By Denny Roy,December 6th, 2012 CNN
China is the next superpower, the United States is in decline, and America needs to get on China’s good side. So say many analysts who have recently argued that in order to gain favor with Beijing, Washington should stop supporting Taiwan.
The U.S. support at stake here includes two explicit policies and one implied policy.Since Taiwan cannot keep up with China’s massive military expansion, the United States sells arms to Taiwan. Washington also insists that any settlement of the Taiwan sovereignty issue must be agreeable to Taiwan’s people, not forced on them by Beijing. Finally, China understands that U.S. forces might intervene if Taiwan came under military attack.
The argument for abandoning Taiwan may be superficially appealing in its cold-blooded logic. But it is terribly wrong.
U.S. foreign policy has always been a reflection of American principles along with strategic and economic interests. Taiwan is a legitimate democracy, one with a long history of close friendship with the United States, threatened by a large authoritarian state demanding a political annexation that Taiwan’s people clearly do not want. If Americans will not stand by Taiwan, the principled component of U.S. foreign policy is dead.
But abandoning Taiwan would not be merely immoral. Washington has economic, political and strategic interests in promoting democracy worldwide. In general, democratic governments make better international citizens than authoritarian states and are more likely to be partners than adversaries in America’s pursuit of its global agenda. Abandoning Taiwan would not only reduce the democratic world in concrete terms by throwing a community of 23 million people back over the barbed-wire fence. It would also signal that America is no longer serious about promoting democratization elsewhere.
Some countries in the region are willing to stand up for their own interests against Chinese encroachment only if they have confidence in a long-term U.S. commitment to be a security partner. Other Asia-Pacific governments friendly to the United States would certainly take note if Washington sacrificed Taiwan to improve relations with China. Not only would the U.S. reputation for reliability suffer, but regional governments would perceive a shift in regional leadership from America to China.
Absorption of Taiwan by China would make Taiwan an “unsinkable aircraft carrier” for the Chinese military. Taiwan anchors the “first island chain,” limiting the Chinese Navy’s access to the Pacific Ocean. Conversely, occupation of Taiwan would allow Chinese forces to straddle important sea lanes that are the economic lifelines of Japan and South Korea. Chinese control of Taiwan would greatly increase the pressure on Tokyo and Seoul, critically important U.S. allies, to accommodate Beijing’s strategic wishes. These alliances, and along with them the U.S. leadership role in the western Pacific, might become untenable.
Although too small to act as a political “Trojan Horse” to massive China, as a vibrant Chinese democracy Taiwan is an influential model for China. It is easy for Chinese to dismiss the American or Western European democracies as unsuitable or unimaginable in a Chinese context, but Taiwan is a different matter. If the persistence of Taiwan as a political showcase (now viewed in person by almost two million mainland Chinese visitors annually) could constructively affect China’s political evolution toward democracy, this Taiwan contribution would be invaluable. But Taiwan requires help to safeguard its democratic system against Chinese pressure.
Advocates of abandoning Taiwan may erroneously believe that halting U.S. military and diplomatic support for Taipei would reduce tensions in East Asia. This is certainly what Beijing would have us believe. According to Chinese officials and commentators, U.S. assistance to Taipei is all that stands in the way of peaceful unification, and without it the people of Taiwan would stop resisting and accept Beijing’s terms for unification. This premise, however, ignores an important reality: the main obstacle to unification is not U.S. arms sales, but rather Taiwanese nationalism and the wish of nearly all Taiwan’s people not to be ruled by the Chinese Communist Party. Thus, withdrawal of U.S. support would not necessarily lead to a peaceful resolution of the cross-Strait imbroglio. The opposite outcome is at least as likely. Deterrence against an attack by the People’s Liberation Army would be weakened, while Taiwan’s people may well choose to fight rather than capitulate.
Another dubious assumption is that removing the Taiwan issue from U.S.-China relations would clear the way for a vastly improved bilateral relationship. It is true that Taiwan is the greatest single irritant in U.S.-China relations, that U.S. support for Taiwan reinforces Chinese suspicions of an American “containment” strategy, and that the cross-Strait war scenario is a major rationale for China’s military modernization and buildup. But neither U.S.-China relations nor Chinese regional behavior would improve much, if at all, as a result of a U.S. sellout of Taiwan. The Chinese would still have many other reasons to believe the United States is trying to keep China from rising, such as the U.S. alliances, increased American security cooperation with other governments in the region, and the alleged American “meddling” in the South China Sea dispute.
There is no reason to expect that China would do more to further the American agenda on issues such as the North Korean and Iran nuclear weapons crises, since Chinese policy follows Chinese self-interests. Most importantly, Taiwan is not the source of China-U.S. friction. The two main Asia-Pacific powers are engaged in a rivalry for regional leadership and, even more fundamentally, in a struggle between two competing models for conducting international relations: one based on modern international laws and norms, and the other based on a return to the Sinocentric sphere of influence that prevailed for much of history. Rather than satisfying and pacifying Beijing, a U.S. concession regarding Taiwan might embolden Chinese demands for more concessions aimed at further weakening America’s strategic position in the Asia-Pacific region.
