|
SOUTHERN
PRIDE PHOTO COURTESY OF CHUNGHWA SCHOOL OF ARTS |
|
CONSPIRACY THEORISTS Members of the Southern Taiwan Society hold up signs criticizing President Ma Ying-jeou on a street near the Formosa Boulevard MRT station in Kaohsiung yesterday. The Southern Taiwan Society says Ma is conspiring with China and protested yesterday by holding up signs with statements such as “Incompetent government” and “All Ma’s election promises have bounced” to attract attention to their cause. PHOTO: CHANG CHUNG-YI, TAIPEI TIMES |
ROC fiction
replacing Taiwan reality
Friday, Oct 10, 2008, Page 8
Double Ten day fiction has arrived again and so it is appropriate to reflect on
the nation’s status since President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) took power in May and why
Taiwan continues to be an orphan in the international community.
The confusion over Taiwan’s international status has its origins in the defunct
Republic of China (ROC). When the ROC came into existence in 1912, Taiwan was
not included in its Constitution because it was, at the time, a colony of Japan.
After the Nationalists lost China’s civil war, the island became a refuge for
them and the Constitution they brought with them. In other words, the ROC
government was exiled to a land that was never part of its founding
Constitution.
So it’s somewhat odd that Ma told a Japanese magazine earlier this week that,
under the ROC Constitution, the ROC “definitely is an independent sovereign
state, and mainland [sic] China is also part of the territory of the ROC.”
What era is Ma living in, and where? Espousing a discredited nationalist
ideology in public demonstrates how far back Ma seeks to turn the clock on
Taiwan’s maturing identity. It also dangerously lends credence to China’s
unjustifiable claims over Taiwan.
Matthew Lee (李世明), chief of the Department of Protocol at the Ministry of
Foreign Affairs, said 171 foreign guests from diplomatic allies and other
countries would attend this year’s Double Ten day celebrations, a significant
reduction from 368 people last year. It is hardly surprising that so few foreign
dignitaries would show up when Ma is focusing so much on China.
Justifying the large discrepancy, the ministry said that 584 guests attended
Ma’s inauguration in June, effectively using up most of the Double Ten day
budget. But the Double Ten day celebrations have their own budget. Moreover, the
presidential election occurs once every four years, so calling Ma’s inauguration
a national celebration is ridiculous. The real issue seems to be that Ma is
trying to appease Beijing by keeping national day celebrations low-key.
It is ironic that this year’s festivities will be held without a military parade
just after the White House approved an arms package for Taiwan. This contrasts
with last year’s celebrations, which featured a military parade at a time when
the government and opposition parties failed to reach agreement over the arms
deal. But suggestions earlier this week by National Security Bureau Director
Tsai Chao-ming (蔡朝明) that the 2003 SARS outbreak might be a biological weapon
spawned by China makes a weapons package seem less relevant.
The current administration’s actions since it gained power — placing all its
diplomatic and economic eggs in China’s basket while insisting that Taiwan is a
“region” rather than a nation — betrays a government that has an interest in the
fiction of a greater Chinese nationalism.
As recently as 2006, Academia Sinica researcher Wu Nai-teh (吳乃德) showed a steady
increase from 1991 to 2004 in the number of people identifying themselves as
Taiwanese. He also showed that those identifying themselves as Chinese fell
proportionately.
In five months, Ma has brought the country back 10 years in terms of Taiwanese
identity and a century in terms of creating a nation. Consequently, any
meaningful participation internationally will have to wait at least another four
years.
US must stand up
for democracy
By Wu Li-Pei吳澧培
Friday, Oct 10, 2008, Page 8
The US embodies the ideals of freedom and justice that are the cores of
democracy. The power of the democratic idea has evoked some of history’s most
profound and moving expressions of human will and intellect, from Pericles in
ancient Athens to Thomas Jefferson’s Declaration of Independence in 1776.
The promise of democracy has mobilized people throughout the world and the
international community looks to the US for leadership that serves liberty and
justice.
As a country that practices the values of democracy and freedom, Taiwan deserves
to be recognized as a member of the international community. Serving as an
essential link in the chain of democratic nations along the Pacific Rim over the
past two decades, Taiwan has evolved as an important player within the region,
with a stakeholder interest in political and economic stability. Despite its
impressive democratic achievements and high level of economic prosperity and
development, Taiwan is barred from fully participating in the global arena.
