What We Owe Taiwan and Ourselves

Some bright young person, formerly a Fellow at the Harvard Kennedy School, has proposed we bargain Taiwan back to the Mainland Chinese.  You can read the article in The International Herald Tribune here.

There are dozens of initiatives President Obama could undertake to strengthen our economic security. Here is one:  He should enter into closed-door negotiations with Chinese leaders to write off the $1.14 trillion of American debt currently held by China in exchange for a deal to end American military assistance and arms sales to Taiwan and terminate the current United States-Taiwan defense arrangement by 2015.

This would be a most precious prize to the cautious men in Beijing, one they would give dearly to achieve.  After all, our relationship with Taiwan, as revised in 1979, is a vestige of the cold war.

I think a war for Formosa would be a bad deal for the Taiwanese.  They would suffer many casualties, both military and civilian.  In the end, if the Mainland folks wanted, most of them would die.

On the other hand, our casual treatment of the problem has keep Taiwan free to grow into a democracy over the last 60 years.  Another decade or two or even more, might allow time for Taiwan to grow in sophistication and maturity and China to find a solution that meets the needs of all sides.  A preemptory dumping of Taiwan by the US will just create more nuclear armed nations.  That might not be a good idea at a time we are trying to talk down Iran and North Korea.

And, to boot, once we run the trade deficit to China back up to $1.14 trillion, who do we trade off next?  Korea?  Japan?  Australia?  The Philippines?  Hawaii?

And, there is such a thing as integrity.  Sure, we are not as exceptional as we think we are, but I would hope we would hang on to our integrity for a while longer and not get into treating other nations likes this was a giant "Risk" game.

Regards  —  Cliff