Taiwan Folly

The U.S sends the 7th Fleet carrier taskforce to the Taiwan Straits when China was about to begin large-scale military exercises in 2000. President Bush said America would do “whatever it takes to help Taiwan defend herself.” Why send U.S. naval ships while China is testing missiles prior to the Taiwan elections or conducting military exercises? That Taiwan is considering a referendum on independence is reason enough for China to threaten military action to preserve its national unity. It’s a domestic issue. For Therese Shaheen, former chairwoman of the American Institute in Taiwan, America’s de facto embassy in Taipei, to declare that the Bush administration had never said it “opposes Taiwan independence” is diplomatically and politically counterproductive. It reminds me of another U.S. diplomat’s famous message to Saddam Hussein that declared as official U.S. policy: “We have no opinion on Arab-Arab conflicts like your border disagreement with Kuwait.” A few weeks later Saddam’s tanks rolled into Kuwait.

How would America like it if China started selling arms to Native Americans? After all, their reservations are sovereign territories. How would the U.S. like it if the Chinese sent a naval fleet to North America to resolve regional disputes, let alone a domestic dispute? Imagine a Chinese naval fleet cruising into San Francisco Bay to contribute to the resolution of a Native American dispute over Alcatraz. How would the U.S. react if China said it never said it “opposed Native-American independence?” It’s ludicrous.

Why isn’t America abiding by President Reagan’s 1982 agreement to reduce and eventually end arms sales to Taiwan? When America agreed to sell submarines to Taiwan, no U.S. shipbuilder was building them in America. When asked by America, the Germans refused to build the eight diesel submarines America promised to sell Taiwan so America has to now either reactivate long dormant shipyards or find another builder to honor its military commitment to Taiwan. Is Taiwan really worth becoming America’s 21st century Vietnam?

The fact that former Senator Jesse Helms and the Republicans seriously considered passing the Taiwan Security Enhancement Act in 2001, which would have enhanced military-to-military cooperation between the U.S. and Taiwan and create a de facto military alliance between Washington and Taipei -- in violation of the Taiwan Relations Act -- is worrisome. Sen. James Jefford’s defection from the Republican Party gave the Democrats a majority in the Senate and allowed them to replace Jesse Helms as Chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee with Senator Joe Biden and reversed America’s perilous military pursuit. Is this delicate personal partisan political balance something We The Apathetic People can afford to perpetuate in the New World Order? Does it make sense for one person with the casting vote committed to financial supporters in Taiwan to have America go to war and We the People be damned? Especially when we risk a nuclear war. News leaked of a Pentagon review that envisaged the use of nuclear weapons against China in the event of a war in the Taiwan Straits. Isn’t this perilous risk something We the Maids must sweep out in the 21st century?

What is even more absurd and dangerous is the law signed by Bush that identified Taiwan as one of America’s “allies,” an illogical position since officially Washington does not even recognize the government of Taiwan. The legislation bars U.S. troops from being sent to countries that cooperate with the International Criminal Court, exempts members of NATO, Japan, South Korea, and other U.S. allies, including Taiwan.

After the nationalist Kuomintang fled the mainland in 1949 for Taiwan, many officers crossed the border from Yunnan province to Burma. There they got into the heroin trade to fund their early military purchases from America. Their heroin factories in the Golden Triangle were conveniently overlooked by the U.S. government even though their output was killing Americans in every city and suburb.

Burma provided sanctuary for many KMT officers and their troops after China’s civil war. Until his death in the 1980s, Gen. Tuan Shi-wen, the late KMT Fifth Army commander, claimed that opium trading was needed to finance the war against the Communists.

U.S. naval ships are finally making port calls again at Vietnam’s Cam Ranh Bay after the Russians pulled out in 2002. America couldn’t keep its ships in the port it built in Vietnam, or U.S. troops in the country. Yet U.S. military planners think they will be able to sustain a Navy in the Taiwan Strait in a war with China over Taiwan.