Taiwan’s continued exclusion from the international stage is in direct
contradiction with international law and the civilized world’s moral
progression. Nations of the world look to the US to develop a straightforward,
courageous and unambiguous policy that deals with today’s new political
realities. It is time for the US to acknowledge Taiwan’s rightful place in the
international community by establishing a “one China, one Taiwan” policy that
grants full diplomatic recognition to Taiwan.
US STAKE IN ASIA
Taiwan is important to the US and the international community because of its
vital role in spreading democracy in East Asia, its strategic importance to
promoting peace in the Pacific region and its indispensable position in the
prosperity of the global economy. The US has an immense economic and strategic
stake in the Asia-Pacific region and Taiwan is essential to those objectives.
The US has helped Taiwan become a successful model of Asian democracy with
competitive and transparent elections and high voter turnout. The Taiwanese
people enjoy unbridled personal liberties, including freedom of speech, press
and association.
Taiwan is also a critical player in the international economy. The country is
the world’s third-largest holder of foreign currency reserves, the US’
eighth-largest trading partner and the world’s 17th-largest economy. Taiwan’s
free-market economy is the epicenter of high technology R&D, manufacturing and
distribution, with a dominant market presence in semiconductors, microchips and
next-generation communications devices. The world relies on Taiwan’s ability to
deliver products and innovation in these industries.
Beyond its significant economic ties with Taiwan, the US’ relations with its
allies in the Asia-Pacific region are also linked to Taiwan’s security. A
failure by the US to meet its security commitments to Taiwan, as vested in the
Taiwan Relations Act and elsewhere, would potentially undermine the US’ ties
with other allies in the region, such as Japan and South Korea, and perhaps even
ripple beyond Asia to Europe and NATO.
UNRESOLVED STATUS
Taiwan has profound strategic implications for the US and the Asia-Pacific
region, yet for 60 years the US has taken an ambivalent official stance on
Taiwan’s status, neither recognizing the sovereignty of Taiwan nor recognizing
China’s claim to sovereignty over the island. Recently, Susan Brenner, Deputy
Taiwan Coordination Adviser at the US Department of State, reiterated this view
when she said that the US has “not formally recognized Chinese sovereignty over
Taiwan and [has] not made any determination as to Taiwan’s political status.”
The US has never recognized China’s sovereignty over Taiwan. Militarily,
politically, diplomatically and economically the US treats Taiwan as separate
from China. This long-standing position dates to at least April 11, 1947, when
acting US secretary of state Dean Acheson stated that the transfer of
sovereignty over Taiwan from Japan to China “has not yet been formalized.”
Taiwan’s formal international political status was left undetermined by the San
Francisco Peace Treaty in 1952 when Japan ceded Formosa without a recipient.
In practice, Taiwan is mostly seen through the prism of the US’ “one China”
policy. In the context of the Cold War, the “one China” policy was designed to
defer the resolution of the Taiwan issue by maintaining a strategic ambiguity
regarding its status. It purposely left the US neutral about the eventual
resolution of the issue. Unfortunately, today this policy is being used to deny
the sovereignty of a democracy and its people the right to self-determination.
The “one China” policy was never meant to be a long-term solution, nor was it
designed to accommodate the democratization of Taiwan and the economic and
military rise of China. The policy expresses neither the situation in Taiwan nor
the values and interests that the US promotes to the world. As a reflection of
the US’ democratic values, the US has the responsibility to resolve the status
of Taiwan and must give preferential weight to Taiwanese in determining their
own future.
TAIWAN’S DEMOCRACY
The Taiwanese have spoken. Since 1996, the people of Taiwan have made their
choice clear though the ballet box by electing their own leaders and choosing
democracy. It is now time for the US to act and recognize Taiwan as a sovereign
entity.
From the 1950s to the 1980s, tens of thousands of Taiwanese sacrificed their
lives and freedom in the struggle to gain liberty. That heavy price was paid not
only for democracy but also because the people of Taiwan longed to establish a
new and sovereign state as the unavoidable conclusion to centuries of colonial
rule. This is a cause that the American people understand and identify with and
one which the US government should support.
