Taiwan must look “increasingly dark” to China, American Enterprise Institute (AEI) codirector for security studies Thomas Donnelly said.
In a paper published this week by the Hudson Institute, Donnelly said Beijing had been hoping that the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) would be returned to power in next year’s elections and put Taiwan back on a path to “inevitable” unification.
President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) “has often been an apparently pliant partner,” he said.
However, the prospects for peaceful unification, or even unification by intimidation short of the actual use of military force, are now “not great,” he said.
A former member of the US-China Review Commission and policy group director for the US House of Representatives’ Committee on Armed Services, Donnelly said that Taiwanese reaction to Chinese attempts to suppress democracy in Hong Kong reflects “a rejection of any ‘one country, two systems’ solution.”
Taiwan has no wish to forgo democratic forms of government or the “sotto voce but de facto independence that is the guarantee of that government,” Donnelly said.
“Neither deep trade ties nor Chinese soft power nor an increasingly overwhelming military balance has served to move Taiwan much closer to buckling to Beijing’s desires,” he wrote.
“Taiwan’s political identity, even among the KMT, is no longer simply sinocentric. Like Japan, Taiwan remains a source of tension with China, driven by its own internal dynamic,” he said.
The paper, on US foreign policy in the Pacific, is titled Interest, Fear and Honor.
Donnelly said that the tensions created by China threaten not just the geopolitical and economic interests in the region, but also touch a “changing sense of self-regard — of national honor.”
He said the combination of China’s rising capability and capacity and US operational absence has already created serious strategic and geopolitical uncertainties in Taiwan and elsewhere.
“No one knows what China might do in any given situation, but that’s the point: The loss of US military pre-eminence is a key ingredient in many recipes for mischief,” Donnelly said.
The tensions created by China’s rise may not lead to conflict, but considering the sheer number of potential disputes, “the arithmetic is intimidating,” he said.
Yangmingshan National Park authorities yesterday urged visitors to respect public spaces and obey the law after a couple was caught on a camera livestream having sex at the park’s Qingtiangang (擎天崗) earlier in the day. The Shilin Police Precinct in Taipei said it has identified a suspect and his vehicle registration number, and would summon him for questioning. The case would be handled in accordance with public indecency charges, it added. The couple entered the park at about 11pm on Thursday and began fooling around by 1am yesterday, the police said, adding that the two were unaware of the park’s all-day live
A former soldier and an active-duty army officer were yesterday indicted for allegedly selling classified military training materials to a Chinese intelligence operative for a total of NT$79,440. The Taipei District Prosecutors’ Office indicted Chen Tai-yin (陳泰尹) and Lee Chun-ta (李俊達) for contravening the National Security Act (國家安全法) and the Anti-Corruption Act (貪污治罪條例). Chen left the military in September 2013 after serving alongside then-staff sergeant Lee, now an army lieutenant, at the 21st Artillery Command of the army’s Sixth Corps from 2011 to 2013, according to the indictment. Chen met a Chinese intelligence operative identified as “Wang” (王) through a friend in November
Minister of Digital Affairs Lin Yi-ching (林宜敬) yesterday cited regulatory issues and national security concerns as an expert said that Taiwan is among the few Asian regions without Starlink. Lin made the remarks on Facebook after funP Innovation Group chief executive officer Nathan Chiu (邱繼弘) on Friday said Taiwan and four other countries in Asia — China, North Korea, Afghanistan and Syria — have no access to Starlink. Starlink has become available in 166 countries worldwide, including Ukraine, Malaysia, the Philippines and Vietnam, in the six years since it became commercial, he said. While China and North Korea block Starlink, Syria is not
The Grand Hotel Taipei has rejected media reports claiming that the hotel had prevented CBS from broadcasting coverage of the Beijing summit between U.S. President Donald Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) on its premises. Media reports alleging that the hotel owner, dissatisfied with CBS’s coverage, prohibited the network from broadcasting political content on the hotel premises, are not true, the hotel said in a statement issued last night. The reports were “inconsistent with how the hotel actually handled the matter,” it said. The hotel said it received a refund request from a
RSS