, they could pay an annual tax to the US of several billion dollars.

We can call this "Protection Tax." This would probably go a long way to ensuring the US's genuine concern for Taiwan. After all, the real game is mostly about money and power, not simply worrying about a small nation's democracy.

Jesse Chalfin Changhua
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