Taiwan: No farewell to arms, but sales
slow By John Feffer
Three
years after the United States approved one of its
largest arms packages for Taiwan, few of the weapons
have reached the island. The centerpiece of the 2001
deal - eight diesel submarines - hasn't gotten past the
design stage. Most recently, Washington and Taipei
concluded a deal on two long-range early-warning radars
that were promised way back in 1999. Boeing and Lockheed
still are believed to be bidding.
China, of
course, is outraged, calling any arms sale a violation
of the Taiwan Relations Act and various US-China
communiques outlining the state-to-state relationship
between Washington and Beijing. The US has no official
diplomatic relations with Taiwan.
The delay has
experts in Washington and Taiwan scratching their heads.
After all, Taiwan has long wanted the new hardware
offered in 2001, which also includes sophisticated
Patriot Advanced Capability 3 (PAC-3, made by Lockheed
Martin) missiles, four decommissioned Kidd-class
destroyers (originally built for the Shah of Iran by
Litton Ingalls Shipbuilding, a subsidiary of Northrop
Grumman), anti-submarine aircraft, and amphibious
assault vehicles (made by United Defense).
Washington, meanwhile, has professed an
eagerness to sell. But political and economic
considerations have intervened. While the recent
presidential elections in Taiwan might unclog the
pipeline, the US-Taiwan military relationship may well
hinge on US elections next autumn and Taiwan legislative
elections in December.
France also has been a
big supplier of arms to Taiwan, second to the US in the
1990s. France, however, is urging the European Union to
lift its arms embargo against China itself (imposed
after the Tiananmen massacre) and Paris no doubt is more
interested in selling arms to Beijing - and also doing
big non-military commerce in China - than to Taiwan.
Running short of cash As the
second-largest arms importer in the developing world
from 1994-2001, Taiwan received more than US$20 billion
of military hardware. More than half of this money ended
up in the pockets of US manufacturers, for Taiwan during
this period was the third-largest recipient of US
exports after Saudi Arabia and Egypt. Because of
Washington's relations with Beijing, which vigorously
opposes any arms sales to the island, the United States
could not provide Taiwan with its most sophisticated
firepower. The US is supposed to sell only defensive
weapons to the island, but an F-16 combat aircraft is
not a defensive weapon, nor is an amphibious assault
vehicle. AWACS (Airborne Warning and Control System)
aircraft were first sold in 1994-95.
Like a
crafty child negotiating with Santa Claus, however,
Taiwan fell into the habit of high-balling its arms
requests to the US, knowing that it would have to settle
for less. "Taiwan pays cash and that's what the US
industry loves about it," explains William Hartung,
author of the recent book How Much Are You Making on
the War, Daddy? "That's in part why the industry
argues that Taiwan should be given more choice and a
higher level of technology. These are cash-paying
customers, the industry argues, and they're helping to
pay for part of our technology base," Hartung told Asia
Times Online.
In April 2001, with President
George W Bush in the White House, Taiwan received a
great surprise. Just about everything on its wish list
was approved. The price tag for this package -
supplemented by later approval for Apache helicopters
from Boeing and the Patriot missiles - equaled roughly
what Taiwan spent over the entire previous decade, a
little over $20 billion in both cases.
But 2001
was also the first year in a decade in which Taiwan
experienced an economic contraction. Several years of
restrained growth followed, along with an upturn in
unemployment. Taiwanese citizens took advantage of their
new democracy to demand more spending on social
programs.
The military implications of Taiwan's
economic travails have worried the US government. As
assistant secretary of state James Kelly lamented at an
April 21 congressional hearing, "We're a little troubled
because of the share of Taiwan's GDP [gross domestic
product] towards defense has significantly dropped on a
steady basis over the last 10 years or so."
With
money tight, Taiwanese generals have balked at the high
price for some of the items, particularly the $11
billion cost of the diesel submarines. The United States
hasn't produced diesel subs since 1960. European firms,
fearful of Beijing's reactions, appear reluctant to
share their designs, while the Taiwanese military is
questioning the wisdom of subsidizing ailing US
shipbuilders.
Diesel less costly, more
efficient than nuke subs US shipbuilders would
love the submarine contract, as long as they could get
designs from Europe, but reliable sources say the US
Navy opposes the deal because the new diesel subs are
less expensive and more efficient than the current
nuclear subs - and the navy is too hooked on nuclear to
give that up.
Taiwan also has indigenous
military industries, including a shipbuilding company -
China Shipbuilding Corp in the southern port of
Kaohsiung - that would like to get a piece of the
submarine deal. Taiwan also is reported to be developing
its own early-warning radar system. Further, the island
has produced a fighter aircraft called the Ching-kuo
Indigenous Defense Fighter (IDF).
But it's not
simply a monetary issue. Taiwan's internal politics have
also contributed to the delay. When the Democratic
Progressive Party (DPP) took over in 2000, its political
tenure was uncertain. Mike Fonte, a US consultant for
the DPP, told Asia Times Online, "There were many people
in the bureaucracy who were lying low for four years,
thinking that the opposition would be back in power
sooner or later and they could hang out and wait and
drag their feet if they had to."
In control of
parliament, the opposition parties contributed to tying
up discussions on arms purchases. "Taiwan had gone into
a situation of divided government," said Richard Bush,
senior fellow at Brookings Institution. "And there was
more discussion in the legislature about 'do we really
need this or do we really need that?' They spent months
deciding on whether to authorize money for Kidd-class
destroyers, which should have been the easy one," he
told Asia Times Online.
