The US Congress should have a greater role in setting and overseeing Taiwan policy to help avoid crisis in the Taiwan Strait, the head of an influential congressional commission said on Monday.
Richard D'Amato, the chairman of the US-China Security Review Commission, said that the White House must consult with Congress more than in the past in order to avoid what he described as a potential "crash landing" at some time in the future.
He was speaking at the release of a 200-page report on China written by the commission that warned of potential major crises in the Taiwan Strait as a result of China's military buildup in Fujian and neighboring provinces.
"We're worried about the preparations by the Chinese in terms of building military forces vis-a-vis Taiwan that could, in a couple of years, be very threatening to Taiwan. We are very concerned about that," D'Amato said.
"If we ever have a conflict in the Taiwan Strait, we want Congress to be in on the takeoff, better than in on the crash landing," he said.
"We don't want this thing to end up in some kind of miscalculation that embroils us in a conflict," he said.
"Everybody's concerned about [the situation in the Strait]. We want to have a meeting of the minds on a regular basis between the president and Congress on this matter, and that is our main concern."
Congress has long complained that it has not been consulted on a range of issues, including Taiwan.
Many members of Congress hold strong pro-Taiwan views that are frequently at odds with the policies of the White House, which is constrained by diplomatic and historical factors.
One of the commission's main recommendations concerning Taiwan was that the US and Taiwan should engage in "substantive military dialogue," a subject of the ill-fated Taiwan security enhancement act, which has failed to gain Senate support in recent years.
The House recently approved a provision in a defense funding bill that would enhance US training of Taiwanese officers and increase operational cooperation, but it is unlikely the Senate will pass it.
"We committed ourselves to Taiwan's security," D'Amato said in explaining the recommendation for military dialogue. "In order to do that, you have to talk to the person you're dealing with. You have to relate to that person. You have to understand where they're coming form, what the nature of the issue is. So we're interested in a closer dialogue," he said.
In its report, the commission said, "China is enhancing its capability to carry out attacks across the Taiwan Strait with its special operations forces, air forces and navy and missile forces with little notice. It appears the Chinese buildup is designed to forestall pro-independence political movements in Taiwan and help bring about an eventual end to the island's continued separate status."
The report echoed surprisingly closely a major report issued by the Pentagon last Friday, which warned that China's military buildup was aimed at an eventual attack on Taiwan, casting doubt on Beijing's professed desire for a peaceful cross-Strait settlement.
D'Amato said that his commission had received copies of the then-secret Pentagon report two months ago, and had decided to include parts of it in the conclusions to its own report.
Arthur Waldron, the director of Asian studies at the American Enterprise Institute and a University of Pennsylvania professor, said that the congressional consultation the commission advocated is actually required by the Taiwan Relations Act of 1979. He said he hoped the report would persuade the administration to more closely adhere to the act in the future.
"I feel that the failure to fully implement the Taiwan Relations Act, with its requirement for consultation with Congress, is a very pressing matter. I think that if you have a commitment to defend a state, then it's obviously important to spell out how you are going about doing that. And I think there's been a tremendous amount of complacency about the US-Taiwan relationship"over the years, he told the Taipei Times.
Waldron is also a member of the commission.
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