Doug Bandow cautions the U.S. not to be pulled into conflict with China by Taiwan's approach to legal independence.
President Chen Shui-bian's planned referendum on Taiwan's membership in the UN has sparked a new round of recriminations between Beijing and Taipei. At his Sydney meeting with President George W. Bush, Chinese President Hu Jintao was said by his government to have stressed "that this year and next year is going to be a highly sensitive and possibly dangerous period of the situation in the Taiwan Strait."
Ironically, the Bush administration is siding with Beijing. Deputy National Security Adviser James Jeffrey said the U.S. is "concerned very much about this step that Taiwan has undertaken." Deputy Secretary of State John Negroponte calls the referendum a "mistake" that could lead to "an alteration of the status quo," particularly "a declaration of independence of Taiwan," which Washington opposes.
Deputy Assistant Secretary of State Thomas J. Christensen attempted to soften the blow by saying the U.S. was not against Taiwan resisting PRC pressure, but "Taipei needs to push back intelligently and in a sophisticated manner that plays to its strength." Yet being a democracy is one of Taiwan's principal strengths.
Yet Taipei is encouraging confrontation by consciously prodding the PRC. Chen told an American conference via video-phone that "We have no need for anyone to tell us whether Taiwan is a country or not." It has been the widespread belief among Taipei's policy-making elite that Washington will protect Taiwan. Retired Adm. Michael McDevitt warns that they "seem to have convinced themselves that they can count on U.S. intervention should China attack, regardless of the circumstances."
The assumption that America will protect Taiwan, irrespective of how irresponsibly its leaders might act, has created an extraordinarily dangerous situation. Note Justin Logan and Ted Galen Carpenter of the Cato Institute reported earlier "A bold cross-strait policy coupled with inadequate defense spending virtually invites a PRC challenge at some point. And America would be caught right in the middle."
The author suggests that it's time for a serious rethinking of American policy towards the Taiwan Strait. Washington should not allow a client state to determine its defense strategy. Lecturing Taiwan not to behave provocatively has failed. Washington must not allow even a close friend to drag America into war with a significant regional power where U.S. security interests are marginal.
Doug Bandow, the Robert A. Taft Fellow at the American Conservative Defense Alliance, is a former Special Assistant to President Ronald Reagan, and the author of several books, including Foreign Follies: America's New Global Empire (Xulon Press). (Source: American Spectator, Oct 1, 2007)