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Taiwan should stop
PRC: Bolton
SEA DISPUTE: Another former US envoy, Richard
Bush, said the Diaoyutai issue could have turned worse if the governor of Tokyo
had bought three of the islands
By William Lowther / Staff reporter in Washington
Former American Institute in
Taiwan chairman Richard Bush displays the Chinese version of his book on
Sino-Japanese relations during a press conference in Taipei yesterday.
Photo: Wang Min-wei, Taipei Times
Former US ambassador to the UN John Bolton
called on Taiwan to renounce China¡¦s ¡§outlandish claims¡¨ to disputed territories
in the East and South China Seas.
According to Bolton, now a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute,
China¡¦s goal is to sow discord among its competitors by pitting Vietnam against
the Philippines, isolating Japan and ¡§neutralizing¡¨ Taiwan.
¡§Potential hostilities are no longer hypothetical,¡¨ Bolton wrote in the Wall
Street Journal on Tuesday.
Bolton said he believed the US must work diplomatically, ¡§largely behind the
scenes,¡¨ to resolve differences among the other claimants ¡X including Taiwan.
Earlier this week, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs asked claimants to the South
China Sea dispute to invite Taiwan to join discussions on formulating a code of
conduct for the region.
The ministry reiterated that the Pratas Islands (Dongsha, ªF¨F®q), the Spratly
Islands (Nansha Islands, «n¨F¸s®q), the Macclesfield Bank (Zhongsha Islands, ¤¤¨F¸s®q)
and the Paracel Islands (Xisha Islands, ¦è¨F¸s®q) belong to Taiwan.
The four island groups and their surrounding waters ¡X potentially rich in
natural resources ¡X are also claimed either entirely or in part by China, the
Philippines, Vietnam, Malaysia and Brunei.
¡§The more intra-ASEAN disputes we can eliminate, the greater the potential for a
common position,¡¨ Bolton wrote. ¡§This pragmatic diplomatic strategy of resolving
non-Chinese competing claims hardly guarantees positive results, but it beats
repeating academic mantras about international law.¡¨
¡§Taiwan could also help politically by renouncing China¡¦s outlandish claims to
disputed territories,¡¨ he added.
Bolton said that China sees the disputed waters, islands, reefs and rock
outcroppings through a ¡§prism of increasing proximity.¡¨
He condemned the US Navy cuts due to ¡§draconian¡¨ budget reductions and US
President Barack Obama¡¦s ¡§diffidence¡¨ in protecting US interests abroad.
Bolton urged the US to ¡§decide unequivocally¡¨ that Beijing¡¦s expansionism in the
East and South China Seas is contrary to US national interests.
¡§These are high, tangible stakes for us and our Asian and Pacific friends,
ranging broadly from Japan and South Korea to Australia and the Association of
Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) including Indonesia, Malaysia, Vietnam and the
Philippines,¡¨ Bolton wrote.
The stakes, he said, include undersea mineral resources and sea lanes of
communication and trade critical to US and global prosperity.
¡§This is about power and resolve,¡¨ Bolton said.
He added that the US¡¦ approach ¡X watching while initially minor incidents risk
escalating ¡X puts Washington at a distinct disadvantage.
¡§Passivity will allow Beijing to prevail repeatedly, incident after incident,
until US weakness becomes so palpable that there is no doubt of China¡¦s
across-the-board success,¡¨ he wrote.
¡§America¡¦s China policy should be comprehensive, agile and persistent, but one
fixed element must be that the international waters around China will not become
Lake Beijing,¡¨ he concluded.
In related news, a former chairman of the American Institute in Taiwan (AIT)
said yesterday that the row over the disputed Diaoyutai Islands (³¨³½¥x) could be
worse.
Speaking in Taipei at the launch of the Chinese-language version of his book The
Perils of Proximity: China-Japan Security Relations, Richard Bush said that ¡§if
Shintaro Ishihara, the governor of Tokyo, had bought the islands,¡¨ instead of
the Japanese government, the situation would have been much worse.
The Japanese government signed a ¢D2.05 billion (US$26 million) deal on Tuesday
to buy three of the Diaoyutai Islands, which are claimed by Japan, Taiwan and
China.
This has caused tensions to rise in the region, as the Taiwanese and Chinese
governments voiced strong protests against Japan¡¦s move.
Bush said that if Ishihara, a well-known right-wing nationalist, had succeeded
in buying the islands, it would have made people in Taiwan, Hong Kong and China
¡§extremely unhappy.¡¨
¡§It [the situation] is still uncertain, but I think we¡¦ve avoided a disaster,¡¨
Bush said.
Additional reporting by CNA
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