Before we get too deeply in this let me recite my some what simple minded understanding of this whole convoluted thing.
Back to the Truman Administration it has been the policy of the US to keep Formosa independent of Mainland China. For years the possibility of a Nationalist Chinese invasion of the mainland with the support of US naval and air forces served to keep Mainland China looking over its shoulder. It also allowed the John Birch types to go around howling “Unleash Chang Ki Check,” We had all sorts of reports of war and alarms of war with Chinese shelling of off shore islands held by the Nationalist government on Formosa and Nationalist commando raids on the Mainland. The US fought like mad to keep the Nationalist Chinese in the UN and as a permanent member, with veto power, on the Security Counsel to the exclusion of Red China.
All of that changed with Nixon’s trip. We recognized Red China as the lawful as well as the in fact government of China, including apparently Taiwan, f/k/a/ Formosa. The Red Chinese entered the UN and took China’s seat as a permanent member of the Security Counsel. We no longer held Taiwan up as a handy club to beat China over the head. We ceased recognizing Taiwan as an independent legal sovereign of even its little island, let alone of the billion plus population of Mainland China. What we did instead was make it clear that we wanted good political and economic relations with China but we did not want China doing anything that would assert actual Chinese sovereignty over Taiwan. We committed the nation to repel any attempt by China to assert is authority on Taiwan.
Now, as others have pointed out, the government of Taiwan is independent for all practical purposes, but the democratically elected head of state has started making waves that could screw up an arrangement that has long served the purposes of the US, China and Formosa. The President has warned Formosa that the US does not want any waves. It’s about that simple and it is perfectly consistent with US policy ever since Nixon and Henry the K cut the modified deal and decided that it was politically safe to climb in bed with Red China.
Is the President’s position inconsistent with the position the country has taken in the Middle East? Of course it is. There is no consistency in arguing for democracy and self determination in Iraq and for democracy without self determination in Taiwan. The difference is that the US has different objectives in the two regions. Hypocritical? Of course. The promulgation of democracy has about as much with US foreign policy as the conversion of the heathen to the True Religion had to do with the Spanish Conquest. In the Middle East the US’s interest is a relaible supply of cheap oil. In the Far East the US’s interest is trade with the huge consumer market and cheap labor pool in China. Follow the money.
So if Taiwan deserves to be independent of that horrible Chinese regime, then shouldn’t Bush support the complete overthrow of China? Don’t those other billion Chinese peasants deserve the self-determination that the Taiwanese deserve? I mean, it’s not like Bush is going to do it. He’s just going to pay lip service. That’s plenty, right DtC?
Why do I get the feeling that DtC would have criticized Bush no matter what he did here?
Scenario 1: Bush doesn’t call for Taiwanese independence. DtC: “He’s selling out to Big Business! The money-hungry bastard!”
Scenario 2: Bush calls for Taiwanese independence. DtC: “He’s drawing us into another war of aggression! The blood-thirsty bastard!”
In fact, DtC, you have now stooped so low that you’re willing to sell out your own principles to take a cheap shot at Bush. And not even a good cheap shot. Pity, that.
Actually, I need to read the entire transcript, but it appears to me the Bush has departed from the previous few decades of being deliberately vague. Ever since the Shanghai Communique architected by Kissinger, US leaders have been extremely vague on Taiwan. This sentence is the most concrete statement I can remember seeing by a President “President Bush said yesterday he opposes any efforts by Taiwan to separate itself from communist mainland China”
US policy has been that the US would defend Taiwan against an unprovoked attack. It has always been the unstated understanding that Taiwan is de facto independant but should not move toward de jeure independant until China is ready to accept such a state of affairs. Eg, let sleeping dogs lie. What the US has never ever done is give Taiwan explicit support along the lines of “The US will come to your military aid if you unilaterally declare independance.”
1996 when China had war games with live missles in the Taiwan shipping lanes, the US sent one of it’s fleets to steam by the eastern side of Taiwan (not provacatively through the Taiwan straits on the western side).
IMHO, Bush has made it more difficult for Taiwan to become independant. Read into that what “liberators of Iraq” and “doing the right thing around the world” what you will.
I usually agree with Diogenes, but I agree, I think he’s fallen overboard this time.
As others have pointed out, it’s an established American policy to keep China and Taiwan perpetually at arm’s length – we recognize Taiwan as part of China, but we don’t want China to actually “do the deed” and reclaim the island. A wacky situation, to be sure, and I’m not sure that I agree with it, but there it is.
Yes, it’s hypocritical for the Bush Administration to justify the Iraq war as liberating the Iraqi people while not taking a similar stance for Taiwan, but what of it? Republican philosophy has been hypocritical for years, and Bush sure didn’t deviate from that when he took office.
While it may be ideologically “better” for the Administration to support Taiwan’s independence, IMO that’s outweighed by the practical need to not upset the damn apple-cart. If nothing else, the current state of the US prevents it from taking a strong stand against China even if it wanted to, so the current US position is simply a logical and pragmatic one.
(What baffles me is what China wants with Taiwan in the first place. Short of nationalistic pride, wouldn’t it be easier on China if they simply wrote off Taiwan and told them to go bugger themselves?)
Precedent. There are huge chunks of “The People’s Republic of China” that are not really part of the actual nation of China, just ruled by it (e.g. Xinjiang, Tibet). Heck, even the ethnically “Chinese” provinces speak several languages (e.g. Cantonese, Mandarin). Let’s just say they can see over the border and they don’t want any Chechnyas.
