Category: Special Arms Bill

U.S. Suspends F-16 C/D Sales To Taiwan

The story made the front page of both the Taipei Times and the Taiwan News on Tuesday, while the China Post buried it on page 19.  The Bush Administration’s message to Taiwan:  You want to play political games with your security?  Include us out.

To be honest, I’m surprised this didn’t happen sooner.  What did Taiwan’s KMT party leaders think they could do – block the 2001 special arms bill ANOTHER 58 times over the NEXT two years, and get away with it, scot-free?  Bush took the flak from China for offering weapons that the KMT itself requested in the late ’90s, and the KMT said thank you by wittingly or unwittingly colluding with Communist China to keep the island undefended. 

So now, the KMT is receiving a little thank you in return – Texas-style.

I DO have a few minor criticisms about the way this was handled.  First, top U.S. officials should have publicly spoken about Washington’s growing impatience, which would have given the lie to the KMT’s local spin that their intransigence was actually earning America’s respect.  Second, the KMT chairman, Ma Ying-jeou, should have been given the cold shoulder during his visit to America back in March of this year.  That would have been a clear sign of Washington’s displeasure with the KMT’s antics.  Perhaps harsh words WERE spoken to him in private; but politically speaking, those conversations were irrelevant.  Ma was able to return to Taiwan and portray the red-carpet treatment he received as whole-hearted American support for his party’s capitulationist policies.

Finally, I think the timing of this is also a mistake.  Right now, all eyes in Taiwan are distracted by the Depose [President] Chen circus, which will soften the impact of this move.  Picture such a bombshell being dropped a month before the Taiwanese legislative elections – that would have been BEAUTIFUL.

UPDATE (Oct 6/06):   The View from Taiwan is a bit more indignant over this than I am.  As for myself, I’ve been expecting some kind of American response to the KMT’s stonewalling for a long time now.  But I certainly agree with these sentiments:

If the US really wants Taiwan to purchase those weapons, it needs to lean on the Blues, and hard. It needs to stop coddling KMT visitors. It needs to get credible people over here who will warn the KMT that US patience is exhausted, and that the US will switch its support to the Greens if the KMT does not start serving the interests of Taiwan, and it needs to keep doing that until the message gets through. It is incredible at this late date, with the Blues blocking the arms purchase after promising it would go through, fomenting unrest in Taiwan’s streets, paralyzing the government, and cooperating with China, that any American policymaker could consider them a viable partner for future long-term cooperation.

As I said earlier, the timing for this was pretty bad.  There hasn’t been so much as a single editorial here in the English papers about the issue, because everyone’s preoccupied with anti-Chen protesters.  If you want to send a message to someone, you have to make sure they’re at home to pick up the the phone.

UPDATE (Oct 31/06):  America ratchets up the pressure, cancelling an annual meeting between the American and Taiwanese military:

[A Taiwanese Ministry of National Defense spokesman] told the Taipei Times by telephone that an annual meeting in which officials from the ministry’s Armaments Bureau travel to the US for exchanges with the US military had been suspended.

A ministry source, speaking on condition of anonymity, told the Liberty Times, (the Taipei Times‘ sister newspaper), that the ministry had tried to salvage the situation, but was told that the decision had been made by a high-ranking official in the White House.

Hope the Taiwanese people get the message soon, because the KMT obviously isn’t.

UPDATE (Nov 14/06):  Looks like there’s still some movement on the F-16 C/Ds.

Well, Isn’t That Special?

Sorry for not posting for the last two weeks.  Had a lot of work…and really bad insomnia.

Couldn’t let last Sunday’s China Post editorial slip by without comment, though:

In the course of planning surprise visits by our president to countries that have no formal diplomatic relations with us, it is sometimes understandable that government officials try to keep their cards close to their chest.

Uh-huh.  Beijing frequently sends its diplomats to cajole or bully other countries into denying planes carrying Taiwanese officials a place to land.  As a result, the Chen administration misled reporters as to President Chen’s stopover point, thereby foiling Beijing’s plans.  Rather than congratulate Chen for outmaneuvering the Communists, the China Post saw fit to castigate him for, of all things, dishonesty:

From the very start of the nine-day trip, when the Foreign Ministry announced that the president’s plane would make a refueling stop in Alaska, it was clear that officials were making misleading announcements.

