While the government has announced it would open up eight domestic airports to handle direct cross-strait chartered flights, China’s People’s Liberation Army (PLA) and Civil Aviation Administration held a military drill earlier last month at Shijiazhuang Airport, Hebei Province, assessing eight civilian aircraft on long-range air drops in emergency situations.
This provided ample evidence that the apprehensions of national security specialists that China could adopt a “Trojan horse” strategy against Taiwan were well founded.
There have been precedents for the employment of this strategy. For instance, Israel staged successful military operations using civilian aircraft as cover for both Operation Entebbe in 1967 and Operation Babylon in 1981. Now that Taiwan’s important dual-purpose (civilian and military) airports are to be opened, the security at these airports will be compromised.
Philip Breedlove, vice director of the US’ Joint Staff for Strategic Plans and Policy, recently stated at a congressional hearing that Beijing had completed required military preparations and launched drills along the coastline across Taiwan prior to the March presidential election in the eventuality that the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) candidate won the election and the UN referendums passed.
At the time, cross-strait relations were in such a precarious state that the US Pacific Command dispatched three aircraft carriers — the USS Kitty Hawk, the USS Nimitz and the USS Abraham Lincoln — to the waters just outside the territorial waters in the Taiwan Strait.
Sixty US warships and hundreds of combat aircraft also gathered in the area, resulting in the largest deployment in the region since the 1958 Taiwan Strait Crisis. The mobilization even dwarfed the 1996 crisis. This is evidence of the extent to which China covets Taiwan and of the US government’s determination to safeguard Taiwan.
The most worrying development, however, was that in order to improve cross-strait relations and not “provoke” Beijing, the administration of President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) has allegedly delayed arms sales from the US. The administration of US President George W Bush also froze a US$11 billion arms package for Taiwan, ostensibly over worries that Taipei was not determined enough to enhance its self-defense capabilities.
The Ma government’s ambiguity on arms procurement, its aloofness in its relations with the US and bellicose attitude vis-a-vis Japan over the Diaoyutai (釣魚台) islands incident — an indication of drifting national strategy — have begun to erode the foundations of mutual trust between the three countries. Little wonder that Robert Shutter, a professor at Georgetown University who once worked for the CIA, warned last month that Taiwan should make sure it fully understands the fundamental interest of the US government. If the government turns away from the US and curries favor with Beijing, the US would not rule out achieving agreements with Beijing at the expense of Taiwan.
There is no national defense without psychological defense. The Ma administration has failed to build such psychological protection against China’s military threat and has instead drawn close to China without distinguishing between friend and foe.
This shortcoming represents the biggest threat to Taiwan’s national sovereignty.
Chen Kuo-hsiung is vice general-secretary of the World United Formosans for Independence and general-secretary of the Taiwan National Security Institute.
TRANSLATED BY TED YANG
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