Do President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) and his administration really want to buy arms from the US? When Ma received US-Taiwan Business Council chairman Paul Wolfowitz, a former US deputy secretary of defense, at the Presidential Office on June 24, he made his 19th public call for the US to sell F-16C/D aircraft to Taiwan. He also admitted that progress is not smooth, because Washington is unwilling to accept Taiwan’s letter of request and has even hinted that such a request should not be made.
Ma offered this explanation as a result of the remarks made by US-Taiwan Business Council president Rupert -Hammond--Chambers at a seminar in Washington on June 22. -Hammond-Chambers said that Republican Senator Richard Lugar sent a letter to US Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton in April to inquire about Taiwan’s letter of request for F-16C/Ds. The official response was that contrary to media speculation, Taiwan had not at that point submitted a letter of request for additional F-16C/Ds. The reply immediately caused much debate in Taiwan. Exactly what was going on? Ma, as commander of the armed forces, should naturally clarify this to the public.
According to Ma, since the US at the moment has no plans to sell it F-16C/Ds, Taiwan has been instructed by the US not to send a letter of request. All things considered, this seems pretty believable. Regrettably, however, Ma’s humble and helpless attitude seems to be pretty inconsistent with the impression that he gave in the past.
During his chairmanship of the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT), he said in 2007 that in the previous three years, the KMT had been tough enough to block the Democratic Progressive Party’s (DPP) massive NT$610.8 billion (US$21.2 billion) budget for US arms purchases more than 50 times in the legislature’s Procedure Committee. Indeed, he was very tough at that time, finally letting only part of the budget pass after massive cuts. So why does he want to purchase F-16C/Ds after winning the presidency, calling on the US to go ahead with such sales 19 times in three years?
Today, he is neither as tough nor as confident as in the past. Why is he shooting himself in the foot, wavering back and forth like this? Or is he in fact consistent, and all his calls have just been a play to the gallery?
The problematic US arms purchases are just one of many examples of how the past eight-year confrontation between the government and opposition has ruined Taiwan’s opportunities and damaged its national interests. Today, Ma says three principles govern Taiwan’s arms purchases: replacing old weaponry, purchasing defensive weapons and purchasing weapons that Taiwan is incapable of producing for itself. Which of the Patriot PAC-3 -missiles, diesel-powered submarines and P-3C anti-submarine aircraft that the KMT blocked violated these principles?
The arms purchases are highly sensitive deals and constant negotiations behind the scenes are necessary to push them through. There might be several reasons why Ma brings it up when receiving foreign guests: Communications behind the scenes may have been ineffective, he knows nothing about the subtleties of foreign affairs, or his need for election publicity is greater than his will to buy arms, so he plays two hands at the same time. The first reason implies incompetence, the second ignorance and the third double dealing. Which one describes his administration?
During an interview with BBC World News last month, Ma indulged in some wishful thinking, saying he believed China has no reason to alter the “status quo” if Taiwan sticks to his “three noes” policy — “no unification, no independence, no war” — over the next decade. The implication is that so long as we shout his slogan, Taiwan will be at peace and remain safe. What is the difference between such naivete and the Boxer Movement in the late Qing Dynasty, which made the mistake of believing their spells and fists made them invulnerable in the face of foreign weapons?
If Ma, or the party he leads, want to be modern Boxers, that is their choice. However, he is Taiwan’s head of state and the KMT is the ruling party, and that is why the 23 million Taiwanese cannot agree with their suicidal behavior, which may indirectly kill us all. The reason is that weakening Taiwan’s defense capacity is the same as inviting the People’s Liberation Army to launch a war against us. This cannot be avoided by the naive view that improving cross-strait relations will remove the reason for Beijing to go to war.
As the South China Sea dispute continues to grow, Hong Kong’s pro-China Wen Wei Po daily wrote in its June 18 editorial that military preparation is necessary and that the countries involved would suffer badly if they act willfully and engage in excessive provocations. If it hadn’t been for the US’ forceful involvement, and simultaneous Sino-US diplomatic mediation and Filipino-US military drills, it is not inconceivable that China would have started a third naval war over the South China Sea.
Ma has been in power for more than three years. It is the opposition’s duty to discover problems, and the government’s responsibility to solve them. Therefore, telling the public that the US hinted to Taiwan that it should not send a letter of request for F-16C/Ds is not enough. Calling on Washington to sell arms to Taiwan in front of foreign guests is not only useless, it further highlights Ma’s incompetence. We want to see if he is tough enough to attain the arms Taiwan needs and if he is tough enough to correct the serious mistake committed by blocking the US arms purchase budgets more than 50 times.
TRANSLATED BY EDDY CHANG
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