US President George W. Bush has at long last demonstrated that he is aware of Taiwan's value as a democracy. Given recent US attitudes and commentary directed at this country, Bush is to be congratulated for his sudden enlightenment.
The question that now remains is this: Since the White House appears ready to accept that Taiwan is no longer an authoritarian state controlled by a murderous dictator, how will it translate this knowledge into a meaningful strategy for Taiwan?
Even as Bush praised Taiwan's progress in democratization, he committed the usual fallacy of placing Taiwan under the category of "Chinese society" as a whole -- thus pandering to the knee-jerk "Greater China" myth that is at the heart of Taiwan's difficulties in the first place.
"By embracing freedom at all levels, Taiwan has delivered prosperity to its people and created a free and democratic Chinese society," Bush said on Wednesday in Kyoto, Japan.
Loose talk about "Chinese society" may make for good rhetoric, but it hardly makes for good historical fact. When, during the past 200 years for a start, has Taiwan's historical experience been even remotely akin to China's experience? The short answer is that it has not. One would be better off comparing Canada and Pakistan, as they were both part of the British empire at some point.
Eventually the US must realize that the "Taiwan issue" can not be treated as a subset of the "China issue." Many people in the US have become accustomed to treating Washington's policy toward Taiwan as a small and irksome outgrowth of Sino-American relations. This approach may have had currency in 1951, but it makes little sense now.
From the US' perspective, preserving Taiwan's de facto independence is not the end game -- nor is maintaining trouble-free relations with China.
US policymakers seem to be unable to decide how to deal with China, and as a result, they lack a grand vision for US policy in the region. Merely playing "diplomacy" -- which by current US standards means not doing anything that someone might find distasteful, ever -- is not going to help the US achieve its aims in the region.
The ultimate US goal in East Asia must be the preservation of the current strategic situation, with the US as the undisputed guarantor of regional stability and security. Every policy that Washington employs should be working toward this end. Unfortunately, the shortsightedness of successive US administrations has undermined this strategy, especially when it comes to Taiwan.
After all, one could look at how China deals with Taiwan as a barometer for how China will deal with the rest of the world. Add to this the vital geographic and strategic importance of Taiwan, and one arrives at a pretty compelling argument for ensuring that this country remains a "buffer" between the world's second and third largest economies -- Japan and China, respectively.
Washington is going to have to make a decision about whether or not it wants to retain the mantle of leadership in the Asia-Pacific. The choice should not be too difficult, given that the alternative -- letting Japan and China slug it out for control of the West Pacific -- could well lead to World War III.
Taiwan has been compared to Spain in 1936 -- a troubled, fledgling democratic state at threat internally and externally. The democracies of the world stood aside as Spain fell victim to authoritarianism, backed by Nazi Germany. Are they going to wait until it is too late for Taiwan, as well?
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