Fri, Aug 31, 2001 page3

• Cossa says put national security first

  Ralph A. Cossa, President of the Pacific Forum, an affiliate of the Washington-based Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), was in Taiwan this week to take part in the Third Asia Pacific Security Forum. `Taipei Times' staff reporter Monique Chu interviewed the former US Air Force colonel on cross-strait issues in the wake of the Economic Development Advisory Conference

  • /
  • • 
    • 
    • 

  The retired military man, who is closely connected to the Bush administration, accused Taiwan's opposition parties of playing into the hands of Beijing. He also called for a bipartisan approach to cross-strait issues and asked why Taiwan's politicians, on the evidence of the results of the Economic Development Advisory Conference, can pull together for the sake of the economy, but not for national security.

  Taipei Times: You mentioned during the forum that Beijing has become a battlefield in Taiwan's domestic politics. Could you elaborate on that?

  

  Ralph A. Cossa, president of the CSIS' Pacific Forum, speaks to the `Taipei Times' about cross-strait affairs yesterday. Cossa expressed surprise at opposition parties' past inability to put national security before local politics.

  PHOTO: CHEN CHENG-CHANG, TAIPEI TIMES

  Ralph Cossa: When I talked to the Chinese, they told me that when people from the KMT and the New Party come to China ... the feeling they are getting is, "We'll be back in control and we are the kind of people you can deal with," which I find very ironic because it was the KMT that was the big "splittist" two years ago. I think that the Chinese are getting a false sense of security based on developing assessments of what's going on in Taiwan from opposition politicians and business people.

  What I told the Chinese officials is that they should be attempting to begin a dialogue with President Chen. And the part of Bonnie Glaser's report (a recent CSIS paper by Glaser which cited Chinese analysts saying that visiting KMT members urged China to take a hard line against Chen) that was overlooked was that one of the four legs of China's strategy is to try to have some type of low-level contact and dialogue even with the administration. But they are keeping it at a very low level.

  My sense is that everyone on the mainland and perhaps everyone here is waiting to see how things play out in the year-end elections ... whether the DPP and Lee Teng-hui's (李登輝) quasi-party come up with enough of a coalition that they can stay and move forward, or whether the non-Lee Teng-hui KMT and James Soong (宋楚瑜) can create some sort of coalition that will increase their own political power and put more pressure on Chen to be forthcoming with the mainland.

  My sense is that China is confused about Taiwan politics ... They (Taiwan's opposition parties) wanted last year to talk about impeachment, but it's really not impeachment talk at all. It was aimed at trying to force Chen into a coalition with the sympathetic elements of the KMT, the Lee Teng-hui faction. And that's still part of this game that's being played out. Coalition politics is not something that the mainland has much history of understanding, so it's very difficult for them to understand what's going on in Taiwan.

  TT: To what extent do you think that a false sense of security can play a role in shaping cross-strait interaction?

  Cossa: The positive side is that they'll think time is on their side, that the next government would be more centrist, that "the independence movement" has been rejected. I think this is a basic misunderstanding on China's part.

  All of these various polls about "one country, two systems" are confusing, and I think, sort of send mixed signals. But it tells Beijing that its "divide and conquer" tactics are working.

  The good news is that removes a sense of urgency and a sense of having to do military saber-rattling. I think they understand that the military saber-rattling is counterproductive.

  While they are not going to remove the military option because they understand that's the only basic hope they have, they understand that on a daily basis, they do better by playing politics and by entering the domestic political game as long as the political parties in Taiwan are so eager to rush over to the mainland and help them play that game.

  TT: You've also mentioned that it's damaging for Taipei to provide Beijing with opportunities to divide and conquer. Could you elaborate on that?

  Cossa: I think that obviously Taiwan is a new democracy. Even in an old democracy like the United States, you have Joseph Biden in Korea a couple of weeks ago criticizing the Bush administration. This is what happens in politics.

  But I think that there really needs to be a more common understanding among the political parities on the need to develop some type of a bipartisan or non-partisan foreign policy toward the mainland and to adopt the concept that at least politics ends at the water's edge, that water being the Taiwan Strait.

  It's going to be very difficult. I don't just blame the KMT or the New Party. I think the DPP is as much to blame. Quite honestly there is as much disagreement and disorganization within the DPP as there is among the various parties.

  And as democracy has evolved, and as there has been as much disagreement within the political parties and among the political parties, this has become a very challenging task. But that's one that I think Taiwan politicians have not paid enough attention to. And the failure to do that jeopardizes your own national security.

  TT: How do you respond, then, to the view that Taiwan is a young democracy with a lot to learn, whose politicians sometimes have to adopt certain positions in order to distinguish themselves from one another, and that consensus building, in any case, is never an easy task?

  Cossa: I don't think it's the inability among all the Taiwan politicians that I've ever met to forge a political consensus on how to deal with the mainland ... I think they have a responsibility to at least develop the framework and the boundaries beyond which they shouldn't go, and I think that's what's missing.

  TT: The media has argued that the recent Economic Development Advisory Council has served as the first step for Chen's administration, as well as the opposition camps, to be engaged in solving a common task faced by the country. Do you agree with that?

  Cossa: I agree with that. I think this is a very positive step. There will be a lot of politics played with it, but it has been an effort to move ahead. But what I'll add somewhat sarcastically is if Taiwan politicians, leaders and scholars can get together when money is at stake, why can't you also do it when your security is at stake? One would think that should be at least an equally motivating factor, and thus far it hasn't been.
• Most Popular

  • 1

    Jeers as Real Madrid fall 2-1 to Man City

  • 2

    Taiwanese tourists go viral in video during Japan quake

  • 3

    Taiwan, Poland to codevelop drones

  • 4

    Climber to attempt free solo of 101

  • 5

    YouBike to require insurance for all riders from Jan. 1