An opinion piece in the Taipei Times by a National Open University law lecturer tried to conceal the writer’s pro-unification pretensions with an appeal to “peace,” but its argument was so upended, the logic so confused, that he completely misrepresented the relations between the US, China and Taiwan (“Taiwan is in between Washington and Beijing," Jan. 1, page 8).
To realize his goal of implementing “one country, two systems” in Taiwan, Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) is expanding Beijing’s military capability, building military bases in the South China Sea, sending fighter jets over the Taiwan Strait median line, and increasingly conducting military drills in the South and East China seas.
Taking Taiwan is the sole objective of Beijing’s Taiwan policy, but Taiwan is a sovereign, independent nation and the vast majority of Taiwanese oppose unification with China. Faced with the threat of invasion, Taiwan’s most important task is strengthening its cooperation with the US.
Many pro-China individuals, suspicious of the US, believe that if Taiwan gets too close to the US, it might get caught in the cross-fire between the US and China. The reverse is true.
To warn China not to do anything to alter the “status quo” and to maintain the balance of power in the Western Pacific region, the US last year sent a strike group of three aircraft carriers to patrol the region, and show its ability and resolve to maintain security in the Asia-Pacific and the Strait, all to prevent Beijing from making any hasty moves.
It is China’s bellicosity, its intent to annex Taiwan and threaten peace in the Asia-Pacific region that have led to a worsening in US-China ties. It is the dire situation in which Taiwan finds itself, that has necessitated this intervention by the US. How can the writer turn the situation completely on its head and suggest that, with US-Sino relations deteriorating, Taiwan might get caught in the middle?
Given the crucial nature of Taiwan’s geopolitical location to the Indo-Pacific strategy, its exemplary response to the COVID-19 pandemic and its importance in the global semiconductors supply chain, if Taiwan is lost, the US would not only see its defense of the first island chain and of its Indo-Pacific strategy disintegrate, it would also be announcing to the whole world that the democratic system is inferior to socialist authoritarianism — a huge blow to the development of democratic societies and human civilization since the Industrial Revolution two centuries ago.
The US is opposing China and protecting Taiwan to defend democracy and human civilization, and because of Taiwan’s strategic location. How can the writer say that Taiwan is being used as a “bargaining chip” against China, or that Washington is somehow using Taiwan to “needle” Beijing?
Faced with invasion, if Taiwan is not to rely on the US, then on whom should it rely? And how is it that Taiwan is somehow “caught between the US and China”?
The US has passed Taiwan-friendly legislation such as the Taiwan Travel Act to bolster bilateral relations and improve Taiwan’s ability to defend itself. US politicians on both sides of the aisle understand that the “one China” policy has run its course and can no longer be used to maintain cross-strait peace, and that the US needs to apply the room for maneuvering within this strategy to assist Taiwan via every available channel.
How can the writer say the US has “blown a hole” in the “one China” principle and left Taiwan with no way out? Presumably the writer would prefer to see Taiwan take on China unaided, and become swallowed whole.
Michael Lin is a retired diplomat who served in the US.
Translated by Paul Cooper
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