After the plane took off, reporters on board who were not told where they were going relied on hand-held compasses to confirm they were heading west and southwest, toward Southeast Asia and the Arabian Peninsula, rather than east toward the North American continent. Before his return trip, false announcements were again made suggesting places where President Chen’s aircraft would stop over, only to have the president make jaunts to Libya and Indonesia.

[…]

In his announcement made over the aircraft’s public address system, President Chen addressed demands that Foreign Minister James Huang step down for blatantly lying about every detail of the trip.

[…]

If Foreign Minister Huang was instructed to tell lies by the president and other superiors, we can forgive him for that. But we should not forgive President Chen for his bizarre and cavalier attitude about telling lies, even if those lies are ostensibly for a good cause.

In the future, President Chen would be wiser to follow the international standard of "refusing to confirm or deny" rather than lying point blank. Rather than do no harm by just keeping mum, President Chen has instead fostered a dangerous culture of lying. (Emphasis added)

Churchill once said that in war, truth is so precious that she should always be accompanied by a bodyguard of lies.  That’s probably irrelevant though, because the China Post doesn’t view the Communist Party of China as being hostile, let alone as being an enemy.  But when its editorialists accuse others of "fostering a dangerous culture of lying", they should perhaps reflect on the possibility that a few of their own fabrications might contribute to that culture as well:

[One of the reasons that the U.S. refused Chen a transit stop on the American mainland is that it] has also been annoyed by Chen’s lukewarm response to Bush’s 2001 offer of selling an unprecedented robust package of advanced arms to Taiwan.

(From Chen’s problems U.S.-made, The China Post, May 9/06)

Staggering.  Chen and his party attempted to bring the arms package to a vote over fifty times, but were blocked each and every time by the opposition KMT party.  Meanwhile, it was the China Post that cheered, or least rationalized, the KMT’s obstructionism.

And now, given its own record of hostility to the deal, that newspaper has the face to claim that it was Chen’s response that was lukewarm?

Seditious Acts

Saturday’s Taiwan News reported on a ceremony marking the 17th anniversary of the death of Deng Nan-jung, a Taiwanese democracy advocate.  Deng was apparently the editor of a weekly magazine, "Era of Liberty", when it published a hypothetical constitution for a Taiwanese republic.  For this, the KMT shut the magazine down, and issued a subpoena for him to answer charges of sedition.  Rather than comply, Deng committed suicide by lighting a few barrels of gasoline in his office.

Sedition charges.  For PROPOSING a new constitution.  And only 17 years ago.  It’s easy for the world (and me!) to forget how recently stuff like that was happening here.

Speaking of sedition, the March 22nd edition of the Taipei Times had a letter to the editor with a couple of intriguing paragraphs in it:

…in his interview with [Taiwanese TV network] TVBS on Feb. 28, [KMT leader] Ma said that he suggested the EU consider lifting the arms embargo on China during his recent visits to London and Brussels.  (Emphasis added)

[…]

We…demand that Ma explain why he initiated the discussion of lifting the arms embargo on China in Europe, while in Taiwan his party has repeatedly blocked weapons purchases from the US.

First of all, can anyone confirm that this is true?  I have no interest in spreading falsehoods about Ma Ying-jeou, and if I find out this is BS, then I’ll HAPPILY correct it in a new post.  Because the man either said on national television that he lobbied the EU to arm Taiwan’s enemy, or he didn’t.

If it IS true, then decide for yourself which of the two cases outlined here truly represents an act of sedition.

UPDATE (Apr 10/06):  Thanks to Tim Maddog for finding the link to the letter to the Taipei Times.  It’s now included in the post.

He was also able to find a transcript of the TVBS interview, and included an excerpt in his comments.  His English translation can be found here.

UPDATE #2 (Apr 10/06):  It seems as though Ma didn’t "lobby" the EU to remove the arms embargo on China, but he did provide them with conditions for the embargo’s removal (ie: improved human rights conditions in China and "peaceful development" of cross-strait relations).

