A few days ago, on the eve of the ninth anniversary of the Sept. 11 attacks on the US, several media outlets re-ran an old story that the administration of former president Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁) had planned to develop nuclear weapons. This time the media sought to back up their story by quoting from Catalytic Diplomacy, the second portion of Jeremy Stone’s memoirs, former president of the Federation of American Scientists.
The story in question first arose in October 2007, when then-Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) legislator Su Chi (蘇起), who later served as secretary-general of the National Security Council, claimed that Chen’s Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) administration had been in contact with a certain nuclear power and had invited a former defense minister of that country to visit Taiwan.
Following up on Su’s statement, Hong Kong-based current affairs magazine Yazhou Zhoukan reported that the person in question was former Indian defense minister George Fernandes, and that he had come to Taiwan for secret talks about nuclear weapons on the invitation of Taiwan Thinktank.
First, let’s get the facts straight. Since I have in the past served as director of Taiwan Thinktank’s international affairs department and also as director of the DPP’s Department of Chinese Affairs, I think I ought to be as clear as anyone about how Fernandes was invited to Taiwan. His 2007 visit was an open affair. He was invited not by Taiwan Thinktank, but by the DPP to take part in a forum on the rise of democracy in Taiwan. Taiwan Thinktank did invite Fernandes to the country earlier — in late 2004 to take part in a forum on democratic cooperation between Taiwan, Japan and India. Both these forums were entirely open affairs and Su’s version of the events is seriously at variance with the facts. Another participant was Henry Hyde, former chairman of the US House of Representatives’ Committee on Foreign Affairs. Is Su implying that Hyde also supports Taiwan developing nuclear weapons?
As everyone knows, developing nuclear weapons requires a massive support system. Getting hold of uranium is no simple matter, still less reprocessing and enriching it to produce weapons-grade fuel. Even if you can get weapons-grade uranium, it doesn’t mean you can build nuclear bombs. How could North Korea and Pakistan get hold of nuclear weapons without support from China? Taiwan couldn’t get nuclear weapons unless it bought them from a rogue state that was willing to sell them.
What Su said amounts to suggesting that Taiwan has had nuclear dealings with rogue states or shady organizations. That makes the matter pretty serious. The record needs to be set straight here and now, otherwise it could have unthinkable consequences for Taiwan.
That said, not having nuclear weapons doesn’t mean we can’t talk about strategies for responding to nuclear threats. It is, after all, a serious strategic problem facing this country. Even in Japan, which has long stuck to the Three Non-Nuclear Principles of not having or making nuclear weapons or allowing them on its territory, Taro Aso, when he was foreign minister, said discussion about whether Japan should acquire nuclear weapons should not be suppressed.
China has never declared that it won’t use nuclear weapons against Taiwan. We obviously need to think about how to respond to this threat, but how can that be twisted into saying that Taiwan plans to develop its own nuclear weapons?
Lai I-chung is an executive committee member of Taiwan Thinktank. Catalytic Diplomacy is available online.
TRANSLATED BY JULIAN CLEGG
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