Today’s government on Taiwan represents 23 million people and is a multi-party
democracy, with freedoms of press, speech, religion and enterprise. Most
importantly, Taiwan has never been a part of the political entity known as the
People’s Republic of China, yet Taiwan remains outside the UN and ignored by the
international community. The people of Taiwan have established a thriving
democracy in spite of this international isolation. In the area of
globalization, however, continued international isolation threatens the future
of Taiwan’s democratic miracle.
POKING THE DRAGON
The geopolitical threat to regional stability in East Asia does not stem from
the independent, peace-loving nation of Taiwan. It stems from China, where at
the start of this year, more than 1,400 ballistic missiles — augmented by around
190 cruise missiles — targeted the island.
China is growing into an economic powerhouse and its new-found economic strength
has enabled it to launch ambitious military modernization. This modernization is
aimed at improving China’s force options against Taiwan, and at deterring,
countering and complicating US military intervention.
China is becoming more confrontational about the Taiwan issue. Not satisfied
with the “status quo” of non-resolution on the status of Taiwan, the Chinese
Communist government has increased its efforts to cut off Taiwan diplomatically,
by bribing other countries to switch recognition from Taipei to Beijing. China
is aggressively blocking Taiwan from joining international and non-governmental
organizations and frustrating Taiwan’s efforts to find more international space.
WHAT SHOULD BE DONE
China is very serious about overtaking Taiwan, and the US has not done enough to
dissuade it. Taiwan has transformed itself from a dictatorship into a democracy.
That momentous change has increased the chances of conflict in the Taiwan Strait
— not because Taiwan is provocative, but because China cannot abide Taiwan’s
democratic character and the reality that it has become a separate, autonomous
entity. China’s leaders are terrified that the Taiwanese example of freedom and
self-government might influence the people of China to want the same,
challenging the legitimacy of the party’s rule.
The US should not appease China’s strategic desires, but instead should support
Taiwan’s democracy by announcing a “one China, one Taiwan” policy that reflects
the current reality and states a clear commitment to Taiwan and its defense.
Such a policy would affirm the rights of the Taiwanese people to decide their
own future and, more importantly, would reduce the risk of war with China by
deterring China from using force against Taiwan. This policy would not only
provide confidence to the people of Taiwan about the future of their democracy,
but would also serve US interests and reassure the international community.
The clearest way of expressing that support is for the US to grant full
diplomatic recognition to the sovereignty that already exists and which the
Taiwanese people overwhelmingly wish to preserve. Maintaining ambiguous,
informal ties with Taiwan is confusing and potentially dangerous and it obscures
Beijing’s understanding of just how committed the US is to Taiwan’s defense and
self-determination.
The longer the US and other countries participate in the charade of the “one
China” policy and delay recognizing Taiwan, the riskier the situation becomes.
China is biding its time, telling the world that some day there will be a
reckoning over Taiwan, but Beijing doesn’t want to act now. It wants to act on
its own timetable. At this point, China’s military capacity simply cannot match
the US standard, and it is at this point the US must act. If the US resolved the
status of Taiwan, Beijing would have no option but to back down and no reason to
attack or blame Taiwan.
RECOGNITION, STABILITY
Recognition of Taiwan would bring stability and certainty, thus actually
lowering the risks that Beijing would misinterpret the US’ position and threaten
or actually commence military action against Taiwan. China will not like this
turn of events, but inevitably, as the international community follows the lead
of the US, China will have little choice but to accept full recognition.
Taiwan has intrinsic value to US interests that transcends cross-strait issues.
Given the size of Taiwan’s economy, its position in the global supply chain in
key sectors and its leadership role in promoting democracy, Taiwan’s power and
influence in the international community belies its diminutive size and
population. The independence sentiment on the part of Taiwan’s people is neither
frivolous nor provocative, but rather the natural manifestation of a process
that the US has supported. Taiwan is a poster child for American values, and as
such Taiwan’s democracy must be preserved, promoted and recognized, not
subordinated to an authoritarian Chinese state.
The success of Taiwan depends on the support offered by the community of
democracies, as does that of all peoples determined to fight for freedom and
human rights. The world should not stand by and allow China to crush a vibrant,
successful and democratic Taiwan, and the US should show them the way. It is
time for the US to embrace its principles and values-based approach to foreign
policy, which in the long run will prevail. Let the reality of Taiwan, rather
than the fear of China, be the guiding principle.
Wu Li-pei is the founder and honorary
chairman of the Formosa Foundation.