Sat, Oct 16, 1999 page8

• Editorial: Worrying noises in Washington

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  It is hard not to be disconcerted by American Institute in Taiwan Chairman Richard Bush's recent remarks concerning the Taiwan Security Enhancement Act. On Tuesday Bush, at a luncheon with Yao Eng-chi, deputy speaker of the legislature, said that he was opposed to the Act, currently wending its way through Congress, because it would have a negative effect on trilateral ties between Taipei, Washington and Beijing. According to those present at the lunch, Bush also said the Act was not in accordance with current US policy. The Taiwan Relations Act had operated well for 20 years, and it was his belief that the executive branch should retain control of military and diplomatic affairs.

  Such views make this newspaper wonder if Bush has been kidnapped by aliens and replaced by a Beijing-friendly pod person. After all, he has devoted a 30-year career to Taiwan in a variety of roles, and has previously been seen as an honorable man with a dirty job to do -- that of being an apologist for the Clinton administration. That he should come out so firmly in support of an administration policy so clearly antithetical to Taiwan's interests leaves this newspaper highly alarmed.

  It is, of course, precisely because the Act is not in accordance with Clinton administration policy that it is deemed so necessary by Taiwan's friends in Congress. Its passage would do a number of important things, perhaps most important of which is that it would mandate a degree of military cooperation between US forces and their Taiwan counterparts, the aim of which is to break Taiwan's military out of the knowledge gap that has been the inevitable consequence of its pariah status for the past 20 years. The Act would also make the executive branch answerable to Congress about its decisions relating to arms supplies to Taiwan. And, finally, it would guarantee the legal superiority of the Taiwan Relations Act's pledge of defensive arms supplies to Taiwan over the 1982 Third Communique's pledge to China to reduce the quality and quantity of arms supplied to Taiwan.

  Particularly at issue, as former US Secretary of Defense Casper Weinberger pointed out earlier this month, are ballistic missile defense systems that fall well within the remit of the Taiwan Relations Act and which Taiwan has repeatedly asked for. The Clinton administration has repeatedly delayed selling such systems, despite -- or perhaps because -- they would impede China's ability to threaten Taiwan. Again, this shows why the bill is so necessary, because of the Clinton administration's propensity to purchase China's favor with the currency of Taiwan's security. And of course the bill doesn't accord with current policy, since it is the weakness of that policy that the new legislation is designed to redress. There is simply too much wiggle room in the Taiwan Relations Act as it stands, allowing the administration to dodge its commitments for reasons of China-policy expediency without anybody having the right or the forum in which to challenge it.

  Nevertheless, with a democratic majority in the Senate, the new Act's chances don't look rosy. Thank goodness that the Clinton administration, which makes legislation like this necessary, has only 15 months to run and that the chances of a reprise via a Gore version of his mentor's are slim. Then again, 15 months can be a long and nail-biting time; twice as long, for example, as the interval between Hitler's anschluss with Austria and the Munich agreement.
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