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It¡¦s actually not just the economy,
stupid
By J. Michael Cole ±FÁıN
Wednesday, May 26, 2010, Page 8
As the saying goes, you stand where you sit. Not long ago, when Paul Wolfowitz
was closer to defense than the corporatism he now embodies, he was instrumental
in the drafting of alarming reports about the rise of the Chinese military and
the threat that this represented to US security and, by extension, Taiwan.
Now that he is chairman of the US-Taiwan Business Council, however, Wolfowitz
sings a different tune. This does not mean that his views on the Chinese
military threat have softened, but his new role forces him to look at the same
object from a different perspective. By doing so, he appears to have lost sight
of the fact that China remains a threat, especially in the proximate environment
of Taiwan.
Wolfowitz, like many others who look at Taiwan from a purely economic angle,
appears to have divorced a conundrum that can only be fully understood if all
the components are taken into consideration. In other words, despite what
President Ma Ying-jeou¡¦s (°¨^¤E) administration has repeatedly said, the question
of cross-strait economics simply cannot be addressed without also taking into
account matters of politics and security.
However, this is exactly what the hitherto hawkish Wolfowitz appeared to be
arguing when he told the American Enterprise Institute in Washington that ¡§I
really hope that somehow the two political parties find a way to come together
in a truly bipartisan spirit, because getting an ECFA [economic cooperation
framework agreement] and getting it right ¡X which means it will be sustainable
even if there is a change in administrations in Taipei ¡X is not only important
to Taiwan¡¦s economy, it is important to Taiwan¡¦s national security.¡¨
If, as it is becoming increasingly clear, an ECFA and cross-strait economic
integration are non-traditional means to achieve the same objective ¡X that is,
unification ¡X how can such agreements be ¡§important to Taiwan¡¦s national
security¡¨?
What is national security, anyway? Is it simply the absence of war, or is it,
more crucially, the assurance that a nation will be allowed to express itself
without fear, intimidation and in a manner that reflects the majority of its
constituents?
The US has long insisted that the Taiwan question should be resolved by both
sides of the Taiwan Strait in a peaceful way. Peaceful, however, does not only
apply to military force; negotiations behind closed doors by elite groups that
are neither elected nor representative of the public, in which one party does
not recognize the legal existence of the other, bears all the hallmarks of
hostility. It is subtler and, on the surface, non-threatening, but if the
desired result is the subjugation of 23 million people and the eventual
curtailment of their identity and freedoms, it is not peaceful. An ECFA is an
instrument to create economic hyper-dependence on China that will give Beijing
additional means to coerce Taipei politically.
Far too often, the conservative Blue Team in Washington has looked at China from
a purely security angle, an influence that at times has undermined relations
between Beijing and Washington. Equally misleading is the other end of the
spectrum, led by stock investors and business council chairs, which fails to add
politics and security to the cross-strait equation and looks at the matter as if
it involved two equal entities.
That isn¡¦t the case. One side has a longstanding policy of unification, by force
if necessary. While the ¡§by force if necessary¡¨ appears unlikely in the current
atmosphere, there is no doubt that the military option can be reactivated at a
moment¡¦s notice.
Yes, a takeover by economic means is ¡§peaceful¡¨ by conventional definition, but
the result is the same: 23 million people (minus the minority that seeks
unification) are forced to accept an outcome that doesn¡¦t represent their core
values.
J. Michael Cole is an editor at the Taipei Times.
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