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Academic blasts US
over Taiwan policy
GAME CHANGER: A research fellow said that in its
bid to accommodate an increasingly powerful China, the US had forgotten the
significance of Taiwan
By William Lowther / Staff reporter in WASHINGTON
Taiwan has become something of an afterthought in US policy discussions on
Asia¡¦s future, a US academic has told a congressional seminar.
Taiwan¡¦s strategic location and its unique potential as a Mandarin-speaking
democracy to influence the course of Asian affairs has been given ¡§short
shrift,¡¨ Hudson Institute research fellow Eric Brown said.
¡§Even more worrisome has been the creeping acceptability of the idea that the
US¡¦s long-established security relationship with Taiwan is placing us on a
collision course with an ever-more powerful PRC [People¡¦s Republic of China],¡¨
he said.
Brown¡¦s remarks were released on Thursday in Washington by the Hudson Institute,
but were actually delivered two weeks ago to congressional staff members working
on Asian issues.
¡§The US-Taiwan relationship has been a pillar of the security order which has
sustained the previous three decades of general peace and unprecedented
prosperity in Asia,¡¨ he said.
According to his prepared remarks, Brown said that there were a number of
proposals on offer about how to best accommodate the PRC¡¦s growing power so as
to reduce US competition with Beijing and maintain peace in the region.
¡§What¡¦s striking is how such proposals almost seem to unthinkingly accept the
terms proffered by the PRC, including the question of Taiwan,¡¨ he said.
Any new agreement with the PRC would necessarily require that the US accommodate
what Beijing claims as its ¡§core interests¡¨ and that would mean ¡§capitulation on
Taiwan and elsewhere in the South China Sea,¡¨ Brown said.
¡§The power of such proposals is formidable and they¡¦ve led to growing calls for
the US to withdraw from Taiwan,¡¨ he said.
¡§So strong is the desire not only for peace, but for these particular peace
plans to work, that alarm has been raised that we Americans won¡¦t accommodate
the PRC¡¦s legitimate and merely regional aspirations,¡¨ he said.
¡§Thus, because of American intractability, the argument holds that war in Asia
becomes more likely,¡¨ Brown said.
If the US does abandon Taiwan, he said, and the People¡¦s Liberation Army sets up
a naval base in the country, it would fundamentally reshape the strategic
architecture of the West Pacific.
¡§We know from the PRC itself that it won¡¦t ¡X because it can¡¦t ¡X countenance
Taiwan as an equal. How then would it treat democratic Japan? Or South Korea?¡¨
he said.
The US¡¦ increasing isolation from Asia would increase the risk of friction with
the PRC and of ¡§outright conflict,¡¨ he said.
Brown said that a central US task was to work with Asian allies to nudge Beijing
closer to democracy.
¡§This is where I think Taiwan¡¦s role is potentially indispensable,¡¨ he said.
Far from being a strategic liability for the US in the emerging Asian order,
Taiwan had a ¡§potentially unique game-changing¡¨ role to play, he added.
¡§As a Chinese-speaking democracy, it has a special opportunity to become a
viable model for China¡¦s evolution and to help enlighten the political
institutions and future course of affairs on the mainland,¡¨ Brown said.
¡§I say Taiwan may potentially play this role, but as of now it is not clear it
will choose to do so,¡¨ he said. ¡§There is concern that the democracy on Taiwan
may not prove robust enough to remain a pillar of the liberal order in Asia.¡¨
Brown said that in the past Taiwan had helped to show China there was a better
way forward.
¡§It may yet do this again,¡¨ Brown said, ¡§especially if the US also proves our
robust commitment to democracy by renewing and deepening our relationships with
the Republic of China.¡¨
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