Washington should play the “Taiwan card” against China, former US ambassador to the UN John Bolton said in an opinion piece in the Wall Street Journal.
“America has a diplomatic ladder of escalation that would compel Beijing’s attention,” said Bolton wrote in the article, published on Sunday on the paper’s Web site.
Bolton, now a senior fellow at the conservative American Enterprise Institute in Washington, said that for a new US president willing to act boldly, there are opportunities to halt and then reverse China’s “seemingly inexorable march toward hegemony in East Asia.”
He says that the US’ next president should insist that China reverse its territorial acquisitiveness, including abandoning its South China Sea bases and undoing the ecological damage its construction has caused.
“China is free to continue asserting its territorial claims diplomatically, but until they are peacefully resolved with its neighbors, they and the US are likewise free to ignore such claims in their entirety,” Bolton said.
If Beijing refuses to back down in the South China Sea, the next US president could receive Taiwanese diplomats officially at the US Department of State and upgrade the status of US representation in Taipei from a private “institute” to an official diplomatic mission, he said.
Bolton said that from there, the US could invite Taiwan’s president to travel officially to the US and allow the most senior US officials to visit Taiwan to transact government business.
Ultimately, the US could restore full diplomatic recognition, he said.
“Beijing’s leaders would be appalled by this approach,” said Bolton, who has a reputation for being controversial.
He said that China must understand that by creating so-called provinces in the South China Sea, it risks causing itself to lose control — perhaps forever — of Taiwan.
“Even were China to act more responsibly in nearby waters, of course, Taiwan’s fate would still be for its people to decide,” he said.
He says that president-elect Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) has been cautious, but that she has not rejected “the bedrock DPP [Democratic Progressive Party] platform of independence from China.”
Bolton says that most of the Republican hopefuls for the US presidential election this year are determined “to replace the vacuum that exists where the US’ China policy should be.”
This may involve modifying or even jettisoning the “one China” policy, along with even more far-reaching initiatives to counter Beijing’s “rapidly accelerating political and military aggressiveness,” he said.
Bolton said that China might act against Taiwan before the next US president takes office this time next year.
“Too many foreigners continue echoing Beijing’s view that Taiwan is a problem only resolvable by uniting the island and the mainland as one China. Taiwan’s freedom isn’t a problem. It is an inspiration. Let Beijing contemplate that fact on the ground,” Bolton said.
The Taipei Summer Festival is to begin tomorrow at Dadaocheng Wharf (大稻埕), featuring four themed firework shows and five live music performances throughout the month, the Taipei Department of Information and Tourism said today. The festival in the city’s Datong District (大同) is to run until Aug. 30, holding firework displays on Wednesdays and the final Saturday of the event. The first show is scheduled for tomorrow, followed by Aug. 13, 20 and 30. To celebrate the 30th anniversary of Disney Pixar's movie Toy Story, the festival has partnered with Walt Disney Co (Taiwan) to host a special themed area on
Aftershocks from a magnitude 6.2 earthquake that struck off Yilan County at 3:45pm yesterday could reach a magnitude of 5 to 5.5, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said. Seismological Center technical officer Chiu Chun-ta (邱俊達) told a news conference that the epicenter of the temblor was more than 100km from Taiwan. Although predicted to measure between magnitude 5 and 5.5, the aftershocks would reach an intensity of 1 on Taiwan’s 7-tier scale, which gauges the actual effect of an earthquake, he said. The earthquake lasted longer in Taipei because the city is in a basin, he said. The quake’s epicenter was about 128.9km east-southeast
BE CAREFUL: The virus rarely causes severe illness or death, but newborns, older people and those with medical conditions are at risk of more severe illness As more than 7,000 cases of chikungunya fever have been reported in China’s Guangdong Province this year, including 2,892 new cases last week, the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) yesterday said it is monitoring the situation and considering raising the travel notice level, which might be announced today. The CDC issued a level 1 travel notice, or “watch,” for Guangdong Province on July 22, citing an outbreak in Foshan, a manufacturing hub in the south of the province, that was reported early last month. Between July 27 and Saturday, the province reported 2,892 new cases of chikungunya, reaching a total of 7,716
STAY VIGILANT: People should reduce the risk of chronic liver inflammation by avoiding excessive alcohol consumption, smoking and eating pickled foods, the physician said A doctor last week urged people to look for five key warning signs of acute liver failure after popular producer-turned-entertainer Shen Yu-lin (沈玉琳) was reportedly admitted to an intensive care unit for fulminant hepatitis. Fulminant hepatitis is the rapid and massive death of liver cells, impairing the organ’s detoxification, metabolic, protein synthesis and bile production functions, which if left untreated has a mortality rate as high as 80 percent, according to the Web site of Advancing Clinical Treatment of Liver Disease, an international organization focused on liver disease prevention and treatment. People with hepatitis B or C are at higher risk of
RSS