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Let Taiwan choose its
own way in the future
By Lin Cheng-yi 林正義
On June 16, the US House of Representatives’ Committee on Foreign Affairs held a
hearing called “Why Taiwan Matters.” US Representative Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, who
chairs the committee, denounced calls coming from some in Washington to stop
selling weapons to Taiwan.
She criticized China for using threats in an attempt to influence the way
Taiwanese cast their ballots in next year’s presidential and legislative
elections, and urged Taipei to make sure its trade does not become too reliant
on the Chinese market, which might allow Beijing to use its economic leverage to
weaken Taiwan’s political will.
The hearing was attended by 17 members of the House, and four academics and
experts were called as witnesses, all of whom urged US President Barack Obama to
provide Taiwan with F-16C/D aircraft. Former deputy assistant secretary of state
for East Asian and Pacific Affairs Randall Schriver called on the Obama
administration to be a bit more bold and to consider the consequences of its
actions, because history showed that the US could weather the fallout from
anything China might do in retaliation to arms sales to Taiwan.
The US Department of State was tying its own hands and acting unreasonably by
not allowing Taiwanese officials to enter government buildings, said Nancy
Bernkopf Tucker, a professor of history at Georgetown University’s School of
Foreign Service, and June Teufel Dreyer, a professor of political science at the
University of Miami.
They proposed scrapping the limitations on senior US officials meeting with
Taiwanese officials and the locations at which such meetings could take place.
US representatives Dan Burton and Steve Chabot echoed this opinion.
There was also criticism at the hearing of the way President Ma Ying-jeou’s
(馬英九) administration was governing.
Chabot said there was a “scent of a criminalization of politics” regarding the
treatment given to jailed former president Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁).
Tucker said the Ma administration was sending out signals that Taipei does not
need much assistance from the US in light of improving relations across the
Taiwan Strait.
Dreyer was unhappy about setbacks to press freedoms in Taiwan, saying that the
steps taken by the Ma administration to improve relations with China had eroded
Taiwan’s sovereignty and that statements from Taipei only mentioned to Taiwanese
the positives of closer relations and glossed over the risks.
Dreyer said Ma’s Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) and the Chinese Communist Party
seemed to be in agreement about many policies regarding Taiwan and implied that
no agreement about Taiwan’s future existed between the KMT and the Democratic
Progressive Party (DPP). She said that Taiwan’s two main parties should present
a united front when facing external challenges.
Despite her criticism of the Ma government, Dreyer called on the Obama
administration to make an overall appraisal of the military balance between the
two sides of the Strait.
China’s Taiwan Affairs Office is reportedly preparing to launch a series of
criticisms aimed at the DPP — matching salvos launched by the KMT — warning
Taiwanese voters that cross-strait relations could face setbacks if they vote
for the “wrong” party.
Most of the people who attended the House hearing voiced support for the right
of Taiwanese to decide their own future free from outside interference. The
message for China is that it should quietly accept whatever happens in Taiwan’s
elections and avoid making clumsy verbal interventions.
Lin Cheng-yi is director of Academia Sinica’s Institute of European and
American Studies.
TRANSLATED BY JULIAN CLEGG
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