Ted Galen Carpenter of the Cato Institute recently published a book advocating a fundamental change in the US' Taiwan policy. Instead of guaranteeing Taiwan's security, he argues, the US should only making weapons available to Taipei while letting Taiwan fan for itself in case of an attack by China.
Save for salient points regarding Taiwan's defense capabilities, questions may be raised on several areas of his argument, especially regarding his fundamental premises that Beijing has the unshakable resolve to annex Taiwan and that there is a net long-term benefit to the US to abandon Taiwan. The glaring absence in his book of meaningful insights into the domino effect of Taiwan's fall in the context of regional stability as well as the US global strategic interests seems to readily undermine his last assumption.
Admittedly, he saw no chance that his suggestions would be adopted by the US government under the current political climate. Casting light on Taipei's weak participation with respect to the US-Taiwan strategic partnership for cross-strait and regional stability appears to be the book's most constructive aspect, even though in the short term it will have detrimental effect on the US public's perception of the Taiwanese people. Those effects would be fleeting if the Taiwanese people quickly make efforts to nip Taiwan-bashing in the bud before it becomes a growth industry.
Underscoring the urgency is the sense of resentment prevalent in his reference to Taiwan's perceived inattentiveness in the last few years toward defense readiness. When defense thinkers -- Carpenter's feeling on this particular subject is apparently shared by many in the US -- of an ally start to depict Taiwan with expressions such as "irrationally," or more emphatically "freeloader" and "getting a free ride" as being tossed around in his book-release publicity gathering, the Taiwanese people can't afford a continuing silence. This would only suggest Taiwan's widespread numbness toward defense matters.
On a broader scale, the respect as well as empathy toward Taiwan as a democracy in the eyes of the global community could suffer irreparable damage, should the perception spread of a Taiwanese nation that is reluctant to defend itself. That would bode ill for Taiwan's efforts to join international organizations as a sovereign entity.
Strange as it may seem, the Taiwanese public's indifference might have stemmed in part from a victim's mentality pervasive in Taiwanese society, whereby the historical wrongs of the superpowers should saddle the US with the obligation to safeguard Taiwan's security.
Any remaining instinct for self-preservation is further discouraged by the US's outdated "one China" policy, which offers scant long-term prospects for a sovereign Taiwan. This is then exploited for ulterior purposes by the pan-blue camp leaders, whose repeated blockage of the special arms-procurement bill exacerbates the US' frustration.
The fact remains that the pan-blue camp is not only getting a free ride on the US, it is also freeloading on the pan-green camp's political capital. It's part of the general trend that the pan-blue camp has developed over the last six years, of taking advantage of the pan-green camp's deep concern regarding Taiwan's long-term interests -- especially national security -- for its own political gains.
For instance, regulating cross-strait affairs is a short-term inconvenience to the traveling public and businesses and therefore requires the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) to spend political capital. The same goes for the elimination of the 18 percent preferential interest rate for public employee pensions, the build-up of nation's deterrence and the insistence on national sovereignty and security as preconditions for direct links.
In each of these undertakings, the pan-blue camp leaders not only freeload on the DPP but also seek to make additional political hay by staking an opposing position.
One of the consequences is that the Taiwanese public judges the conduct of the DPP members and Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) members with two vastly different standards, often resulting in an inherent electoral disadvantage for the DPP. Still, sooner or later, the Taiwanese people must come to the conclusion that the KMT doesn't have a future plan for Taiwan except as a part of China.
Currently, short-term economic interests appear to have dulled the Taiwanese public's sense of unease towards that unavoidable conclusion. But matters have become much more urgent now that the KMT's behavior is threatening US-Taiwan relations.
It is incumbent upon the Taiwanese people to put all the pressure they can muster to force the pan-blue coalition to act on the arms bill.
If it's too optimistic to expect that the Taiwanese people will take this opportunity to face up to the problem of the KMT's freeloading habits, they should at least attempt to remove the most convenient excuse which Taiwan's critics in the US tend to employ when advocating dilution of the US security commitments to Taiwan.
This downgrading of the US-Taiwan relations might be the KMT's intention all along. But it could hardly be the wish of the Taiwanese people.
Huang Jei-hsuan
California
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