Time and again, a handful of individuals in US academia have accused the Bush administration of either abandoning Taiwan or not doing enough to protect it. Again last week, the same pundits issued a report, Strengthening Freedom in Asia: A Twenty-First Century Agenda for the US-Taiwan Partnership, that at first glance seemed to indicate that Taiwan has friends in high places.
But are they really friends? Is the "freedom" they refer to the universal human right, or is it instead the word cynically used by the Bush administration to justify wars in the Middle East and elsewhere? To put it differently, do these experts really care about a democratic Taiwan, or is their penultimate goal rather the containment of China to ensure that, as envisioned by Paul Wolfowitz in 1992, no power ever manages to rival US hegemony?
For the most part, these "defenders" of Taiwan are hawks at think tanks such as the American Enterprise Institute (AEI), the Heritage Foundation, the Project for a New American Century and Armitage International. One thing these organizations have in common is their intimate ties to the US defense establishment. In their view, international security is best served through further militarization -- greater investment in weapons, more reliance on force to solve problems and preemptive military action. All, furthermore, tend to ridicule the UN and have served as proponents of a "Pax Americana."
Case in point was former US Air Force officer and current president of the Project 2049 Institute Mark Stokes' contention, during an AEI forum last week, that Taiwan must tap into its technological base and turn fully private firms into global security companies based on the "US defense supply chain" model. In other words, what was best for Taiwan was a military-industrial complex of the kind that has led to the very military adventurism that, in the opinion of many, has made the world more dangerous for all and would likely result in an arms race with China, out of which no good can come.
We must remember that it was AEI (where Wolfowitz now works after being forced to leave the World Bank) and its likes that orchestrated the invasion of Iraq and the disastrous occupation that followed. It was their reliance on biased intelligence that supported their preconceptions, their support for the long-discredited Ahmed Chalabi and their indifference to the suffering of Iraqis that allowed the occupation to sink into a deadly insurgency. It is also they who are calling for Iran to be next.
These hawks do not really care about democracy; what matters to them, rather, is preserving US hegemony. If that means supporting Taiwan as a hedge -- or an "unsinkable aircraft carrier" -- against China, so be it. But it is hard to imagine these same experts clamoring for Taiwan's democracy absent a China that, at some point in the future, could threaten US primacy.
AEI and its kind are nothing more than poster boys for the US arms industry and the hardliners who seek to contain China. To them, Taiwan provides a convenient cover. Nothing more.
We cannot, however, blame the hawks for getting so much air time. The liberal think tanks in the US, such as the Brookings Institution and the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, have largely failed to engage the public or to publicize their views to the extent AEI and others have.
Until left-leaning think tanks add their voices to the chorus and come to Taiwan's assistance for principles that are truly based on a belief in the value of democracy, hawks in China and experts the world over will have good reason to doubt that US voices pretending to care for Taiwan are not doing this for cynical, if not more obscure, reasons.
J. Michael Cole is a writer based in Taipei.
In the event of a war with China, Taiwan has some surprisingly tough defenses that could make it as difficult to tackle as a porcupine: A shoreline dotted with swamps, rocks and concrete barriers; conscription for all adult men; highways and airports that are built to double as hardened combat facilities. This porcupine has a soft underbelly, though, and the war in Iran is exposing it: energy. About 39,000 ships dock at Taiwan’s ports each year, more than the 30,000 that transit the Strait of Hormuz. About one-fifth of their inbound tonnage is coal, oil, refined fuels and liquefied natural gas (LNG),
On Monday, the day before Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Chairwoman Cheng Li-wun (鄭麗文) departed on her visit to China, the party released a promotional video titled “Only with peace can we ‘lie flat’” to highlight its desire to have peace across the Taiwan Strait. However, its use of the expression “lie flat” (tang ping, 躺平) drew sarcastic comments, with critics saying it sounded as if the party was “bowing down” to the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). Amid the controversy over the opposition parties blocking proposed defense budgets, Cheng departed for China after receiving an invitation from the CCP, with a meeting with
Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Chairwoman Cheng Li-wun (鄭麗文) is leading a delegation to China through Sunday. She is expected to meet with Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) in Beijing tomorrow. That date coincides with the anniversary of the signing of the Taiwan Relations Act (TRA), which marked a cornerstone of Taiwan-US relations. Staging their meeting on this date makes it clear that the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) intends to challenge the US and demonstrate its “authority” over Taiwan. Since the US severed official diplomatic relations with Taiwan in 1979, it has relied on the TRA as a legal basis for all
Taiwan ranks second globally in terms of share of population with a higher-education degree, with about 60 percent of Taiwanese holding a post-secondary or graduate degree, a survey by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development showed. The findings are consistent with Ministry of the Interior data, which showed that as of the end of last year, 10.602 million Taiwanese had completed post-secondary education or higher. Among them, the number of women with graduate degrees was 786,000, an increase of 48.1 percent over the past decade and a faster rate of growth than among men. A highly educated population brings clear advantages.
RSS