TAIPEI - In the United States, the notion
that Beijing may take Taiwan seems to be becoming
increasingly acceptable.
For the first
time since Beijing severed military ties last year
over a US$6.3 billion US arms sale to Taiwan, a
People's Liberation Army (PLA) delegation is
visiting the Untied States. Anyone who meets
General Chen Bingde, the PLA chief of the general
staff, on his week-long visit ending May 22 is
certain to hear one thing: Washington must abandon
its security commitment to the self-governed
island enshrined in the Taiwan Relations Act
(TRA).
If Chen's demands indeed fall on
fertile ground, it's for a good part also
something in which renowned US scholars and former
high-ranking US officials have a hand. In a wave
of recent opinion pieces and speeches, they have
called on America to stop the
practice of ensuring Taiwan's
sovereignty by providing it with weaponry.
The TRA is a US Public Law, enacted by the
96th US Congress on January 1, 1979. It was meant
as an indemnification for then-president Jimmy
Carter's decision to recognize the Chinese
Communist Party (CCP) ruling on the mainland
instead of the Kuomintang (KMT) exiled in Taipei
as the legitimate government of the whole of
China.
The internal law obliges US
administrations to hinder any effort to determine
the future of Taiwan other than by peaceful means,
including boycotts or embargoes. It explicitly
binds Washington to provide Taiwan with arms of a
defensive character and also to maintain the US's
capacity to come to Taiwan's help in the event the
situation in the Taiwan Strait turns sour.
In regards to the law's implementation,
however, lawgivers left some wiggle room. It
ambiguously provides that "defense articles and
defense services are made available in such
quantity as may be necessary to enable Taiwan to
maintain a sufficient self-defense capability".
Thus, ever since the TRA was enacted, the question
of exactly how many weapons Washington should give
Taipei has fueled heated debate.
The genie
was out of the bottle on November 17, 2009. Bill
Owens, an influential American businessman based
in Hong Kong and former vice chairman of Joint
Chiefs of Staff, in an editorial in the Financial
Times called for the abrogation of the TRA and a
halt to US arms sales to Taiwan. Owens described
the TRA as outdated and assured its scrapping
would be viewed by China "as a genuine attempt to
set a new course for a relationship that can
develop into openness, trust and even friendship".
Unsurprisingly, Owens suggestions were met
by the emotional responses of countless scholars
both in the US and Taiwan. They in turn bombarded
newspaper opinion columns and academic journals,
fielding numerous arguments as to why the US
should not abandon Taiwan.
If the US
allowed Taipei to be taken by the reds, regional
security alliances crucial to US interests would
go bankrupt, so went the tenor of objections.
China would never become a democracy if
Taiwan ceased to be one, and also due to
geostrategic reasons, the PLA should not be
allowed to set foot on Taiwanese soil.
This is because if it did, Beijing, among
other undertakings in this regard, would take
advantage of the island's east coast to establish
deep-sea harbors not only for container ships that
deliver the goods that make China rich to the
world but also for its navy in general and the
Chinese submarine fleet in particular.
Without Taiwan, Chinese subs have to sneak
through dangerously shallow waters, easily caught
by Japan's and the Taiwanese navy's watchful eyes;
with Taiwan, Chinese subs, by contrast, would in
an instant be able to slip into the vastness of
the Pacific Ocean and could therefore without
hindrance project navy power far from China's own
shores.
Also the sea lines of
communication (SLOC) that supply the economies of
Japan and South Korea - both among the US's most
valuable allies - with raw materials could all too
easily be cut off if the PLA used Taiwan as a
base.
Last but not least, there's the
human-rights issue. The Taiwanese do not have too
many reasons to believe that Beijing would treat
its opponents on the island, and particularly
those who had once been caught on record speaking
out in favor of Taiwanese independence, gingerly
if it gained control, so said Owens' critics.
In recent weeks and months, however, the tide
seems to have turned. Coming from an arguable
illustrious group of people, there has been an
unprecedented volume of talk recommending that the
US end its responsibility for Taiwan's defense.
These include:
Chas Freeman Jr, a seasoned former diplomat
and main interpreter for former US president
Richard Nixon in his 1972 China visit.
Joseph Prueher, who held the positions of navy
admiral and commander of the US Pacific Command
and ambassador to China under former US presidents
Bill Clinton and George W Bush.
Former commander-in-chief of the US Pacific
Command Admiral, Timothy Keating, as well as James
Shinn, the national intelligence officer for East
Asia at the Central Intelligence Agency.
International relations theorist Charles
Glaser, among other reputed members of the US
scholarship.
Their arguments are not
unconvincing. They identified US arms sales to
Taiwan as the principal irritant in the Sino-US
relationship in an era when Washington and Beijing
for the sake of the entire humankind had better
work together. They say that at a time when US
debt has hit US$14 trillion, and annually well
over US$1 trillion is spent for the US military,
it is not smart just for the sake of clinging onto
the TRA to enter into a race with the PLA to see
who can spend the other into the ground.
