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Ma pressing on
Diaoyutais may hurt US ties: experts
By William Lowther / Staff reporter in WASHINGTON
The way that President Ma Ying-jeou (°¨^¤E) is pushing Taiwan¡¦s claims to the
Diaoyutai Islands (³¨³½¥x) could damage bilateral relations with the US, academics
said on Tuesday in Washington.
While the US is doing all it can to calm the sovereignty dispute over the
Diaoyutais, known as the Senkakus in Japan, academics at the Taiwan Roundtable
at the Sigur Center for Asian Studies in Washington said Ma may have been overly
active in making Taiwan¡¦s case.
¡§Ma¡¦s call for trilateral peace talks [with Japan and China] is more in line
with what the US wants to see happening,¡¨ George Washington University¡¦s Robert
Sutter said.
Even so, there has been a ¡§muted response¡¨ from the US and there is continuing
debate over just how much Washington welcomes the idea, Sutter said.
Weighing the pros and cons of the situation, the US could be seeing Taiwan as a
problem in this issue, he added.
¡§You could come to the conclusion that the US government would prefer that
Taiwan not further complicate the situation,¡¨ he said.
He stressed that US President Barack Obama¡¦s overwhelming priority was to end
the ¡§turmoil and contention¡¨ over the islands and bring the issue under control.
At a time when Washington is trying to iron out problems surrounding the
islands, Taiwan taking a more assertive stance ¡§is something that is probably
not welcome,¡¨ Sutter said.
Ma¡¦s actions of sending coastguard boats to protect fishing vessels approaching
the islands and becoming involved in a water canon fight with the Japanese ¡§do
not fit well with what the US wants to do.¡¨
Sutter said Taiwan could be seen by the US as being ¡§disruptive.¡¨
He added that it was easy for Taiwan to be seen as ¡§unimportant and to be
ignored¡¨ and this could be one reason Ma was being forceful over the islands¡¦
sovereignty.
¡§Being part of the process is every bit as important as the outcome,¡¨ Towson
University¡¦s Steven Phillips said.
Taiwan does not have to win the Diaoyutais conflict, but it does not want to be
seen as losing, he added.
Ma¡¦s actions over the islands were ¡§an attempt to raise up Taiwan¡¦s
international status¡¨ as much as they were an attempt to win sovereignty,
Phillips said.
Phillips said that Taipei¡¦s claims to the islands were the weakest of the three
claimants and there was a danger that the issue could damage the country¡¦s
credibility.
¡§Taiwan might raise its international profile, but it could be harmful in the
long run to its relations with the US and Japan,¡¨ Phillips said.
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