The standoff was not
defused by the presidential elections this March.
Although the DPP's Chen Shui-bian, opposed by China and
perceived as pro-independence, or at least pro-Taiwan
and not China - squeaked to victory, the accompanying
referendum on military spending failed to attract enough
voters to pass. Undaunted, Chen is moving forward with a
proposal for a $15 billion supplemental budget to cover
new arms purchases, and it's not clear how the
opposition Kuomintang (KMT) will respond.
"The
KMT and its allies may not want President Chen to get
credit for more arms deals with the United States," said
James Nolt, a senior fellow at the World Policy
Institute. "They can do that by legislatively limiting
what he can spend on arms. The KMT also may wish to
limit Chen's arms purchases in order to discourage his
drive toward declaring Taiwan independent of and equal
to mainland China."
The China
'threat' Indecision in Taipei is mirrored by
disagreement in Washington. William Hartung explains
that the Bush administration is divided on whether to
arm Taiwan in response to the perceived threat from
China. "Certain Republicans view China as the enemy of
the future and they want to get started early," he
pointed out. "The realists, either on security grounds
or because China is a huge market, want to go slow."
To persuade US realists and at the same time
overcome domestic resistance, the DPP has pointed to
nearly 500 Chinese medium-range missiles placed just
across the Taiwan Strait. The long-range radar system on
its way to Taiwan, ostensibly to give the island a few
more minutes to prepare for an incoming attack, is
designed to improve the performance of the Patriot
anti-missile system. But China views even this radar
system as threatening, for it tends to lump the
short-range PAC-3 together with the much higher-altitude
missile defense plans for the region.
Given the
announced deployment of an Aegis destroyer in the Sea of
Japan (a destroyer that supports upper-tier missile
defense) next September and the Japanese commitment to
overturning its own arms export ban to participate more
fully in missile defense, the Chinese are worried that
their small nuclear deterrent will be rendered obsolete.
Although both sides of the Taiwan Strait are
scrambling to increase spending, analysts do not foresee
a significant arms race. "Taiwan doesn't want to enter
an arms race," Alan Romberg, senior associate at the
Stimson Center, told Asia Times Online. "They don't have
money to outspend China on this." Bonnie Glaser, a
senior scholar at the Center for Strategic and
International Studies, suggests that China, meanwhile,
criticizes Taiwan's military purchases but doesn't shape
its own policies accordingly. "China's on its own
trajectory," she told ATol. "It has defined specific
missions with respect to Taiwan and is going through its
steps to achieve those goals. In the short run, Taiwan's
purchases won't change that."
Despite the recent
sale of the radar system, all sides appear to have
settled into a holding pattern. Nicholas Berry, director
of the Foreign Policy Forum, points to recent statements
from the Bush administration cautioning Chen Shui-bian
and the DPP. "I don't have access to Bush or [Secretary
of State Colin] Powell's thinking, but [those
statements] lead me to believe that this might not be a
really good time to talk about providing arms. It would
seem to contradict our warnings about Taiwan's moving
toward independence," he said in an interview.
Taiwan arms deals depend on US-China ties
The arms trade between the US and Taiwan may
also ebb or flow for larger geopolitical reasons. US
reliance on China in the "war on terrorism" and its need
for Beijing to pressure North Korea in the ongoing
six-party nuclear talks might diminish US enthusiasm for
arms sales to Taiwan, while an unexpected breakthrough
in high-level talks between Beijing and Taiwan might
lead to arms reductions. No talks are scheduled.
Conversely, a deterioration in relations between
Washington and Beijing might prompt the US government to
accelerate arms shipments to Taiwan.
In the
short term, however, all eyes are on the US presidential
elections in November and Taiwan's Legislative Yuan
elections in December. The Democrats have criticized the
Bush administration's hands-off policy toward Beijing -
"all talk and no action" as presidential hopeful John
Kerry described the US position on its trade deficit
with China. And Taiwan's governing DPP could push
forward arms purchases if it controls a legislative
majority.
Kerry has said virtually nothing about
Taiwan and arms. As a senator back in 2001, however, he
said: "Decisions on arms sales to Taiwan must be based
on our national interests - not Taiwan's, not China's."
At the time he was the top Democrat on the Senate
Foreign Relations Committee's Asia panel. "In making
those decisions, we must assess not only Taiwan's
defense needs and capacity to absorb new systems, but
also the impact on stability across the Strait and
Taiwan's long-term security," he said.
At least
to Beijing, a Bush presidency and a divided government
in Taiwan appear to be the best recipe for maintaining
the status quo in the Strait. "Republicans have always
been more tightly connected to Taipei," Nicholas Berry
pointed out, adding that Beijing, however, knows Bush,
whose father George H W Bush was the de facto US
ambassador to mainland China in the 1970s. "Believe it
or not there's some lingering sentiment about the Bush
family. They were quite well liked and respected in
Beijing and didn't do much preaching about human rights.
Kerry is relatively unknown."
John
Feffer (www.johnfeffer.com) is the
author most recently of North Korea, South Korea:
US Policy at a Time of Crisis (Seven Stories,
2003).
(Copyright 2004 Asia Times Online Co,
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