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Taiwan’s ‘freedom of
action’ in danger
IRREVERSIBLE: A professor at George Washington
University said Taiwan could not reverse its path, regardless of which party
wins the presidential election in January
By William Lowther / Staff Reporter in Washington
A leading US academic is predicting that as Taiwan moves closer to China under
the policies of President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九), Taipei’s “freedom of action” will
erode.
Robert Sutter of George Washington University told a conference titled “The
Future of US-Taiwan Relations” that there is a dark underside to the very
positive sentiments that are expressed toward Taiwan by Washington.
“There is a lot of good feeling for Taiwan in Washington, but underneath this
positive dynamic, Taiwan’s freedom of action is eroding,” he said.
“It cannot reverse its path. That’s the basic conclusion that I have come to,”
he said.
Sutter said that the current trends in cross-strait relations were likely to
continue and that a “break” was unlikely because the trends were perceived to be
in the best interests of Taiwan, the US and China.
He told the conference, organized by the Washington-based Center for National
Policy, that the Ma administration had provided decision-makers in all three
countries with “a great sense of relief” from the anxiety and danger that
emanated from former president Chen Shui-bian’s (陳水扁) “less China-friendly”
policies.
At the same time, however, China’s strategic influence over Taiwan had become
“enormous” and Taiwan had become “intimidated.” Also, Taiwan had become
economically dependent on China and needed China’s permission to expand its
international space, he said.
In a printed analysis handed out during the conference, Sutter said: “Close
examination shows that public support given by the [US President] Barack Obama
government for Ma’s cross-strait policies fails to hide the reduced overall US
backing for Taiwan, especially for actions that risk complicating US-China
relations for the sake of shoring up support for Taiwan.”
Even if the Democratic Progressive Party won the presidential election in
January, Sutter said the party was moving toward the center and while the
Taiwan-China relationship might stall for a while, there would be no fundamental
break.
“Chinese leverage over Taiwan is growing every day,” he said.
The US wanted to deter China from attacking Taiwan, but at the same time it also
wanted to keep the process moving toward an eventual settlement.
The US Congress, he said, would “posture in a certain way” on Taiwan’s behalf,
but if things became dangerous they would pull back. Washington, he said, still
had a strong determination to help Taiwan, but there was a reluctance to act.
“This administration is re--engaging with Asia big time, but where is Taiwan?
It’s not mentioned. It’s not part of it. It’s not there,” he said. “The
administration is full of good people. They like Taiwan [and] if China attacks
Taiwan, they will be there.”
However, he said that if Taiwan moved in a direction that was not “keeping the
engagement going with China,” US support would be thin.
“This pattern of growing ties between China and Taiwan is fully supported by the
United States,” he said.
And he stressed that the pattern inevitably narrowed Taiwan’s freedom of action.
“They are just not going to be able to do a lot of the things they used to do
and frankly, a lot of this is because they don’t want to. They don’t want to
spend money on defense. They don’t want to lose out on the economic advantages
of dealing with China,” he said.
“When we reach a point where Taiwan moves in a direction with China that
surprises people, when it moves ahead, there might be some people who will point
fingers and ask who lost Taiwan. We are all complicit in this. Unless we are out
there strongly protesting what is going on — and I don’t see anybody doing that
— we are all participants,” Sutter added.
Reminded that a substantial number of members of both houses of Congress had
recently written to Obama urging him to sell F-16C/D aircraft to Taiwan, Sutter
said that most people he talked to believed the president would agree to upgrade
Taiwan’s older F-16A/B aircraft, but would not sell Taiwan the much needed
F-16C/Ds.
He said that the upgrades would probably satisfy a lot of the members of
Congress who signed the letters supporting F-16C/D sales.
“Yes, Congress likes Taiwan and when the president of Taiwan wants something,
they support it, but what they are prepared to do about it if there is a big
blow up with China, I am not sure,” he said.
However, he said, the F-16C/D sale was not “on the cards” anyway and so the
congressional letters to Obama were “not a real test of how strong sentiment
over Taiwan really is or isn’t.”
In response to other questions, Sutter said that he thought Taiwan and China
were heading toward a convergence.
“Is this bad for the United States? I don’t think so. It doesn’t have to be if
it is peaceful. If Taiwan says, ‘This is what we want,’ what is the US supposed
to do — say we object?” he said.
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