As the saying goes, you stand where you sit. Not long ago, when Paul Wolfowitz was closer to defense than the corporatism he now embodies, he was instrumental in the drafting of alarming reports about the rise of the Chinese military and the threat that this represented to US security and, by extension, Taiwan.
Now that he is chairman of the US-Taiwan Business Council, however, Wolfowitz sings a different tune. This does not mean that his views on the Chinese military threat have softened, but his new role forces him to look at the same object from a different perspective. By doing so, he appears to have lost sight of the fact that China remains a threat, especially in the proximate environment of Taiwan.
Wolfowitz, like many others who look at Taiwan from a purely economic angle, appears to have divorced a conundrum that can only be fully understood if all the components are taken into consideration. In other words, despite what President Ma Ying-jeou’s (馬英九) administration has repeatedly said, the question of cross-strait economics simply cannot be addressed without also taking into account matters of politics and security.
However, this is exactly what the hitherto hawkish Wolfowitz appeared to be arguing when he told the American Enterprise Institute in Washington that “I really hope that somehow the two political parties find a way to come together in a truly bipartisan spirit, because getting an ECFA [economic cooperation framework agreement] and getting it right — which means it will be sustainable even if there is a change in administrations in Taipei — is not only important to Taiwan’s economy, it is important to Taiwan’s national security.”
If, as it is becoming increasingly clear, an ECFA and cross-strait economic integration are non-traditional means to achieve the same objective — that is, unification — how can such agreements be “important to Taiwan’s national security”?
What is national security, anyway? Is it simply the absence of war, or is it, more crucially, the assurance that a nation will be allowed to express itself without fear, intimidation and in a manner that reflects the majority of its constituents?
The US has long insisted that the Taiwan question should be resolved by both sides of the Taiwan Strait in a peaceful way. Peaceful, however, does not only apply to military force; negotiations behind closed doors by elite groups that are neither elected nor representative of the public, in which one party does not recognize the legal existence of the other, bears all the hallmarks of hostility. It is subtler and, on the surface, non-threatening, but if the desired result is the subjugation of 23 million people and the eventual curtailment of their identity and freedoms, it is not peaceful. An ECFA is an instrument to create economic hyper-dependence on China that will give Beijing additional means to coerce Taipei politically.
Far too often, the conservative Blue Team in Washington has looked at China from a purely security angle, an influence that at times has undermined relations between Beijing and Washington. Equally misleading is the other end of the spectrum, led by stock investors and business council chairs, which fails to add politics and security to the cross-strait equation and looks at the matter as if it involved two equal entities.
That isn’t the case. One side has a longstanding policy of unification, by force if necessary. While the “by force if necessary” appears unlikely in the current atmosphere, there is no doubt that the military option can be reactivated at a moment’s notice.
Yes, a takeover by economic means is “peaceful” by conventional definition, but the result is the same: 23 million people (minus the minority that seeks unification) are forced to accept an outcome that doesn’t represent their core values.
J. Michael Cole is an editor at the Taipei Times.
When US budget carrier Southwest Airlines last week announced a new partnership with China Airlines, Southwest’s social media were filled with comments from travelers excited by the new opportunity to visit China. Of course, China Airlines is not based in China, but in Taiwan, and the new partnership connects Taiwan Taoyuan International Airport with 30 cities across the US. At a time when China is increasing efforts on all fronts to falsely label Taiwan as “China” in all arenas, Taiwan does itself no favors by having its flagship carrier named China Airlines. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs is eager to jump at
The muting of the line “I’m from Taiwan” (我台灣來欸), sung in Hoklo (commonly known as Taiwanese), during a performance at the closing ceremony of the World Masters Games in New Taipei City on May 31 has sparked a public outcry. The lyric from the well-known song All Eyes on Me (世界都看見) — originally written and performed by Taiwanese hip-hop group Nine One One (玖壹壹) — was muted twice, while the subtitles on the screen showed an alternate line, “we come here together” (阮作伙來欸), which was not sung. The song, performed at the ceremony by a cheerleading group, was the theme
Secretary of State Marco Rubio raised eyebrows recently when he declared the era of American unipolarity over. He described America’s unrivaled dominance of the international system as an anomaly that was created by the collapse of the Soviet Union at the end of the Cold War. Now, he observed, the United States was returning to a more multipolar world where there are great powers in different parts of the planet. He pointed to China and Russia, as well as “rogue states like Iran and North Korea” as examples of countries the United States must contend with. This all begs the question:
Liberals have wasted no time in pointing to Karol Nawrocki’s lack of qualifications for his new job as president of Poland. He has never previously held political office. He won by the narrowest of margins, with 50.9 percent of the vote. However, Nawrocki possesses the one qualification that many national populists value above all other: a taste for physical strength laced with violence. Nawrocki is a former boxer who still likes to go a few rounds. He is also such an enthusiastic soccer supporter that he reportedly got the logos of his two favorite teams — Chelsea and Lechia Gdansk —
RSS