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Editorial: Ma¡¦s
hedging strategy mixes it all
As if Taiwan¡¦s status and official designation were not confusing enough for
those who are not familiar with its precarious situation, President Ma Ying-jeou¡¦s
(°¨^¤E) foreign policy in recent months has seen so many twists and turns as to
stun even the most seasoned of policy wonks.
The root of the confusion is not, as some of his detractors would have it, that
Ma is bending to Beijing¡¦s will, but rather that he wants it all.
He wants to improve relations with China, the US, Japan and the rest of the
international community, but at the same time his administration feels it must
rock the boat to ensure that Taiwan is not ignored while elephants clash, and
must prepare for a rainy day should the current detente in the Taiwan Strait
shift in a different direction.
As a result, while Ma has proposed the widely hailed East China Sea peace
initiative, Taipei has also engaged in brinkmanship of a kind never seen before,
sending militaristic signals and appealing to nationalistic sentiment, while
relying on the Coast Guard Administration to flex some muscles at sea over the
Diaoyutai Islands (³¨³½¥x) dispute.
Even though most people in the know agree that the front-page-earning water
cannon battles between Taiwanese and Japanese coast guard vessels are for the
most part orchestrated, this is nevertheless not the type of behavior usually
associated with peaceful Taiwan, especially at a time when it is endeavoring to
relaunch long-stalled talks on fisheries with Japan.
Ma¡¦s efforts to improve relations with Beijing have also created the impression
in some minds that Taiwan is cooperating with China, which also claims the
islets, in pressuring Japan; an illusion that no amount of negation by Taipei
has managed to fully dispel.
Critics argue that as part of a grand bargain to further appease China, Ma is
seeking to weaken the armed forces, for which there seems to be ample evidence.
Live-fire drills have become less frequent under his watch, while his
administration has been wishy-washy on efforts to procure new F-16s. Its efforts
to create an all-volunteer military also seem half-hearted and threaten to
undermine morale. Rumors abound that intelligence agencies are pulling out of
espionage in China and that in the not-so-distant-future Taiwan and China might
sign a peace accord.
However, while there might be an element of truth to the above, the military has
mass-produced Hsiung Feng IIE land-attack cruise missiles, is equipping its navy
vessels with HF-3 supersonic anti-ship cruise missiles, is seeking to extend the
range of the latter and has embarked on a program to develop the Yunfeng (¡§Cloud
Peak¡¨), a 1,200km surface-to-surface missile capable of reaching central China,
with plans to begin production as early as next year.
Ironically, while the development of offensive weapons could serve to undermine
the oft-heard argument that Ma is ¡§soft¡¨ on national defense, it also risks
causing friction with Taiwan¡¦s principal ally, the US, which has long opposed
the development of missiles whose range or warhead yield go beyond those
stipulated by the Missile Technology Control Regime (MTCR). Yet, when Defense
News asked whether the Yunfeng program, which is a ¡§1,000 percent violation¡¨ of
MTCR, risked causing difficulties with Washington, a source in the government
replied: ¡§I don¡¦t care what the [expletive] Americans think.¡¨
Only an administration that wants it all could contend straight-faced that
relations between Taiwan, China, Japan and the US are the best they have been in
decades. Although international relations are not exactly zero-sum, countries
cannot have it all, especially at a time when the divide between China and the
US seems to be widening, forcing countries in the region to take sides.
Taiwan cannot have it all and the Ma administration had better improve its
messaging soon, or the delicate balancing act, too rife with contradictions to
be sustainable in the long run, will come crashing down.
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