Reviewing ‘An American Perspective on Taiwan’s Election’

In his Weekly Monograph article “An American Perspective on Taiwan’s Election,” Ryan Hass, a senior fellow and director of the China Center at the Brookings Institution, argues that the Biden administration has adopted a principle of “disciplined neutrality” with respect to the presidential election in Taiwan, and that Washington is prepared to work closely with “whomever” the people of Taiwan elect. Hass also indicates that the Biden administration recognizes it will need to work with whomever the Taiwanese electorate chooses as their next president, and that they will need to establish a high-functioning relationship with the winner.

In fact, while the United States does not know who will come out on top, if the Kuomintang candidate wins, that is the party the U.S. needs to and will have to work with. The question is, will the U.S. be capable of seamless cooperation with the pro-China, Communist-bootlicking Kuomintang? Will it be able to establish a high-functioning relationship with them?

There are certainly previous traces of these misgivings, and you can easily find the answers by examining the relationship between the U.S. and former President Ma Ying-jeou during his two terms in office. After Ma took office in 2008, did he not conclude the cross-strait direct transportation negotiations that had been pending for 20 years, while declaring that U.S. involvement in the Cross-Strait Peace Agreement was not required? Did he grovel to create unprecedented post-war harmony and goodwill between the two sides of the Taiwan Strait? Yet the U.S. still harbored doubts about the Kuomintang and Kuomintang-ruled Taiwan. At the time, the United States welcomed and was optimistic about harmonious cross-strait relations, but did it express any concerns when Ma acted like a runaway horse in that relationship?

Furthermore, the changes in Taiwan’s relationship with China after Ma came to power have made the U.S. wary of selling weapons to Taiwan. The many retired Taiwanese generals traveling to China for close dealings with their People’s Liberation Army counterparts, their declarations that the armies on either side of the Taiwan Strait constitute a Chinese army, and the repeated “Communist spy cases” in Taiwan have all caught the United States’ attention. Can the U.S. establish a high-functioning relationship with the Kuomintang under such circumstances, and will it be comfortable with the fact that confidential data on its arms sales to Taiwan will invariably be exposed and find itself in the hands of the Chinese Communist Party?

Therefore, if the pro-China, Communist-bootlicking Kuomintang wins this general election, the U.S. policy of selling weapons to Taiwan in response to military action in the Taiwan Strait will slowly but surely tilt in China’s favor. Further, it will be bound to change the status quo of the U.S., strengthening its defense cooperation with Taiwan. American and Taiwanese defense will no longer be aligned, and by then, looking to the opposition Democratic Progressive Party to supervise matters will be like closing the barn door after the horse has bolted.

The long-stated political view of [Kuomintang] nominee Hou Yu-ih and running mate Jaw Shaw-kong is not to provoke the CCP, so refusing to buy weapons from the U.S., a freeze on the eight submarines* and the abolition of the one-year conscription system would be imperatives. With a weakening of Taiwan’s national defense needs and army building — as seen during the Ma administration — how can the U.S.-Taiwan policy of cooperation to intimidate and deter China exist?

The Hass article further holds that this imperative [of building a high-functioning relationship] is one of the key factors in Washington’s efforts to maintain “impartiality in the electoral process.” One may well ask whether there can be any impartiality in Taiwan’s election process, given that with significant election meddling from the CCP, internal and external attacks have long since created a relationship of asymmetrical competition with local collaborators. In this respect, is the Hass article suggesting that Washington is reluctant to see the Taiwan elections as a choice between war and peace, or between democracy and autocracy? If so, how can we resolve the most immediate challenges and threats facing Taiwan; to wit, the external threat and intimidation posed by the CCP’s military power, combined with cyberattacks and information, economic and diplomatic offensives that are eroding the Taiwanese people’s confidence in their future? If the Taiwanese are not told that this is a choice between democracy and autocracy, then how can the universal values of democracy and freedom crystallize into a belief?

In throwing its lot in with the CCP, the U.S. has come to grief, and in propping up the Kuomintang, it has been burned. The U.S. should provide Taiwan’s homegrown regime with an unambiguous security commitment and shift toward strategically clear support for that regime, rather than acting as the Hass article sees fit.

The author is a member of the Taiwan Association of University Professors and of Taiwan Society North.

*Editor’s Note: In Taiwan, a deal to acquire eight U.S. submarines during the George W. Bush administration was unsuccessful.