THE MORE they protest, the more time and verbiage they expend and the more they insist that they respect Taiwan's democracy, the more obvious it becomes. The US State Department, its officials and henchmen seem to have made another secret deal with China to limit and control the democracy and freedom of Taiwan.
American Institute in Taiwan (AIT) Chairman Raymond Burghardt recently finished up a special trip to Taiwan to talk to both presidential candidates; he also sought reassurances from President Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁) that he would honor his past pledges and do nothing drastic in his last months in office. Earlier, AIT Director Stephen Young visited Chen to also obtain similar assurances. During a round table with reporters on Dec. 6, US Assistant Secretary of State Thomas Christensen replayed the worn record of how much the US needed to make its position clear, very clear. We had heard the same lines from US Deputy Secretary of State John Negroponte, NSC Senior Director for East Asian Affairs Dennis Wilder and Christensen in September.
Any rational person must wonder at the overkill, concern and effort to clarify ad nauseam that the US cares deeply about Taiwan's democracy -- except that it doesn't want Taiwan to practice it. The issue is Taiwan's UN referendum, a referendum that everyone agrees will have no binding power or consequence. So why all the effort? Shades of US secretary of state Henry Kissinger, the sellout king par excellence: Has the US made another secret deal with China and let China define the terms?
Credibility Ranking Zero: Will someone please throw these US officials more straws to grasp at. The lady doth protest too much. While they try to place the burden of sincerity and responsibility on Chen, the spotlight instead focuses on them.
These are the people who repeatedly insist that they have not changed their "one China" policy.
But they have. These are the people who justified war by insisting that there were weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. But there weren't. These are the same people who insist that they have always done what is best for Taiwan. But they haven't.
Have you ever wondered why Taiwan is the only country that seems capable of upsetting the fictitious "status quo" in the Taiwan Strait? Have you ever wondered why Taiwan is the only country of the three (China, Taiwan and the US) that is bound to honor its pledges, that Taiwan is the only country that has had to spell out its pledges?
Can anyone clearly state what the US is obligated to do regarding Taiwan and the "status quo"? Can anyone clearly state what China is obligated to do regarding Taiwan and the "status quo"? The burden only falls on Taiwan and evidence shows that this burden comes from a secret deal that Taiwan was not privy to.
US policy on Taiwan and China is vacuous, vague and vapid. It has purposely been kept this way for more than half a century so that no one can clearly define the US' obligations. China, on the other hand, has always insisted that it has no obligations except the right to declare war when it feels offended and that it can move the goal posts that determine what offends it when it so pleases.
That so much effort has been expended over such minutia as Taiwan's UN referendum can only point to one thing: a secret deal with China in which the US contains Taiwan in the ways and minutiae that China wants Taiwan contained.
What exactly could or does the US gain from such a secret deal with China? Could it be a host of cheap products? Port privileges for its navy? Token help with North Korea? A promise of help with Iran after China finishes selling Iran what it needs to build nuclear weapons? What exactly is the US getting out of jumping through these hoops for China and why does it always let China define the terms and limits of the agreements?
This is the same US that does not hesitate to support Kosovo's independence in opposition to Russia. This is the same US that continues to force feed democracy on three disparate groups in Iraq. This is the same US that made secret deals with China prior to the Shanghai Communique.
Burghardt's message ended with the words that new leaders present a new opportunity to solve problems on important issues.
He did not want Chen to cause problems for his successor. It is no wonder that the US shows favoritism for wishy-washy KMT presidential candidate Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九), who is also China's favorite in the upcoming elections.
However, the US is also going to have a new leadership soon. Will its new president be bound by the secret deals of the past? Will he or she have a new opportunity to solve problems and deal with the important issues of the Taiwan Strait in a new way? Will we even see some new faces in the State Department?
Jerome Keating is a Taiwan-based writer.
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