The tone of the speaker is EVERYTHING in this case.  When asked about whether the embargo should be lifted, did Ma say, "No"…or "HELL NO"?

That makes a big difference.

(I’d be willing to guess that Ma’s response to the question was exceptionally mild.  To date, his  harshest criticism of China’s Anti-Secession Law has been to say that it was "unnecessary" and "unwise".  Really, does he kiss his mother with that mouth?)

Secondly, I would like to know whether Ma helpfully offered the Europeans those conditions on his own initiative, or whether he gave those answers while being pressed.  If it was the former, then he probably earned a few brownie points in Beijing for giving them an out.  If the latter, then perhaps his answer was foolish, but not malicious.

The reason why I say it was foolish is that proposed conditions for removing the embargo ought to be specific and difficult to meet.  Ma’s criteria however, are vague, and therefore too easily obtainable.  Think about the human rights condition:  If China frees a couple of Falun Gong members, won’t European merchants of death be tempted to point to that as evidence that human rights are improving?  As for "peaceful development of cross-strait relations", would Taipei accepting a couple of pandas qualify?  Ma set the bar far too low, and didn’t even suggest that China should become more democratic.  His little performance may not have been seditious, but it wasn’t exactly a vigorous defense of Taiwan’s interests, either.

An Open Letter To Tim Russert

Dear Mr. Russert,

With KMT chairman Ma Ying-jeou now visiting America on a weeklong tour, the job of interviewing the leader of Taiwan’s opposition may fall to you or one of your colleagues.  Much as I hate to tell any of you how to do your jobs, here are a few suggestions from this expat blogger:

1.  Toss a few initial softballs.

By all means, start out slow.  No one likes an interviewer who starts out mean.  But during the warm-up, find a way of informing the viewer that Ma is Harvard-educated.  That way, when you start with the hardballs, the audience will understand that you’re questioning somebody from the Ivy Leagues, and not just picking on some poor foreigner who’s struggling to put two words of English together.

2.  Hardballs: the main event.

Ma is currently the front-runner for the 2008 presidential elections in a country that has been dubbed "The Most Dangerous Place on Earth" – a place that Americans may one day be called upon to fight and die protecting from Communist China.  You have a duty to them, their families and their countrymen to ask tough questions of the man who would be Taiwan’s president.

(Or, as Jason over at Wandering to Tamsui once said in another context, "Ma Ying-jeouuu, you’ve got some e’splainin’ to dooo!")

The main question you should ask is why Ma and his party have blocked the special arms bill from being debated in parliament for the past year.  You might also want to ask him why America should risk blood and treasure defending Taiwan when the KMT party and its allies aren’t willing to acquire the diesel submarines, anti-sub aircraft and Patriot missiles that would help to deter such a conflict.

Here are some of his previous excuses.  Whether he repeats them now or not is immaterial.  He should be invited to defend each and every one of them now.

a)  Taiwan’s President Chen took too long to present the bill to parliament.

This begs the question, how do two wrongs make a right in this case?  If Chen was wrong in being tardy to present a bill for defensive arms, then how does KMT refusal to consider the bill make Taiwan any safer?

b)  The KMT doesn’t trust Chen, so it can’t work with him to get the bill passed.*

Ask him whether he trusts in the good intentions of Communist China over that of Taiwan’s democratically-elected president.  If he says Chen, then ask him why the KMT can’t work with him to pass a weapons bill that has languished for over a year now.  Remind Ma that he has a parliamentary majority – if he thinks it’s a bad bill, he can always vote it down.  Why is he afraid of even allowing it to be considered?

If he’s frank enough to admit that he trusts China more, then Taiwan AND America are both in for a lot of trouble should the man make it to the presidency.

c)  Taiwan is a democracy now, and getting laws passed takes time in a democracy.

Benjamin Disraeli, the archetype for the modern democratic opposition leader, once said that the job of the opposition was to oppose, never to obstruct.  Firmly advise Mr. Ma that to any reasonable American observer, the boycotting of a defense bill 45 times without offering an alternative more closely resembles obstruction than it does opposition.