Many observers see America in permanent decline and China as the anointed regional hegemon, but both of these outcomes are highly uncertain. Although now in the trough of an unemployment and fiscal crisis, the United States will probably recover. Conversely, China faces serious limits to its bid for regional leadership. These include internal vulnerabilities such as an aging population, the potential for large-scale political turmoil caused by groups angry at the Chinese government, and the necessity of making huge and painful adjustments to the Chinese economy.
Externally, few states in Asia prefer Chinese to U.S. leadership. Unless China becomes overwhelmingly strong and American capabilities greatly diminish, security cooperation among the Asia-Pacific countries in defense of widely-accepted norms of international behavior will be sufficient to check those Chinese aspirations that are illegitimate in that they forcibly intrude on other people’s vital interests.
One of these illegitimate aspirations is the notion that China cannot be a prosperous, secure great power without politically absorbing Taiwan, the last big piece of unfinished business from China’s “century of humiliation.” Abandoning Taiwan would, tragically, acquiesce to this notion. The threat of Taiwan independence is an unfortunate invention of the Chinese Communist Party. It is a fake threat. An autonomous Taiwan is not preventing massive increases in China’s prosperity and security. On the other hand, Beijing’s threat to militarily destroy the political system and political identity chosen by Taiwan’s people is real.
Abandoning Taiwan is completely at odds with the broad U.S. agenda for international affairs as well as with the specific policy of “re-balancing” toward Asia. Washington should consider cutting off its support to Taiwan only if the United States has decided to abdicate its leadership role in the Asia-Pacific region and pull its influence back to the Western Hemisphere.
Editor’s note: Dr. Denny Roy is a senior research fellow in Asian security issues with the East-West Center in Honolulu. The views expressed are his own.
美国為何不应放弃台湾
翻譯：战略网/chinapower
中国正在成为下一个超级大国，而正在衰落的美国需要学习如何从中国的发展中获益。所以说，许多分析人士最近声称，为了讨好北京，华盛顿应该停止支持台湾。
但是事实上，美国对台湾的支持包括两个明确的政策和一个隐含的政策。由于台湾无法跟上中国的大规模军事扩张，美国因此向台湾出售武器。华盛顿还坚持认为，任何台湾主权问题的解决方案必须经过台湾人民的同意，而不是被北京强迫。最后，中国认识到，如果台湾遭到军事攻击，美军可能介入。
放弃台湾的论据可能表面上看起来具有吸引人的冷血逻辑，但这却是一个可怕的错误，因为美国的外交政策一直是美国战略和经济利益原则的反映。而且，台湾与美国有着历史悠久的密切友谊，如果美国人不支持台湾，那么美国的外交政策原则性的组成部分就是死的，但放弃台湾将不仅仅是不道德的。华盛顿在促进世界民主方面有着经济、政治和战略利益。放弃台湾不仅将削弱民主世界的力量，也将意味着，美国不再对推动世界其他地区的民主化持认真的态度。该地区的一些国家只有当他们相信美国愿意长期致力于成为一个保证他们的安全的伙伴时，才愿意为自己的利益而站出来反对中国的侵犯。如果华盛顿牺牲台湾来改善与中国的关系，那么亚太地区其他和美国友好的国家一定会注意到的。不仅美国可靠性的声誉会受到影响，该地区的国家也会认为该区域的领导已经从美国转变为了中国。
中国统一台湾后将使台湾成为中国军队的一艘“永不沉没的航空母舰”。统一台湾后，将使中国军队跨越日本和韩国经济命脉的重要海上通道。中国对台湾的控制将大大增加美国极其重要的盟友东京和首尔的压力，以适应北京的战略愿望。美国的这些联盟和美国在西太平洋的领导角色可能会站不住脚了。
主张放弃台湾的人可能错误地认为，制止美国对台北的军事和外交支持将缓和在东亚的紧张局势。这当然是北京要我们相信的。根据中国的官员和评论家的话，美国对台北的援助是在阻挠中国的和平统一，如果没有美国的援助，台湾将停止抵抗，并接受北京统一的条件。
另一个值得质疑的假设是，解决了台湾问题将会大大改善美国和中国的双边关系。但是即使解决了台湾问题，中国仍然会有很多的理由相信美国正试图阻止其崛起。
我们没有理由期望中国会在美国的朝鲜和伊朗核危机议程等问题上做的更多，因为中国的政策代表着中国自身的利益。最重要的是，台湾不是中美摩擦的问题来源。这两个亚太大国主要是为了争夺该区域的领导权。
许多观察家认为，美国将永久地衰落而中国将成为该地区的霸权，但是这两种结果都是高度不确定的。此外，在亚洲只有少数国家更喜欢中国而不是美国的领导，除非中国变得无比强大而美国的能力受到极大削弱。
放弃台湾完全不符合美国国际事务的广泛议程以及对亚洲“再平衡”的特定政策。华盛顿应该只有在已决定将亚太地区的领导力拉回到西半球的时候才考虑削减对台湾的支持。
