I find the pan-blue camp's refusal to support the arms package quite disturbing for a number of reasons. First, it sends the wrong message to China and the US. To China it says that Taiwan is not interested in maintaining strong air and naval defenses. This amounts to a de facto policy of appeasement.
Such a policy will only embolden China and indeed, should re-unification occur, it will do so increasingly on Beijing's terms and not Taiwan's.
To the US the message reinforces the "status quo" of national indecision. Is Taiwan a real country or merely a "rebel province" masquerading as a country?
Given the domestic and Chinese criticism that the Bush administration received when it first offered the package in 2001, I find it alarming and bizarre that Taiwan cannot make a decision to accept or reject the proposal.
Indeed, the Bush offer was a policy reversal from the Clinton years. Should Taiwan find a Democrat in the White House in 2009, I would not be surprised if the present offer is withdrawn with no substitutes.
Furthermore, the pan-blue camp's criticism that the weapons are overpriced and aren't state-of-the-art -- and therefore should be "given" to Taiwan -- is ridiculous and demonstrates the Chinese Nationalist Party's (KMT) limited scope of thinking.
Should the US, by this logic, simply "hand out" our latest cutting edge weapons to Canada, Japan, Britain and whomever else we deem to be our "friend," such a policy would not receive one vote in the US Congress.
Personally, I do not see how the US government, whose first obligation is the defense of US territory and its citizens, could even sell the latest weapons to a military that today is Taiwanese but tomorrow could be China's.
To do so would be irresponsible. It will not happen.
The fact remains that the weapons package is aimed at adequately protecting Taiwan's naval and air theaters of operation, both of which are absolutely paramount in successfully repelling a Chinese attack.
The package also gives Taiwan more time -- albeit very limited time -- to do what needs to be done: declare Taiwan a real, independent republic and acknowledge the People's Republic of China as the real China.
Martin Mitchell
Department of Geography, Minnesota State University
As strategic tensions escalate across the vast Indo-Pacific region, Taiwan has emerged as more than a potential flashpoint. It is the fulcrum upon which the credibility of the evolving American-led strategy of integrated deterrence now rests. How the US and regional powers like Japan respond to Taiwan’s defense, and how credible the deterrent against Chinese aggression proves to be, will profoundly shape the Indo-Pacific security architecture for years to come. A successful defense of Taiwan through strengthened deterrence in the Indo-Pacific would enhance the credibility of the US-led alliance system and underpin America’s global preeminence, while a failure of integrated deterrence would
The Executive Yuan recently revised a page of its Web site on ethnic groups in Taiwan, replacing the term “Han” (漢族) with “the rest of the population.” The page, which was updated on March 24, describes the composition of Taiwan’s registered households as indigenous (2.5 percent), foreign origin (1.2 percent) and the rest of the population (96.2 percent). The change was picked up by a social media user and amplified by local media, sparking heated discussion over the weekend. The pan-blue and pro-China camp called it a politically motivated desinicization attempt to obscure the Han Chinese ethnicity of most Taiwanese.
On Wednesday last week, the Rossiyskaya Gazeta published an article by Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) asserting the People’s Republic of China’s (PRC) territorial claim over Taiwan effective 1945, predicated upon instruments such as the 1943 Cairo Declaration and the 1945 Potsdam Proclamation. The article further contended that this de jure and de facto status was subsequently reaffirmed by UN General Assembly Resolution 2758 of 1971. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs promptly issued a statement categorically repudiating these assertions. In addition to the reasons put forward by the ministry, I believe that China’s assertions are open to questions in international
The Legislative Yuan passed an amendment on Friday last week to add four national holidays and make Workers’ Day a national holiday for all sectors — a move referred to as “four plus one.” The Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) and the Taiwan People’s Party (TPP), who used their combined legislative majority to push the bill through its third reading, claim the holidays were chosen based on their inherent significance and social relevance. However, in passing the amendment, they have stuck to the traditional mindset of taking a holiday just for the sake of it, failing to make good use of
RSS