(And airy-fairy hand-waving about "general directions" for a defense bill cannot seriously be considered to be credible alternative policy proposals.)

d)  The KMT’s hands are tied.  President Chen called a national referendum on additional arms sales during the 2004 election, and the people defeated the motion.  The KMT cannot go against the will of the people.

No, no, no, that won’t do at all.  In saying this, Ma and the KMT act as though they’re  innocent bystanders near a train wreck, when in fact they were the engineers in the driver’s seat.  The KMT wanted the 2004 presidential elections to be about the economy not defense, so it was THEY that told their supporters to boycott the referendum on additional future arms sales**.  As a result, fifty percent of the voters failed to cast votes in the referendum, leading to its failure by default.

Refuse to be drawn into semantics over whether the referendum issue was ‘voted down’ or merely ‘failed to pass’.  What’s important here is that the KMT told its voters to boycott the referendum, and now are trying to shift the blame onto the Taiwanese electorate for what the KMT asked them to do in the first place.  This is nothing less than a blatant evasion of political responsibility.

Call him on this.  The KMT told their voters to boycott the arms referendum, then used that boycott as an excuse to subsequently block consideration of the special arms bill.  Could there be any clearer evidence that the KMT simply isn’t serious about Taiwanese national security?

e)  China has said that it won’t attack unless Taiwan declares independence, so the weapons are unnecessary so long as Taiwan’s government doesn’t "provoke" the Chinese.

This, too, is dishonest, and Ma shouldn’t be allowed to repeat this without some kind of objection.  China has ALSO said that it reserves the right to attack if Taiwan takes too long in coming to the table for re-unification talks.  Its intentions are not quite as benign as Ma would like to portray them.

But if what Ma is saying here happens to be true, then why does Taiwan need ANY American weapons at all?  Selling arms to Taiwan is a major irritant in Sino-American relations, so if Ma is right, then EVERYONE would be better off without those sales.  China would be happy, America wouldn’t jeopardize its China-related trade, and Taiwan would get to save its hard-earned money.  Maybe the State Department should announce that they’ve been persuaded by Ma’s impeccable logic, and that ALL weapons sales to Taiwan will henceforth be discontinued.

Just watch how fast the sneaky weasel backtracks then!

f)  The price is too high.

What he’s really saying here is that he’s come to American soil to tell Americans on national TV that they’re price gougers.  Ask him whether he thinks that’s going to win him any friends in Washington.

You could also show the audience quotes from members of his political allies, who’ve brazenly stated that America should GIVE Taiwan weapons, free of charge. 

Of course, ANY price is too high if you’re expecting something for nothing.  Let the American people decide for themselves whether the price is truly exorbitant, or whether Ma and his band are just bunch of moochers who want to stroll for free under somebody else’s security umbrella.

Whew!  That’s a whole lotta excuses!  Almost one for every day of the week.

It would help in all of this to prepare by viewing Ma’s previous interview with the BBC.  When the questions get tough, you can count on Ma to patronizingly belittle you for not "understanding" the situation.  Perhaps at that point, you should go on to explain the situation to HIM.

China at present has roughly 800 missiles pointed at Taiwan, and adds 100 to this number every year.  Its defense budget grows yearly by 15%, and it has openly stated that it wants Taiwan to become just another Chinese province or Special Autonomous Region.  One doesn’t need to be a Taiwanese constitutional expert or a Harvard-trained lawyer to realize that Taiwan needs a defensive / deterrent force to prevent its own extinction.

Finally, it would also be beneficial to review the China Post’s whitewash of the KMT’s blockage of the special weapons bill.  I’ve addressed most of their arguments in this letter, but the China Post further warns its American readers not to "oversimplify" the issue by assuming that the KMT is against acquiring more defensive arms for Taiwan.

How would I respond if I were in your shoes, and Ma were to level the oversimplification charge?  I would merely ask this:  if a young man asks a woman for a date and she refuses – not once, not twice, but 45 times in a row, is the issue really terribly complicated?  Or is the explanation actually very, very simple?