Old scores. To this day (in part because of the damn strategic reality that precludes outright independence) the Constitution of the state that rules Taiwan is STILL theoretically that of the Republic of China. And between 1948 and 1972 we actively supported keeping up that legal fiction before the World. The Beijing gang ain’t accepting any other resolution than that the PRC replaced the ROC completely.
Really Deep History. Through the 3K+ years of recorded Chinese history, there are repeated incidents of the nation breaking up into parallel kingdoms and those eventually overtaking the imperial center.
Once again, I am not demanding that we go rushing off to fight a war of independence for Taiwan. All that’s going on is that Taiwan wants China to quit pointing missiles at it. Since the US is already committed to protecting Taiwan from any aggressive action by China it would not seem too out of line for us to support this referendum.
Essentially, this is a fuck you to Taiwan. It’s not a neutral stance it’s an active endorsement of hostile behavior. The exact same behavior, in fact, that served as the ostensible (if phony) justification for the US invasion of Iraq. I think it’s pretty easy to make the case that China is more of an imminent threat to Taiwan than Iraq ever was to the US. It’s not necessary for Bush to demand any more than a de facto independence but he could at least let China know that the US would be more friendly if China didn’t go around pointing guns at people’s heads.
DtC:
What’s going on is that all the parties are speaking “diplomatese”. Not everything said is what is actually meant, and there is meaning hidden in meaning. I’m sure you understand this completely, but are choosing to ignore that in order to take a jab at Bush. Maybe not Bush, since your OP talks about this person “Shrubya”, of whom I have never heard. He must the behind the scenes Master Diplomat in the Bush Adminstration.
It was wrong because it was illegal and it was unnecessary. It had nothing to do with defending the US. Bush lied to and misused the military for political purposes. he killed people who did not have to be killed. I don’t care what you think about international law or your obvious lack of regard for the lives of US soldiers. I am “asserting” that the invasion was wrong and I don’t want to hijack this thread any more with this argument. If you want to keep up this fight then start another thread or take me to the pit.
It’s not so much Bush that I’m going after it’s US policy in general. Clinton was just as guilty of sucking up to China. I understand the “diplomatese” but I also think that we could show more balls than we do. It hurts our moral authority when we cozy up to a governent that embodies such diametrically opposite values to our own.
And we only do it for money.
And the death and destruction doesn’t factor in at all? But then I’m forgetting…you think China is bluffing and wouldn’t REALLY go to war over Taiwan independance.
Seriously though, China watchers on both sides of the Taiwan straight and around the world read volumes into the tinests of changes. And have for a long time. Talk about domino theory.
A political referendum to the entire Taiwan electorate about the actions of a de jeure sovereign nation is a damn big step - regardless of what is the right thing to do. So, most Chinese on both sides of the straights would agree that this is not a case of “All that’s going on is that Taiwan wants China to quit pointing missiles at it.” To hold such a view IMHO shows a lack of understanding of the situation during the past century or so.
Could draw parallels and ask what would happen if the US had a similar referendum regaring Russia’s nuclear missles.
DtC:
I agree that we could show more balls*, although I’d probably go about it differently than you suggest. I do not support the government telling companies who they can and cannot do business with, except when clear issues of national security are concerned. Our government should reward China with mutual cooperation efforts to the extent that they promote democracy and withdraw cooperative efforts to the extent that they do not.
But I think we should stay out of the whole China/Taiwan situation as it really is an internal issue for the Chinese to work out. Taiwan is not and has never been an independent country (at least not in hundreds of years). Historically, it was part of China, ceded to Japan after the Sino-Japanese war, and returned to China after WWII.
*I was infuriated, for instance, when Bush Sr. lectured the Lithuanians about not rocking the boat when they started agitating to exit the USSR.
Anyhoo, this really is a Chinese internal matter. My heart is with the Taiwanese, but our sovereignty doesn’t extend past our borders. Or, at least, it shouldn’t.
It’s not hypocritical to continue the same policy toward Taiwan that every other President has maintained. If you want to go down that road you will have to dig up every President that has used the word “Cuba” in a sentence. You would be knee deep in urine in that pissing contest.
I’m not fully convinced it is a purely Chinese internal matter. But it sure as hell is complicated, and trying to arm chair quarter back does an injustice to both sides of the Taiwan straits.
John Mace, Taiwan is clearly de facto independant. The question is whether it is de jeure?
I certainly don’t believe in inferring right/wrong from legal/illegal in this way. If international law or the UN as currently constituted (Syria on the Human Rights Committee?) and morality come into conflict, so much the worse for international law and the UN. Do you apply the same rationale to domestic laws? “If it was sedition to advocate for Indian independence, Ghandi would have been morally wrong to have done so.”
Arguably, the Iraq situation wasn’t about self-determination (rule of Iraq by Iraqis) but rather about democracy and human rights. So the parallel between Iraq and Taiwan is further askew.
I realize DtC is more than capable of speaking for himself, but I just wanted to pipe in to say how much I dislike these “slippery slope” arguments because they imply that there’s no other way to distinguish between two circumstances, or that we couldn’t otherwise draw a rational line as we go down the slope.
I’m sure DtC would not intentionally leave Hitler in power because that’s a different situation. DtC’s philosophy appears to be against killing, and far from resulting in more death, Hitler’s death might have saved literally millions of lives.
I disagree with DtC on the China/Taiwan situation, and I disagree with him on Iraq, and on many, many more things, too. But I don’t think we need to go through the Socratic exercise of giving him outlandish scenarios and asking him to justify his philosophy at the outer bounds of reason and logic. I’m guessing we can safely say that DtC will be able to come up with some reason – as we all would – that would justify Hitler’s demise.