Two leading US sinologists have spoken against President George W. Bush administration's policy of enhancing closer military operational relations, or interoperability, between the US and Taiwan, as the administration appears to be moving toward a policy of increasing such relationships.
David Shambaugh, the director of the China Policy Program at George Washington University and Michael Swaine, co-director of the China program at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, made their comments at an all-day conference discussing the US-China-Taiwan issue, held Wednesday on Capitol Hill.
Their comments came at the same time as congressional negotiators from the House and Senate are trying to finish work on a defense appropriations bill for next year that might contain a provision to provide joint military training exercises with Taiwan's armed forces and an exchange of senior officials between the two militaries.
The aim would be to "enhance interoperability" between the two militaries, according to the House version of the bill, which includes the provision. The Senate has not agreed to the provision, and a conference committee comprised of representatives of both chambers is trying to work out the differences.
The Pentagon has already moved to take interoperability into consideration when making decisions on defense sales to Taiwan.
In October 2001, the US sold Taiwan 40 Javelin anti-tank missiles which the Pentagon described as providing "increased interoperability with US forces" and last year Washington and Taipei signed an open-ended spare parts and maintenance sales agreement to support US-supplied military aircraft, radar and missile systems, which one US official described as favorable for "a nation that has a high level of interoperability with the US government."
Interoperability has taken an increased importance as Washington seeks to move from the provision of Taiwan's needed military hardware, most of which Bush committed to sell in April 2001, to services that help improve Taiwan's military prowess, professionalism and training to operate all the new equipment.
Increased moves toward interoperability could raise Chinese concerns "over the de facto restoration of the Mutual Security Treaty which was abdicated by the United States in 1979," Shambaugh said. "We must think hard about how far we want to go in our relationship with Taiwan militarily," Swain said.
"The question of interoperability ... involves some significant political implications in the way the PRC looks at the situation. Interoperability is not just assistance, it really means you start to coordinate combat units with each other. And that becomes a very different situation from what we have now," Swain said.
Increased interoperability could be seen by Beijing as "a nascent US-Taiwan alliance that could produce greater US support ultimately for Taiwan politically as relations become closer and closer militarily" between Taipei and Washington, he said.
Shambaugh complained that the Pentagon may be enhancing interoperability, which he described as the "fusing the American military and the Taiwan military together in various ways," without letting the public know.
"What really troubles me is that the Pentagon is out there doing these things without a national debate, and without the Congress exercising its appropriate oversight of this US-Taiwan military-to-military relationship," Shambaugh said.
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