Democratic politics requires freedom of speech. It goes without saying that when there is no freedom of speech there is no democracy. But the political reality is that a state of anarchy prevails internationally. There is no authoritative power higher than that of the sovereign state and the relationship between countries is an incessant contest for power.
Every country is forever maximizing its own power. The states with the greatest power are the objects of fawning in the international arena. This accepted wis-dom of international politics has guided international relations since the 14th century.
Such "realism" considers human nature to be bad and war inevitable, even necessary.
In the 45 years of the Cold War that succeeded World War II, the "balance of power" that is impli-cit in realism became a "balance of terror" because of the threat posed by nuclear weapons. More-over, the US defeat in the Vietnam War and the sudden rise of liberalism and institutionalism in academia had a pronounced in-fluence on foreign policy.
Liberalism calls for contact, dialogue, negotiation and the establishment of international organizations to prevent war and to maintain peace between nations. Liberalism considers people to be good and war avoidable and unnecessary.
In recent years, in the competitive arena of international politics, it has been the large, powerful nations that have championed "realism" in their foreign policies. Small countries without power or diplomatic relations have advocated
liberalism and institutionalism.
The former -- countries like the US and China -- vie for national strength and military power. The latter -- countries like Taiwan and the nations of northern Europe -- compete to express care and compassion and the realization of so-called "soft power."
Of course, authoritarian countries adhere to realism, developing their national and military power. Democratic countries are more inclined to subscribe to liberalism, arguing that democracies will never go to war with one another.
The giant democratic superpower, the US, believes in liberalism as well as realism, practising the latter extensively. For this reason, the US is extremely concerned about national security. In its collection of intelligence about enemy countries, there is of course layer upon layer of classified information.
But the US is also the bellwether of democratic countries. Naturally, it advocates and emphasizes the importance of free speech. Freedom of speech is protected in the first amendment of the US Constitution. But the US would never let freedom of speech jeopardize its national security.
Large, powerful, authoritarian China, on the other hand, makes no pretense of allowing free speech. For the sake of national security, the entire security appa-ratus, especially that part dealing with intelligence, is strictly classified. No freedom of speech whatsoever is tolerated. In China, even easily obtainable information such as the exchange rate at the central bank can be stamped "classified." Anyone carelessly disseminating such information risks being charged with a criminal offense and thrown in prison.
Taiwan is a small country that is both free and democratic. Of course it should espouse liberalism and insist upon freedom of speech. But unfortunately, Tai-wan has a bad neighbor in the form of China, which is gazing hungrily at it and could swallow it up at any time. This national security threat is immediate and pressing. In such grim circumstances, for Taiwan to extend freedom of speech without limitation, harming national security in the process, would be ignorant, absurd, foolish and incomprehensible. It would be suicidal.
As Taipei Mayor Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) and PFP Chairman James Soong (宋楚瑜) have said, national security must never be used as a false pretext on which to jeopardize freedom of speech. On this we can all agree. But what they don't say is that freedom of speech must not be used as a false pretext under which to jeopardize national security.
To highlight what they see as the supreme importance of free speech, they refer to the The New York Times' and The Washington Post's 1970s' exposes of the Pentagon Papers and the Watergate scandal. No doubt everyone accepts the point. But what they don't point out is that the Pentagon Papers exposed the misguided nature of the US war in Vietnam. The Watergate incident involved abuse of power and criminality on the part of then-president Richard Nixon.
Both were irrelevant to the actual national security of the US. So how can they be compared to the China Times' and Next magazine's leaking of highly classified National Security Bureau documents -- documents relating to Taiwan's intelligence work and the important relationships with the US and Japan?
The two US cases were about the US government and its leadership falsely using national security as a pretext to harm free speech and therefore don't stand as arguments for the ultimate supremacy and inviolability of free speech.
The two cases in Taiwan involve unificationist factions or self-interested media organizations using free speech as a pretext to ignore, or even deliberately harm national security by disseminating highly classified documents. Far from being analogous to one another, the US and Taiwanese examples stand in stark contrast to each other.
Of course, whether it was legal for the bureau to set up accounts such as Fengtien (奉天) to carry out intelligence work, is a matter of law. But the legality of the accounts is irrelevant to their highly classified nature, much less to the legality of the China Times' and Next's leakage of the secret. The case is perfectly rational and clear. Let's not mani-pulate facts in order to mislead the public.
Chiu Chwei-liang is a visiting professor at Tamkang University.
Translated by Ethan Harkness
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