A few weeks ago there was an article by George Washington University professor Charles Glaser suggesting that the US should consider backing away from its commitments to Taiwan under the Taiwan Relations Act. I wrote earlier why I didn’t agree with that proposition at all (“Charles Glaser’s fallacious arguments,” March 7, page 8).
Now comes a new report from the University of Virginia, titled A Way Ahead with China, outlining a number of conciliatory measures the US should consider in order to improve relations with China. The report is the product of a January conference at the university’s Miller Center of Public Affairs, which was chaired by Joseph Prueher, former US ambassador to China and a former commander of the US Pacific Command.
In the report, the authors say the US should take a “fresh look” at relations with Taiwan. Of course one should always be willing to take a “fresh look” at sensitive issues, but when we read further, this “fresh look” boils down to rethinking US arms sales and re-examining the complex relationship “in the layers of economy, politics and culture.”
The problem with this kind of thinking is that it puts the onus for the existing tensions on the US (for offering the arms to Taiwan) and on Taiwan (for wanting the arms to protect itself). The mistake the authors make is similar to that of Glaser: The idea that if we remove arms sales to Taiwan as an irritant in the US-China relations, then all will be well.
The authors of the report, like Glaser, fail to see that diminishing US support for Taiwan will only make China more aggressive toward the nation. Arms sales to Taiwan are not the real irritant to the Chinese. Taiwan’s existence as a free and democratic nation is what really bothers the authoritarian rulers in Beijing. It is a clear example that Asian people can live freely in a vibrant, multiparty political system.
“Democracy” is the real threat to Beijing, and we need to keep Taiwan free and democratic if we ever want China itself to make a transition to democracy.
So if we want to take a “fresh look” at relations with Taiwan, I would have a few different suggestions. We need to fully maintain our defense commitments to the nation and its people, but we need to upgrade our relations — and here I borrow a phrase from the Virginia report — “in the layers of economy, politics and culture.”
In terms of economic ties, there is an obvious opportunity: Let us start negotiating with Taiwan on a free-trade agreement. This has been in discussion for almost a decade, but no administration — Democrat or Republican — has had the political will to move forward on it. Taiwan is at the forefront of innovation, particularly in the information-technology industry. In its importance to the world economy, Taiwan ranks up there with Japan and South Korea.
However, the clearest need for a fresh look is at the political level. Owing to unfortunate events in history, Taiwan and its people ended up in the present limbo of political isolation. This isolation will not end if we continue to cling to an outdated status quo or if we succumb to Chinese pressure.
A peaceful resolution can only be found if we work toward normalization of relations with the nation and its people, so they can find their niche in the family of nations. The US and its West European allies need to be much more creative in helping to find a way forward for Taiwan to find its rightful place in the international community as a free and democratic nation. That would really be “a way ahead with Taiwan.”
Nat Bellocchi is a former chairman of the American Institute in Taiwan and a special adviser to the Liberty Times Group. The views expressed in this article are his own.
Over the past few years, migrant workers’ rights have improved in Taiwan, but there has not been a comparable improvement in protections for employers, who are faced with a range of challenges, such as family nurses mistreating patients or workers threatening to change brokers or demanding that employers change their jobs. Then there is the decrease in work standards. Migrant workers too often find the lure of the underground jobs market irresistible, are unaware of employment laws and regulations, or have found that National Immigration Agency (NIA) checks are lax, and as a result abscond. If this happens, what protections or
The Central Epidemic Command Center (CECC) has been giving daily COVID-19 updates for almost four months, and on several occasions when major developments have arisen, the news conferences have attracted large numbers of viewers. The entire nation is anxious about the pandemic, and interest in the latest news has become a part of daily life. Watching the center’s daily news conferences has become something of a national ritual. The pandemic has stabilized within Taiwan due to the admirable efforts of each person living in the nation conducting themselves with the utmost responsibility, and in certain cases making considerable sacrifices within their
This year marks the 75th anniversary of the end of World War II. In that war’s aftermath, novelist George Orwell produced two prophetic works. The first, Animal Farm, was published in August 1945; the second, Nineteen Eighty-Four, came out in June 1949. Both still ring true and cover a wide range of messages, including even how the mid-sized nation of Taiwan achieved its democracy and why it still maintains an outlier status in a COVID-19 world. With its full planetary scope, WWII left untold millions dead and injured, cities were destroyed and the future path of most nations was altered. New
United States Senator “Kit” Bond (R-MO) was a real leader on Asia policy during his time in Congress. Like most senators, he had a ready one-liner for every occasion. The one I never tired of hearing is “Well, looks like everything has been said. The problem is not everyone has said it.” It’s sort of like with US-China great power competition. There is not much new to say. This is especially true because it’s largely a story of what’s already happened: BRI, Made in China 2025, aggression in the South China Sea, provocations on the Indian border, cyber-hacks, erosion of “one country,
RSS