The Ministry of National Defense, President Ma Ying-jeou’s (馬英九) government and Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) legislators are very upset about reports that Chinese communist spies have infiltrated Taiwan, and they do not like the suggestion that this is an important factor standing in the way of US arms sales. It is hard to know whether to laugh or cry when you see them get so flustered.
It is indeed true that the Ma administration has not seriously addressed the problem of Chinese infiltration. More important, though, is the question of whether the government really wants the US to sell arms to Taiwan. No matter from which perspective one views the question — the government’s standpoint, Taiwan’s international environment, cross-strait relations or Taiwanese elections — the answer is in the negative.
When the Democratic Progressive Party was in power and Ma was chairman of the KMT, he promised the US he would promote arms purchases. At the same time, the KMT made every effort to boycott arms purchase programs. Since taking office, Ma has made cuts to the national defense budget, with next year’s defense just NT$297.2 billion (US$10.24 billion), the lowest in the last five years. Of that, just NT$2 million has been allocated for the purchase of F-16C/D aircraft and just NT$500,000 for submarines. In light of these figures, does Ma really want the US to sell arms to Taiwan?
With regard to external factors, the government is probably not under a great deal of pressure from the US to buy arms and Ma is taking advantage of this situation to do nothing about it.
US President Barack Obama has chosen to hold out against requests signed by a majority of members in the US Senate and Congress to sell weapons to Taiwan because he doesn’t want to offend China for Taipei’s sake.
Mutual confidence between Washington and Beijing has not necessarily improved since Obama took office, but in international affairs the two countries stress cooperation, avoiding conflict and even setting differences aside. On issues such as China’s freedom and human rights, its exchange rate manipulation, political repression and military expansion, the US has tended to employ rational and calm negotiations through bilateral and multilateral structures.
Apart from being concerned about its relations with China, the US has other reservations about selling weapons to Taiwan. Penetration by Chinese intelligence is a factor the US is no doubt taking into account, as are the Ma administration’s China-friendly policies. If the government really wanted to get weapons from the US, it would not be following policies that put greater distance between the two countries.
With regard to cross-strait relations, the government has been strongly promoting exchanges and it has been willing to declare a diplomatic truce with China in exchange for progress on this point. It also insists on adhering to the fictitious “1992 consensus,” under which Taiwan and China supposedly both agreed that there is only “one China,” although the two sides interpret it differently.
The Ma administration is bound to be evasive and vague about anything that might cause cross-strait problems and conflicts. Of all such contentious issues, US arms sales to Taiwan are the most intolerable for China, so promoting arms deals would be in direct conflict with the government’s cross-strait policy. The government could hardly push for both things at the same time.
We are only four months away from Taiwan’s next presidential election. There is not much chance that the issue of whether the arms deal goes through would have much influence on the election, so Ma is not going to risk damaging the unspoken agreements his government has come to with Beijing during his time in office.
Thus, the show Ma puts on when he encourages the US to sell weapons to Taiwan is just a masquerade. He has not gone beyond verbal appeals and he has no real intention of taking action on. It is easy to see through his clumsy two-handed strategy and it shows just how far this government has drifted away from properly managing relations with the US.
Andrea Yang is an associate researcher with Taiwan Thinktank.
TRANSLATED BY JULIAN CLEGG
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