Because the Middle Kingdom's defense
budget is neither a significant strain on its
economy nor likely to become one, the US is bound
to end up as broke as the Soviet Union was at the
end of the Cold War if it continues selling
weapons to Taipei, thereby unnecessarily
positioning itself as China's rival, said the
TRA's critics.
Also, ships carrying oil to
Japan and South Korea could simply take an
insignificant detour, while the US just as well
could cut off China's own SLOCs in the straits of
Malacca, Sunda and Lombok to prevent Beijing
implementing a naval blockade on Seoul or Tokyo.
Furthermore, according to those who assess
Washington's security commitment to Taipei as
hopelessly outdated, the concerns harbored by
Taiwanese people are seen as somewhat exaggerated.
According to the TRA opponents, what Beijing has
all along had in mind is a purely symbolic
reunification with Taiwan; it does not want to
establish any political or military presence of
its own on the island, they believe.
Taipei would be offered far greater
autonomy than China's Special Administrative
Regions (SARs) - Hong Kong and Macau. And if
Washington were to allow Beijing to symbolically
fly the red flag over Taipei, China would halt its
arms build-up, pull back from claiming the
resource-rich and strategic waters it disputes
with neighbors, and Asia-Pacific as well as the
rest of the world would live happily ever after,
so the TRA's opponents say.
Developments
on the American side of the Pacific indicate that
the TRA's days are numbered, John Copper, a
Stanley J Buckman professor of international
studies at Rhodes College in Memphis, Tennessee,
said in an interview with Asia Times Online.
"As I see it, the TRA is being forgotten. The
act was passed by congress when the Democrats were
in control, and there were many Democrats who
liked it and defended it in ensuring years. But
those like [Ted] Kennedy, [Jacob] Javits and
others are no longer around," Copper said, adding
that new people in congress don't know much about
the TRA and don't see it as a good issue for
winning votes or building a reputation.
"The TRA has not been mentioned by anyone
in congress in the last two or three years. This
suggests that not many in the US are determined to
fight for Taiwan," Copper said. "President
[Barack] Obama is focusing on other things; so is
congress."
As the US presidential election
is going to be held in November 2012, an analysis
of the preferences of the Obama administration and
their still unknown Republican contenders likely
holds clues for the TRA's future.
Copper
indicated why a Democrat victory could augur badly
for the TRA. "Of course, there has been almost
nothing said by candidates for 2012, and we do not
know for sure who will be on Republican side. But
generally, Republicans favor Taiwan much more
[than Democrats]."
He said Obama's focus
was on China economic issues, and his
administration was more likely to seek good ties
with Beijing, while the Republicans wanted a
stronger military to protect Taiwan.
On
the deep-seated sentiments of the US's political
parties that could well shape attitudes concerning
the TRA, Copper said, "Traditionally, Republicans
like Asia, which is conservative; Democrats like
Europe. Republicans have been closer to the navy,
which plays a bigger role in Asia; Democrats are
closer to the army.''
Steve Tsang,
professor at the University of Nottingham and
writer of the authoritative If China Attacks
Taiwan: Military strategy, politics and
economics, argues that it is impossible for
Beijing to keep the promise of its official
Chinese policy that there would not be any need
for other changes if Taiwan accepted mainland
sovereignty.
"Taiwan's democracy is
genuinely vibrant and its continued consolidation
would pose a basic challenge to the authority of
the CCP [Chinese Communist Party] on the mainland.
Since the CCP's top priority is regime survival,
it cannot tolerate a democratic Taiwan within the
PRC [People's Republic of China] posing as a model
for the rest of the country," he said.
Tsang believes that if Taiwan were to
remain as it is while under the red flag, its
democracy would not exercise the kind of
self-control that has become pervasive in the Hong
Kong administrations under both Tung Chee-hwa and
Donald Tsang, and thus, at its best, the Hong Kong
model offers no reassurance for Taiwan.
"For those Americans who see Hong Kong as
a viable model and Taiwan potentially the cause
for the most serious war that the US may get
involved in and cannot be sure of an easy victory,
it may appear in US interests to remove the cause
for such a conflict," said Tsang of the University
of Nottingham.
"But this approach is
counter-productive, as it would increase the risk
of miscalculation in Beijing. The Chinese
government will believe that the US has lost the
will to help Taiwan defend itself, and thus could
be deterred from interfering, making the use of
force an acceptable option."
Tsang doubts
that the US will repeal the TRA, but believes that
if it did, the move would be highly controversial
in the US and it would almost certainly lead to
Beijing requiring Taipei to accept unification -
by the threat or actual use of force.
Tsang argues that as long as the TRA is
not repealed, Washington will always have the
option to decide what to do as the situation
unfolds. "The better way by far is to make the US
deterrence against a Chinese threat to use force
credible and effective. It means giving Taiwan
sufficient capabilities to hold out for long
enough for US forces to interfere, should the
administration of the day decide to do so. Beijing
is most unlikely to use force and risk a major war
that it cannot win and which threatens the very
survival of the CCP establishment," said Tsang.
Jens Kastner is a Taipei-based
journalist.
(Copyright 2011 Asia Times
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