US academics yesterday emphasized the importance of Taiwan economically and strategically to the US in its rebalancing strategy to return to Asia and said more needed to be done to strengthen bilateral ties.
Wallace Gregson, who served as US assistant secretary of defense for Asian and Pacific security affairs from May 2009 until April last year, told a forum in Taipei that US leadership was essential in an increasingly complex world to promote global peace and prosperity.
The presence of the US in the Asia-Pacific region and the efforts it has made in the region are important, as they help shape the geopolitical climate and make the US immediately available to respond to its needs, he said.
“The US and the world need China to be a successful contributor to the international system, but at the same time, the US needs to work with our allies and friends and be there to support their interests,” Gregson said.
Answering a question from the audience, Gregson dismissed the idea of the US abandoning Taiwan to foster a better relationship with China.
“Abandon Taiwan? Absolutely not,” he said, adding that the US had vital interests in the region.
Gregson was speaking at a forum on “US Strategy in Asia and Taiwan’s Future” hosted by the US-based think tank Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) and Tamkang University’s Graduate Institute of International Affairs and Strategic Studies.
At a roundtable discussion, US economic adviser Kevin Nealer said the US would like to see Taiwan join the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) in its formative stage to help shape the regional economy.
“We think it’s in our interests. We think it’s in yours,” he said.
Abe Denmark, a senior project director for political and security affairs at the National Bureau of Asian Research, presented his views on the US’ new strategic guidance released by the US Department of Defense earlier this year.
Denmark said the US’ rebalancing strategy in Asia has three implications for Taiwan — although Taiwan is not specifically mentioned in the guidance.
“The US is not leaving Asia, the US is a reliable partner, and I think it’s safe to say that the US will continue to provide defense articles to Taiwan,” he said.
Asked how the US would respond if the presence of Chinese warships increased, Denmark said the problem lies more in how China would use its warships than in the number of warships.
The US will be encouraging if China chooses to use its military power in a way that is conducive to a healthy and strong international system, while the US will respond to it very negatively if China uses its military in a more aggressive way, Denmark said.
Bonnie Glaser, a senior fellow with the CSIS Freeman Chair in China Studies, said she preferred referring to the US-China relationship as the most “consequential” relationship in the world, rather than “the most important relationship” as many people do, because “if it becomes an intense global strategic competition, it will undoubtedly have a very negative impact on the rest of the world.”
“The US-China relationship is characterized by competition — some healthy, some unhealthy — certainly by mistrust, which I believe is growing, and also by interdependence, which is also growing, and in some way it is a stabilizing factor,” Glaser said.
She said that there is limited cooperation between the US and China as they have converging and overlapping interests on issues like counterpiracy, counterterrorism, counterproliferation, rebalancing the global economy and so on, despite different approaches.
However, problems remain in three main areas: Chinese unfair trade practices, its insufficient efforts to be a responsible stakeholder and its military buildup, she said.
For US-China relations to improve, the US needs to use the existing dialogue mechanism it has with China better to expand cooperation, she said.
The two countries also need to avoid to avoid zero-sum competition, and the US needs to strengthen itself economically and maintain a strong presence in the region, Glaser said.
“It’s especially important to avoid an assessment by Beijing that the US is in decline. I hear a lot of this among Chinese scholars. The debate seems to be only how quickly the US will decline, not whether it will decline,” she said.
At the same time, Glaser called for a stronger relationship between the US and Taiwan, saying that Washington and Taipei needed to do more to make sure that the US-Taiwan leg of this triangular relationship remains healthy and robust.
The US “has to be honest” that “China’s rise does complicate US decisionmaking regarding Taiwan” particularly on the issue of arms sale, she said.
However, she added that she was “certainly confident that the US arms sale to Taiwan will continue.”
“The question is what we sell, and when we sell it, not whether we will sell arms to Taiwan as we take our commitment very seriously. The US-Taiwan relationship remains critically important for US interests in this region,” she said.
FALSE DOCUMENTS? Actor William Liao said he was ‘voluntarily cooperating’ with police after a suspect was accused of helping to produce false medical certificates Police yesterday questioned at least six entertainers amid allegations of evasion of compulsory military service, with Lee Chuan (李銓), a member of boy band Choc7 (超克7), and actor Daniel Chen (陳大天) among those summoned. The New Taipei City District Prosecutors’ Office in January launched an investigation into a group that was allegedly helping men dodge compulsory military service using falsified medical documents. Actor Darren Wang (王大陸) has been accused of being one of the group’s clients. As the investigation expanded, investigators at New Taipei City’s Yonghe Precinct said that other entertainers commissioned the group to obtain false documents. The main suspect, a man surnamed
DEMOGRAPHICS: Robotics is the most promising answer to looming labor woes, the long-term care system and national contingency response, an official said Taiwan is to launch a five-year plan to boost the robotics industry in a bid to address labor shortages stemming from a declining and aging population, the Executive Yuan said yesterday. The government approved the initiative, dubbed the Smart Robotics Industry Promotion Plan, via executive order, senior officials told a post-Cabinet meeting news conference in Taipei. Taiwan’s population decline would strain the economy and the nation’s ability to care for vulnerable and elderly people, said Peter Hong (洪樂文), who heads the National Science and Technology Council’s (NSTC) Department of Engineering and Technologies. Projections show that the proportion of Taiwanese 65 or older would
The government is considering polices to increase rental subsidies for people living in social housing who get married and have children, Premier Cho Jung-tai (卓榮泰) said yesterday. During an interview with the Plain Law Movement (法律白話文) podcast, Cho said that housing prices cannot be brought down overnight without affecting banks and mortgages. Therefore, the government is focusing on providing more aid for young people by taking 3 to 5 percent of urban renewal projects and zone expropriations and using that land for social housing, he said. Single people living in social housing who get married and become parents could obtain 50 percent more
Democracies must remain united in the face of a shifting geopolitical landscape, former president Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) told the Copenhagen Democracy Summit on Tuesday, while emphasizing the importance of Taiwan’s security to the world. “Taiwan’s security is essential to regional stability and to defending democratic values amid mounting authoritarianism,” Tsai said at the annual forum in the Danish capital. Noting a “new geopolitical landscape” in which global trade and security face “uncertainty and unpredictability,” Tsai said that democracies must remain united and be more committed to building up resilience together in the face of challenges. Resilience “allows us to absorb shocks, adapt under
RSS