Previous posts about freezing arms to Taiwan here and here.
I'm too tired and busy to post extensively about Taiwan's defensive situation and its ramifications, so I leave it up to you to do your homework. You can *insert MM rant here.*
Here's probably the quote of the day as quoted in the Times piece: "Obviously, the White House does not understand the Taiwan Relations Act." -- Representative David Scott (D-GA).
I also leave you with this blurb via Turton's post:
The Formosan Association for Public Affairs applauds introduction of this resolution and urges Congress to act on it before adjournment. FAPA President Bob Yang, Ph.D. stated: "The US Administration's stalling on the arms sales to Taiwan is both bad strategy and a direct violation of the Taiwan Relations Act and the Six Assurances: delaying the arms sales is playing into China's hands, which wants the sales stopped altogether, so Taiwan has increasingly less leverage in its negotiations with China."
Yang adds: "To those who have worked hard and sacrificed to help make Taiwan a free and democratic country, the American hesitations to move forward with these sales are undermining US credibility as a proponent of democracy in East Asia."
Well, DUH! Besides, somewhere in Beijing, the CCP is smiling.
PS: A thought occurred to me. Perhaps it's unfair (even very unfair) for me to make this comparison, but I'm tired and angry and headachy and therefore feeling reckless. (Is this usually when I write the most interesting posts, I wonder? Or when I make my stupidest mistakes? Both?)
Let's talk about a tale of two arms freezes, shall we? After the 1989 Tiananmen Massacre, the EU slapped an arms embargo on China: no selling weapons to Beijing. I'll even opine that no matter what China-apologists say, these arms are mainly de facto offensive arms: who, seriously now, is going to be assaulting China militarily so that it needs mountains of strictly defensive arms? It hasn't even had any reason to uncork its current arsenal in any meaningful defensive way: if memory serves, the Chinese had been busy using its firepower on dissident students and, more recently, on Tibetans.
Now here's the other arms freeze. The Untied States, under the terms of the Taiwan Relations Act, has certain obligations to the defense of Taiwan. These have included sales of defensive armaments to Taiwan, and this isn't new. Hell, if one party in the cross-Strait situation needs actual and meaningful defenses, it's Taiwan. Which location has 1000+ missiles constantly aimed at it? By a nation that threatens violence? that has actually used violence on its own people in a spectacular fashion in 1989 and is still censoring and imprisoning dissidents even now? So here is the upshot: a fresh set of arms to Taiwan has been approved, but the actual transaction has been frozen. Critics are stating that this looks like wavering on the commitment to the TRA and Taiwan or, even worse, currying favor with Beijing. Meanwhile, we're all wasting time, and time is something Taiwan doesn't have as Beijing keeps spending more and more on its own military budget.
So look at the weird juxtaposition of two arms freezes: the EU's to China and the current de facto American one to Taiwan. One of these freezes makes sense. The other does NOT.
Note: please do not hassle me about previous internal Taiwanese political wrangling between KMT and DPP over the military budget. I *know.* I know and I've spent plenty of time slamming the internal dissension. This time, though, I'm slamming the US's wishy-washy stalling. It looks bad. It *IS* bad. It ultimately weakens the democratic elements involved and emboldens the autocrats. I don't buy the arguments that the stalling is prudent statecraft that somehow mollifies Beijing and/or defuses the tensions in the Taiwan Strait. (Hey, if you want me to buy that, are you going to throw the Golden Gate Bridge in too? Pfffft.)
OK. I guess this is now officially a Rant. I said I wasn't going to rant. I guess I lied. Maybe I should go into politics or diplomacy.
No comments:
Post a Comment