I think we both know the answer to that question.  Good luck, and I hope that some of this turns out to be useful.  Go Bills!

Your fan,

The Foreigner

* At this point, you could cue pictures from recent KMT rallies which Ma has attended, pictures which show effigies of Chen dressed as Adolf Hitler.  Inquire as to whether any KMT members have been sent to any death camps recently.  If the answer is negative, then it’s reasonable to pose the question of whether the KMT may be just a teensy, weensy bit responsible for SOME of the lack of trust between Taiwan’s political parties.

** It is staggeringly disingenuous for the China Post to now claim that voting for the referendum was a no-brainer, when two years ago it vigorously campaigned for a voter boycott of that very same "no-brainer".

UPDATE (Mar 22/06):  In the post I mistakenly wrote that Ma Ying-jeou was to arrive in the US next week.  He in fact landed in there on Sunday.  The error’s been corrected.

(From "Taiwan expatriates cheer Mayor Ma" in the March 21st edition of the China Post .  Sorry, no link available.)

UPDATE (Mar 26/06):  Recall the KMT excusing its lack of inaction on the special arms bill by pointing to President Chen’s slowness presenting the bill to the legislature.  The View from Taiwan debunks that claim here and here:

The DPP didn’t submit the package until 2004 because the US didn’t give them any cost numbers on it until 2002, and the Ministry of National Defense procurement process, which normally takes about 18 months, had to grind through.

KMT’s Softness on Defense Causes Officers to Quit Party

It seems that not even KMT stalwarts believe the excuses that the party offers for its blocking of the special arms procurement bill, because an number of Taiwanese military officers have written a letter announcing that they’re taking leave of the party over the issue.*

It’s a little difficult to gauge how big this story is because the number of defecting party members is unspecified.  The chairman of Taiwan’s largest pro-communist party, Ma Ying-jeou, takes it seriously though, saying that:

the KMT sincerely hopes to communicate with those service members who wrote to the defense ministry in order to talk to them about their position on the stalled arms procurement bill.

Is it just me, or is there some kind of veiled threat hidden in that statement somewhere?  As it turns out, the officers in question may have also perceived some kind of danger, because they didn’t sign their names to the letter.

Ma said further:

"No military members, regardless of their political affiliation, should support an arms procurement bill if it is not drafted based on professional assessments and if it cannot genuinely meet Taiwan’s defense needs."

OK, you’re kidding me, right?  Members of the military aren’t capable of making their own "professional assessments" regarding Taiwan’s defense needs?  The Party knows better?

American readers should note that Ma also said that the KMT was opposed to the special arms bill because it is a "cash-for-friendship" purchase plan.  In essence, he claims that George Bush’s armament offer is nothing more than a great, big mafioso protection racket.  Now, if I’m not mistaken, Taiwan was the one that requested these weapons, Mr. Bush was the only leader in the world good enough to offer those weapons, and now Ma and the pro-communists spurn the weapons – and slap Bush in the face to boot!

Good luck with your next weapons request, Taiwan.  You’re gonna need it.

UPDATE (Dec 30/05):  Today’s edition of The Taipei Times had an editorial that pointed out that this episode represents a violation of military neutrality in political matters.  While  the editorialists agree with the officers’ opinion regarding the necessity of the arms sales, they nonetheless take the principled position that the officers should be punished for their foray into the political sphere.

* I’m shocked – shocked! to find that the story appears on the front page of the anti-communist Taipei Times, and is buried on the second last page of the pro-communist The China Post. 

KMT Blocks the Special Arms Bill for the 36th Time

Boy, they’re sure serious about defense, huh?

When I’m feeling charitable, I chalk up their obstructionism to the fact that the KMT are the opposition party, and of course, the job of the opposition is to oppose.  There’s some evidence for this, because there are a number of other bills that languish simply because the KMT wants to deny the ruling party any legislative successes.

But sometimes, I take a darker view.  Perhaps the KMT wants a weak Taiwan, and wants America to wash its hands of the place.  Then, the Taiwanese would be in no position to resist when the KMT approaches China with a surrender, er, ah, "peace" proposal.

