During Chinese President Hu Jintao’s (胡錦濤) recent state visit to the US, US President Barack Obama arranged both a state banquet and a private dinner for Hu. However, the editorials of the leading US media outlets were largely cold toward Hu.
An editorial published in the New York Times on Jan. 17 stated that: “State dinners and 21-gun salutes are ephemeral. What will earn China respect as a major power is if it behaves responsibly. That must be Mr. Obama’s fundamental message.”
Although Taiwan was not a key issue during the Hu-Obama talks, the two leaders allegedly mentioned that both sides of the Taiwan Strait oppose Taiwan’s independence and insist on the so-called “1992 consensus.”
The Chinese Nationalist Party’s (KMT) opposition to independence is understandable, but joint KMT and Chinese Communist Party (CCP) opposition is worrying. This is quite different from President Ma Ying-jeou’s (馬英九) pledge that Taiwan’s future is in the hand of the 23 million Taiwanese and theirs alone.
In the US-China joint statement, Washington said: “The US applauded the Economic Cooperation Framework Agreement [ECFA] and looks forward to efforts by both sides [of the Strait] to increase dialogues and interactions in economic, political, and other fields.”
The US stance will to a certain extent restrict objections to the ECFA within Taiwan, but it also highlights the necessity for active monitoring.
China took over a number of US companies after the global financial crisis and Chinese investment in the US has grown rapidly to a total of US$12 billion. According to a US opinion poll conducted by the Washington Post and ABC News, 61 percent of respondents see China’s economic boom as a threat to their jobs, while only 29 percent of them see it as an opportunity.
With even the US being cautious about, and on occasion restricting Chinese investment, it is even more important for Taiwan to keep a close eye on Chinese investments.
Earlier this month, as the KMT government prioritized cross-strait relations and the party’s supporters, benefiting from what Ma calls the “peace bonus,” bragged about turning tension into cooperation, China’s J-20 stealth fighter made its first-known test flight, while the Taiwanese military organized a disappointing air defense missile test featuring 19 missiles. This represents a severe challenge to national security.
To punish the Obama administration for selling arms to Taipei, Beijing froze Sino-US military exchanges for one year before finally agreeing to a visit by US Secretary of Defense Robert Gates. The purpose was to deter Washington from selling advanced F-16 C/D fighters to Taiwan. Tensions across the Strait may have eased, but China has not relaxed its efforts to cut US arms sales to Taiwan or block all US assistance.
During a joint press conference during Hu’s US visit, Obama said “the US has a fundamental interest in maintaining freedom of navigation” in East Asia, while two US journalists repeatedly challenged Hu on human rights issue.
In addition, the US Department of Defense has always paid close attention to China’s growing military strength, while developing the “air-sea battle” concept in response to China’s strategy to deny the US the ability to intervene in a conflict over Taiwan. Looking at the cautious US strategy and Taiwan’s poor missile test results, we must be alert to the dangers inherent in the term “peace bonus.”
Lin Cheng-yi is a research fellow at Academia Sinica’s Institute of European and American Studies.
TRANSLATED BY EDDY CHANG
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