Wang upbeat
on US arms sales
TIME TO PROCEED: The
legislative speaker said in Washington that the US government should trust the
assessment made by defense professionals and approve a stalled arms deal
STAFF WRITER, WITH CNA, WASHINGTON
Tuesday, Jul 29, 2008, Page 3
“The passage of the procurement package is actually a ‘matter of course’
since it has been approved by the US president, its budget had been passed by
the legislature and the relevant preparations are almost all in place.”— Wang
Jin-pyng, legislative speaker
Legislative Speaker Wang Jin-pyng (王金平) said in the US capital on Sunday that he
was fully confident that the administration of US President George W. Bush would
proceed with arms sales to Taiwan after the Beijing Olympics.
Wang said he believes the State Department would proceed shortly with the arms
sales package that Washington approved in 2001, as under the Taiwan Relations
Act the US has pledged to continue to provide Taiwan with defensive weapons to
maintain stability and safeguard peace and security in the Asia-Pacific region.
“The passage of the procurement package is actually a ‘matter of course’ since
it has been approved by the US president, its budget had been passed by the
legislature and the relevant preparations are almost all in place,” Wang said at
a news conference in Washington.
Wang said that the US government should trust the assessment made by defense
professionals and give the green light to the arms deal soon because it is in
line with the mutual interests of Taiwan and the US and is one of the key
factors in balancing military strength across the Taiwan Strait.
Third, he said, the package — which includes anti-tank missiles, sea-launched
Harpoon missiles, Apache helicopters, Patriot PAC-3 anti-missile batteries,
diesel-powered submarines and P-3C Orion maritime patrol aircraft — would help
Taiwan gain greater leverage in trilateral relations with China and the US and
contribute significantly to efforts to maintain stability in the Asia-Pacific
region.
Wang said he had visited Washington before for talks on the arms sales plan, but
all he heard was pressure from the US for the legislature to pass the arms
package bill as soon as possible.
This time around, he said he was in Washington to push the US government to
complete the administrative process, the sooner the better, so that the case
could be referred to Congress for approval.
He said that President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) had reiterated recently that Taiwan’s
policy of acquiring US weapons systems remained unchanged and had stressed that
“Taiwan’s purchase of US military weapons should proceed as projected and as
quickly as possible.”
Wang emphasized that carrying through on the arms deal would be tremendously
meaningful in terms of strengthening Taiwan’s national security, and its
confidence in negotiations with China.
The implementation of the arms deal would also be meaningful in terms of
demonstrating political trust between Taiwan and the US, Wang said, adding that
more stable US-Taiwan relations are in the national interests of both.
Beijing
attacks McCain for meeting Dalai Lama
AGENCIES, BEIJING
Tuesday, Jul 29, 2008, Page 4
China warned US Senator John McCain, the presumptive Republican presidential
candidate, yesterday to stop “supporting and conniving with” the Dalai Lama,
saying that meeting the Tibetan spiritual leader hurt Sino-US relations.
McCain met the Nobel Peace Prize laureate in Colorado on Friday and urged China
to address human rights concerns and free Tibetan prisoners. He praised the
Dalai Lama as a “transcendent international role model and hero.”
But China’s Foreign Ministry repeated its long-standing position that anything
to do with Tibet was purely an internal affair.
“The Chinese side expresses deep concern about the above report,” spokesman Liu
Jianchao (劉建超) said in a statement on the ministry’s Web site.
“We oppose the Dalai engaging in splittist activities in any country in any
capacity, and oppose anyone using the Dalai issue to interfere in Chinese
internal affairs. This position is consistent and clear,” he said.
Liu urged Americans to recognize that the Dalai Lama was trying to separate
China and was aiming to destroy social stability in Tibet “under the cloak of
religion.”
Though China and envoys for the Dalai Lama have met twice this year following
rioting in Tibet in March, the government regularly blasts him for seeking
independence for the region.
Ma’s
policies risk total isolation
By Lai I-chung 賴怡忠
Tuesday, Jul 29, 2008, Page 8
President Ma Ying-jeou’s (馬英九) first tour overseas as president has been
overshadowed by several incidents. The status of Ma’s transit trough the US did
not meet Taiwan’s expectations, while at the same time China suddenly caused a
furor by equivocating on what Taiwan should be called during the Beijing
Olympics.
Meanwhile, rumors spread through the media that there were problems with finding
a suitable candidate for Taiwan’s new representative to Japan. And on top of
that, there has been speculation that the US has put a freeze on arms sales to
Taiwan as well as news that Taiwan and Japan almost came to blows over the
Diaoyutai issue.
These developments are vastly different from what everyone expected when Ma said
that he would turn Taiwan into a force for peace in East Asia and that he would
work hard at upholding good relations between Taiwan and the US and Japan.
