The recent publication of a memoir by former US negotiator Jeremy Stone re-ignited a controversy last week over alleged plans under former president Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁) to launch a nuclear weapons program.
Stone’s allegations, which ostensibly were sourced from and corroborated post facto by former National Security Council secretary-general Su Chi (蘇起) — who at the time the controversy emerged was a Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) legislator — are hard to substantiate. That the Chen administration, for all its faults, would have engaged in nuclear adventurism stretches credulity. Though it has the technical know-how to do so (and inside sources say a turnaround could take as little as one year), Taiwan could hardly have launched a nuclear weapons program without the US, let alone China, becoming aware of it.
One does not have to read Stone’s book too closely to realize that the views of the former president of the Federation of American Scientists-turned-cross-strait-troubleshooter are wildly skewed in Beijing’s favor. Nothing makes this more evident than the many variations he uses to portray the Chen administration as a “troublemaker,” which may account for Stone’s credulity on the alleged nuclear program.
Unbeknownst to Stone, this very bias against Taipei — not his alone, but that of the international community — lies at the very heart of Taiwan’s defense malaise. In fact, the inherent imbalance was the main reason behind this newspaper’s decision, in August 2004, to publish an editorial that put the nuclear option on the table (despite what Su and Stone may believe, however, the Taipei Times did not and does not have a direct line to the Presidential Office or Democratic Progressive Party headquarters).
More than six years have elapsed and the balance of power in the Taiwan Strait has only continued to shift in Beijing’s favor. Furthermore, nuclear-armed China continues to threaten Taiwan, the would-be “troublemaker” who at no point under Chen adopted anything that could have been interpreted as a belligerent posture.
Given that this situation appears to be a comfortable “status quo” for the likes of Stone, is it not conceivable that Taiwanese would ponder various means to oppose China militarily and present it with a credible deterrent? In and of themselves, peace and democracy will be of little help against an opponent who plays by different rules, as highlighted by Beijing’s refusal to renounce the use of force against Taiwan amid supposedly warming ties. While nuclear weapons may be an extreme recourse — and an unadvisable one at that — Taiwan cannot afford the gullibility that has marked the course adopted by President Ma Ying-jeou’s (馬英九) administration in cross-strait rapprochement.
While his Cabinet has rightly stuck to less problematic, though by no means inconsequential, matters like economics in its dialogue with Beijing, there is no doubt that in the months ahead — especially as we get closer to Chinese President Hu Jintao’s (胡錦濤) stepping down as head of state — talks will touch on more controversial issues such as identity and sovereignty. Once those topics are tackled, friction is bound to emerge, which could quickly escalate and spin out of control. Any outcome to the 2012 presidential poll in Taiwan that isn’t to China’s taste could also serve as a catalyst for a military option.
In such a situation, Beijing, seeing a weakened opponent, could calculate that it can get away with the use of force at little cost, making military action more likely.
That is why, even amid untested signs of rapprochement, Taiwan must continue to acquire and develop not only the means to protect itself, but solid deterrent capabilities so that any military adventurism on Beijing’s part to fulfill its irredentist dreams would come at great cost. A strong Taiwan means less risk of war, not the other way around.
Does Taiwan need nuclear weapons for this? Probably not, but it certainly needs more than naivety and Ma sloganeering, and more than the dishonest diplomacy exercised by the likes of Stone.
Taiwan stands at the epicenter of a seismic shift that will determine the Indo-Pacific’s future security architecture. Whether deterrence prevails or collapses will reverberate far beyond the Taiwan Strait, fundamentally reshaping global power dynamics. The stakes could not be higher. Today, Taipei confronts an unprecedented convergence of threats from an increasingly muscular China that has intensified its multidimensional pressure campaign. Beijing’s strategy is comprehensive: military intimidation, diplomatic isolation, economic coercion, and sophisticated influence operations designed to fracture Taiwan’s democratic society from within. This challenge is magnified by Taiwan’s internal political divisions, which extend to fundamental questions about the island’s identity and future
The narrative surrounding Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s attendance at last week’s Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) summit — where he held hands with Russian President Vladimir Putin and chatted amiably with Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) — was widely framed as a signal of Modi distancing himself from the US and edging closer to regional autocrats. It was depicted as Modi reacting to the levying of high US tariffs, burying the hatchet over border disputes with China, and heralding less engagement with the Quadrilateral Security dialogue (Quad) composed of the US, India, Japan and Australia. With Modi in China for the
The Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) has postponed its chairperson candidate registration for two weeks, and so far, nine people have announced their intention to run for chairperson, the most on record, with more expected to announce their campaign in the final days. On the evening of Aug. 23, shortly after seven KMT lawmakers survived recall votes, KMT Chairman Eric Chu (朱立倫) announced he would step down and urged Taichung Mayor Lu Shiow-yen (盧秀燕) to step in and lead the party back to power. Lu immediately ruled herself out the following day, leaving the subject in question. In the days that followed, several
The Jamestown Foundation last week published an article exposing Beijing’s oil rigs and other potential dual-use platforms in waters near Pratas Island (Dongsha Island, 東沙島). China’s activities there resembled what they did in the East China Sea, inside the exclusive economic zones of Japan and South Korea, as well as with other South China Sea claimants. However, the most surprising element of the report was that the authors’ government contacts and Jamestown’s own evinced little awareness of China’s activities. That Beijing’s testing of Taiwanese (and its allies) situational awareness seemingly went unnoticed strongly suggests the need for more intelligence. Taiwan’s naval
RSS