Atlantic Council

Atlantic Council senior fellow Yu ("Max") Tsung-Chi published an editorial in the Sunday, 5 October Taipei Times entitled "U.S. Arms Sales and the 'Status Quo.'"

The full text follows as a courtesy to our readers.

Before being pushed through, the Bush administration’s freezing of the defense package so necessary to Taiwan’s security spawned speculation over changes to its “security commitment” and disregard for the Taiwan Relations Act (TRA).

The TRA states that the US must provide “defense articles and services” that maintain Taiwan’s “sufficient self-defense capability.” In April 2001, US President George W. Bush approved a multibillion-dollar sales package that included eight diesel-powered submarines, Mark-48 torpedoes, Harpoon anti-ship cruise missiles, PAC-3 missiles, self-propelled howitzers and Apache helicopters. In August last year, Taiwan further requested the addition of sixty-six F-16 C/D fighter aircraft based on defense requirements and Pentagon concerns.

The failure of the Bush administration to submit congressional notifications for Taiwan’s defense procurements until the very end of Bush’s term deserves further analysis, particularly the faulty logic behind the freeze.

Experience has shown that US arms sales to Taiwan have been informed by international and domestic considerations.

On the international side, the US-China-Taiwan triangular relationship has always been the most important factor. In the past, whenever the bilateral relationships between Washington and Beijing or Beijing and Taipei became tense, the US was more likely to look favorably upon arms sales to Taiwan.

For instance, after the Tiananmen Square Massacre, the bombing of China’s embassy in Belgrade in 1999, the EP-3 surveillance plane collision in 2001 and the Taiwan Strait missile crisis in 1996, the US green-lighted arms sales to Taiwan.

Perhaps a “balance of power” across the Taiwan Strait was believed to be a guarantor for the status quo at those times.

On the domestic side, the US has been less likely to approve arms transactions to Taiwan in the wake of major political or economic events, such as presidential elections, economic instability and public hostility toward Washington’s military activities.

Examples of this are the Vietnam War during the Nixon administration, the Reagan administration’s political agenda and the economic concerns of the Clinton administration. The more the Taiwan issue paled in comparison with domestic or international hot potatoes, the more Washington accommodated China’s demands.

Thus, the domestic and international troubles facing the Bush administration could have justified the delay in the congressional notifications. On Sept. 22, Bush and Chinese President Hu Jintao met to discuss how China could help the US solve the financial crisis on Wall Street. In addition, with tensions between Georgia with Russia, the US even more urgently needs China’s cooperation over the dismantling of nuclear facilities on the Korean Peninsula.

These events to a great extent have bound US-China relations more tightly than ever.

Meanwhile, President Ma Ying-jeou’s  government is conducting pragmatic diplomacy with China in a seeming switch from the “balance of power” to the “balance of threat” mentality, suggesting that a de-emphasis on military security is in the offing.

This may vindicate the judgment of senior officials in the Bush administration who frame the debate solely in terms of the arms that Taiwan needs. Because cross-strait tensions are thawing and a confrontational scenario is very unlikely, the reasoning goes, there is no urgent need for defense procurements now, if ever. This further leads to the sanguine view that a balance of power may not be necessary in the Taiwan Strait.

This line of thinking may be persuasive in the short term, but it is not necessarily so compelling from a long-term perspective. Washington should not ignore the fact that the mechanics of maintaining the status quo are based on a permanently ambiguous dual-deterrent strategy toward Beijing and Taipei.

Any haphazard tilting toward either side will sabotage this dynamic equilibrium, which has endured so successfully between Washington, Beijing and Taipei over the past decades.

In order to maintain the status quo across the Strait, Washington should ask China to remove its missiles aimed at Taiwan.

China in turn should reconsider its use of these missiles, because they are the driving force behind Taiwan’s push to arm itself in its own defense.

Sunday, Oct 05, 2008, Page 8