We cannot explain the changes in the US’ and Japan’s attitude toward Taiwan by
saying that the US needs China for help in their war against terrorism and for
assistance in dealing with North Korea or that Japan wishes to remain friendly
with China. For the US, becoming bogged down in its war on terrorism, with the
war in Iraq and its need for China’s help in dealing with North Korea aren’t
things that suddenly appeared with Ma’s accession to power. The US did not
freeze arms sales to Taiwan just because of China. In the same way, Taiwan’s
claim to sovereignty over the Diaoyutai island chain was not invented by Ma,
although over the last 20 years of Taiwan-Japan relations, there has never been
a time when the two sides even mentioned going to war over the issue.
Basically, the US and Japan have changed their attitude toward Taiwan because
they doubt the diplomatic strategies of the Ma administration and its tactical
approach in dealing with the issue. On the second day after Ma’s election, he
announced that he intended to visit Japan without first talking it over with
Tokyo. The brash way in which Ma’s government left no room for compromise in
handling the Diaoyutai issue, giving no consideration to the fact that the issue
affects Taiwan’s status in relation to the Treaty of Mutual Cooperation and
Security between the US and Japan, and the way the government kept repeating the
same thing time and again set up new variables. The long delay of the arms
procurement bill, a good indicator of US-Taiwan cooperation on security issues,
has also hurt mutual trust between the two countries.
In addition, by allowing rumors to circulate about the candidate for Taiwan’s
representative to Japan before having discussed the issue with Japan, Ma put
Tokyo in an awkward position. All of these incidents have hurt the trust and
confidence the US and Japan once held in Taiwan.
However, the most basic issue at hand is that the US and Japan have doubts about
Ma’s international strategies. Ma believes the development of cross-strait
relations will also benefit the US and Japan. However, if cross-strait relations
and relations between Taiwan, the US and Japan are viewed as zero-sum games, the
US and Japan may not necessarily agree with Ma. Before his inauguration, Ma
declared that priority would be placed on cross-strait relations over diplomatic
relations, with his future foreign minister saying that a “diplomatic truce” was
needed. In response to these comments, US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice
reminded Taiwan that the US and Taiwan have important relations with each other
that must not be forgotten, a hint for Ma not to predicate a definition of
US-Taiwanese relations on relations across the Taiwan Strait.
However, developments after this made many people on the US side realize that
significant strategic changes had already taken place in Taiwan. In the past,
Taiwan always believed that security cooperation between the US and Taiwan was
beneficial for Taiwan when dealing with China. However, the Chinese Nationalist
Party (KMT) has now said they want the US to announce a temporary freeze on arms
sales to Taiwan. This suggests that Taipei views security cooperation with the
US as a negative factor in cross-strait relations and not a bargaining chip that
they can use with China.
Tokyo also believes that Ma’s increasing allegiance toward China comes at the
expense of colder relations with Japan. Apart from announcing on two occasions
that Taiwan could go to war with Japan over the Diaoyutai Islets, Ma’s idea
about relying on China to save Taiwan’s ailing economy is totally against
reservations the international community has about China’s economy in the
post-Olympic era. Tokyo just cannot fathom how a country with an annual GDP per
capita exceeding US$16,000 would want to rely on a country with an annual GDP
per capita lower than US$2,000.
Many analysts cite Ma’s series of pro-China policies as proof that his
government is indeed moving closer to China and further away from the US and
Japan, saying this is the only possible explanation for the strange logic behind
Ma’s economic and political policies.
Ma complains that the media are unable to understand that his cross-strait
policies have a deeper significance for changing the situation in East Asia. The
actions of his government have definitely changed the situation in East Asia;
however, none of these changes are beneficial to Taiwan.
Asking that a temporary freeze be placed on arms sales has made the US wonder
why it should keep taking the blame from China for selling arms to Taiwan if
Taiwan itself believes arms sales are not beneficial to stability in the Taiwan
Strait.
Ma’s rashness in dealing with the Diaoyutai issue has also made officials from
Japan’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs say in private that the uncertainty of
Taiwan’s strategy will make Japan reconsider its position on security and
prepare in advance for threats from a unified China and Taiwan.
Now that Taiwan has lost a lot of the trust it once had from the US and Japan,
China has seized the opportunity to belittle Taiwan by using the name “Taipei,
China.” These problems all stem from the changes in how the US and Japan now
view Taiwan.
We cannot expect any breakthrough in cross-strait relations with Ma’s inferior
diplomacy strategies because they cause the US and Japan to doubt him. If Ma
fails to understand that an allegiance with the US and Japan is the only way to
go for Taiwan, if he keeps causing trouble and continues to use China to keep
the US and Japan in check, Taiwan will lose the trust of the US and Japan.
Once that trust is gone, and if China does not buy Ma’s fawning, Taiwan could
move from being a country that is isolated strategically to one that is totally
isolated.
Lai I-chung is an executive committee
member of the Taiwan Thinktank.