While the old KMT was a staunch anti-communist party, the new KMT sees things differently.  It looks across the straits, and sees a communist party which tolerates private property, and brooks no political opposition.  In short, it sees a "communist" party that closely resembles the KMT of old.  So the new KMT makes pilgimages to Beijing, cozies up to the communist party, and badmouths America.

Taiwan Must Fix Defense Gaps to Avoid Future War

Updates:  Political cartoons on the subject from the Taipei Times:

KMT’s defensive strategy for Taiwan

"Patriots"

The Special Arms Bill

Currently, the most serious military threat to Taiwan is not invasion, but blockade.  The Chinese have a huge submarine fleet, which if unopposed, could easily accomplish this.  Hence this story from The Taipei Times, which outlines Taiwan’s need for better submarine detection aircraft.

http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/taiwan/archives/2005/10/25/2003277279

Don’t expect this to get fixed any time soon, though.  Taiwan’s KMT party has blocked voting on the special weapons bill 31 times (or is it now 33?) in the legislature, and doesn’t seem to be in a mood for compromise.  Why you might ask, is the KMT blocking the purchase of weapons it itself requested from America in the late 1990’s?

The actual excuses that the KMT offers for their actions seem to change from week to week.  Here’s a brief list, constructed from memory, along with rebuttals:

1.  The price is too high.

The old KMT of Chiang Kai-Shek or Chiang Ching Kuo would have jumped at the opportunity to buy weapons to resist China; the new KMT spurns the chance.  Government offers to remove certain items from the bill to reduce the price have left the KMT unmoved.  Of course money not spent on weapons can be used to build schools or roads, but what good does that do you if your country’s children are turned into communist serfs?

2.  The weapons are outdated.

There is some truth here.  The weapons are, in fact, not America’s top-of-the-line.  However, what actually matters is whether the weapons are qualitatively better than the ones available to China.  (I believe that this is true for the weapons under discussion.)  What this argument seems to say is that Taiwan doesn’t like outdated weapons; it instead prefers really, really outdated weapons.  Like the ones it currently has.

3.  The Americans just want to make money selling weapons to us.

First of all, if selling weapons to the Taiwanese was such a profitable enterprise, why is it that no one aside from America does it anymore?  Secondly, people have literally thousands of needs that are met by purchasing things from others.  You expect to pay the security guard in your apartment building a fee, so why on earth would anyone expect to get Patriot missiles for free?

4.  The weapons are useless anyways.  America won’t intervene in the event of a Chinese attack, so resistance will merely delay the inevitable.

Sad to say, there might be some truth here.  Taiwan would probably fall to a Chinese attack without direct American help.  However, it’s total conjecture to say that the Americans wouldn’t help.  I personally think that they would, but I cannot be certain.

If the KMT really believes that America won’t help Taiwan during crunch time, then it should publicly inform the Taiwanese electorate, and run a political campaign advocating open and transparent negotiations for Taiwan’s immediate surrender.  If it wins, then it should avoid the "inevitable" and try to get the best deal that it can.

The failure of the KMT to do this betrays an utter lack of sincerity on their part regarding this argument.

5.  The Second Gulf War shows how self-defeating invasion can be.  The Taiwanese would fight like tigers, possibly with even more ferocity than the Iraqi "insurgents".

Maybe they would, and then again, maybe they wouldn’t.  I could be wrong, but I don’t think that the Taiwanese have any religious ideology promising them 72 virgins if they die in a suicide bombing.  Insurgencies can be crushed, and the Chinese would have no qualms in employing much harsher measures against Taiwanese resistance than Americans are using in Iraq.  Surely this should be Taiwan’s last choice for a defensive strategy, not its first.

6.  Taiwan could unilaterally disarm and it would be perfectly safe.  In the current international climate, China would be prevented from attacking Taiwan by the UN and international opinion.

This bizarre "theory" was actually forwarded in an editorial in a Taiwanese newspaper (The China Post).  You might want to ask the Tibetans how well that worked out for THEM.

7.  We don’t want an arms race with China.

You’re already in an arms race with China – they’re racing and you’re standing still.  Soon you’ll be left by the wayside.