What this means is that, unless the Taiwanese people choose to become a province of China, the US and Japan will act to maintain Taiwan's choice to determine their livelihood independently of Chinese coercion. The Oct. 28 statement about the nuclear carrier and the Oct. 29 joint statement means that Washington and Tokyo will have a far more efficient means of achieving those Common Strategic Objectives.
As reported in an interview with the Taipei Times published on Oct. 31, retired Japanese Admiral Sumihiko Kawamura, a former anti-submarine air force commander, stated that China's submarines are mostly conventional and even its Kilo class submarines are easy to detect. He said that in conflict with the US and Japan, China's submarines were likely to last less than a week.
Asked if he thought that Taiwan needed to have new submarines as a top defense priority, Kawamura said P-3C maritime-patrol aircraft and better command, communications, coordination, computers, intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance (C4ISR) should take precedence.
A few Taiwanese submarines which are unable to communicate with US and Japanese aircraft carriers, surface ships, maritime-patrol aircraft and submarines might not survive a Chinese onslaught, and the US and Japan would be handicapped to come to the support of a Taiwanese navy and air force with which it cannot communicate on a real time basis.
The Feb. 19 statement of US-Japan common strategic objectives was an important signal to Taiwan and to China.
The Oct. 28 aircraft carrier decision and the Oct. 29 statement of the US and Japanese governments are evidence that by linking Taiwan to the US-Japan alliance, today's young Taiwanese and their children may continue to decide their own futures, a hard fought legacy achieved by their parents and grandparents after much suffering.
Washington and Tokyo are acting in their own national interests, but their decisions of Feb. 19 and of Oct. 28 and 29 have presented Taiwan a golden opportunity for freedom in the 21st century.
James Auer is a research professor at the Vanderbilt School of Engineering. He served as a special assistant for Japan in the Office of the Secretary of Defense for 10 years.
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