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Cross-strait unification and the US
By Lu I-ming 呂一銘
Friday, Jun 25, 2010, Page 8
Having returned recently from her first visit to Taiwan, US
Senator Dianne Feinstein, chairwoman of the US Senate Select Committee on
Intelligence, commented that the US’ US$6.4 billion sale of military arms to
Taiwan was “a mistake,” and reiterated her opposition to the sale. The comments
came after a tour of the region that also took her to Beijing and Shanghai, and
seem to indicate a shift in US-Taiwan relations. Feinstein is known in the US
Senate for her pro-China leanings and is a key figure amongst US politicians who
favor maintaining good ties with Beijing. Believing Sino-US relations to be very
important to US interests, she has always been somewhat opposed to the idea of
selling weapons to Taiwan.
Then there is Bonnie Glaser, a China expert in Washington, who said in a recent
interview that China has recently started to make a lot of noise over the Taiwan
military sales issue for a specific reason. It sees cross-strait relations as
having entered a new phase, and is now looking for the US to re-evaluate its
Taiwan policy.
At the same time, late last month, during the second round of the US-China
Strategic and Economic Dialogue in Beijing, China’s leaders made their stance
known through an address given by Rear Admiral Yang Yi (楊毅).
Yang commented on the US record of interfering with China’s core interests,
especially on the issue of unification. Yang focused specifically on examples
from last year through to the beginning of this year — namely arms sales to
Taiwan and US President Barack Obama’s meeting with exiled Tibetan leader the
Dalai Lama. These actions, he warned, have angered not only the Chinese
government but the Chinese people, too, and the US continues on this course at
its peril.
It appears that Beijing’s policy of verbal attacks and saber rattling against
the US, in which it claims to want to promote cross-strait peace while opposing
US arms sales to Taiwan on the other, is gaining ground.
All of this has conspired over the last few years to create a new environment
not entirely conducive to Taiwan’s national interests, helped in no small part
by the government’s declaration of a “diplomatic truce.” Our armed forces are
being prepared for a more defensive role in which they are downsizing and even
about to switch over to a system of voluntary enlistment. In light of this, even
a major US government think tank believes that the closer ties brought about by
the degree and speed of the economic exchanges, the sheer volume of human
traffic between the two countries and the subsequent reopening of systematic
cross-strait negotiation channels, are all incrementally increasing the
possibility of Taiwan willingly merging with China.
In a speech in which he laid down his “six points” to promote peaceful
development between the two countries, Chinese President Hu Jintao (胡錦濤) said
that China extends a sincere invitation to those people who have supported, been
involved in or followed the cause of Taiwanese independence, to return to the
correct path forward for peaceful development across the Strait. This was a
clear shift of emphasis to a more soft power approach, to which the Taiwanese
leadership has responded, reiterating on several occasions that Taiwan has no
intention of challenging the core national interests of the People’s Republic of
China.
President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九), for example, said in an interview with CNN early
last month that he would “never” ask the US to take up arms on Taiwan’s behalf.
Former Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) chairman Lien Chan (連戰) said on a visit
to the US that a peaceful framework to cope with political questions was
unavoidable at some point in the future.
The US has never really given much thought to the fact that China and Taiwan
might “merge,” because the assumption has always been that China will use
military force. There are, however, substantive changes going on internally
within both Taiwan and China at the moment, including a dramatic increase in
Taiwan’s economic reliance on China, to the tune of about US$100 billion;
including increased numbers of Chinese tourist groups and expanded economic
activity between Taiwan and specific regions in China. This is all increasing
China’s overall strength.
The US needs to tread carefully and to give some thought to how a united Taiwan
and China would impact US interests. If we do, indeed, move in this direction,
we can expect a renewed confidence in the Chinese military, no longer
constrained by concerns of having to face US forces in the Taiwan Strait. In
other words, we can expect structural changes in US military strategy in the
Taiwan Strait area and in its relations with both China and Japan.
Not so very long ago Guo Zhenyuan (郭震遠), a research fellow at the China
Institute of International Studies, and Kuang Mei (鄺梅), an assistant professor
at Tsinghua University’s Economic Research Institute, both suggested that 2008
marked a significant turning point in cross-strait relations, with the advent of
the new idea of peaceful development. This, they said, confirmed the fact that
US influence in the region, and its ability to intervene between Taiwan and
China, was on the wane. In The Art of War, the great military strategist Sun Tzu
(孫子) wrote that the supreme art of war is to subdue the enemy without even
raising a weapon. We have been warned. I think it is time for our political
leaders to get their heads in the game and work out how to respond to a
situation that grows more precarious by the day.
Lu I-ming is the former publisher and president of Taiwan’s
Shin Sheng Daily News.
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