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US-Taiwanese military relations: strategic ambiguity
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| 10 December 2002 |
By Robert Karniol, JDW Asia Pacific Editor, Bangkok
US President George Bush was crystal clear in his support of the Republic of China (Taiwan). During a US television interview to mark 100 days in office, he cut through two decades of foggy statements to avow unreservedly that the USA would intervene militarily in the event of Chinese aggression against Taipei. Washington is prepared to do "whatever it takes to help Taiwan defend itself", he told ABC News on 25 April 2001.
Today, the US State Department espouses a looser view. "There are plenty of statements saying we'll honour our obligations under the [1979] Taiwan Relations Act," an official familiar with the issue told JDW. Asked to clarify whether this includes a military response, he replied: "Read the Taiwan Relations Act."
Bush's forthright statement has given way to the 'strategic ambiguity' that preceded it since Washington established diplomatic relations with the People's Republic of China (PRC) on 1 January 1979. This is intended to promote deterrence by feeding Beijing's uncertainty.
"I think there are considerable substantive developments [under the Bush administration]. Not revolutionary changes, but considerable fine-tuning," says Taiwan's Deputy Foreign Minister Michael Ying-mao Kau about US defence policy toward Taiwan.
Washington established a base figure of $800 million annually for its arms sales to Taiwan, representing the combined value in FY83 of its government-to-government Foreign Military Sales and licensed commercial exports, then began reducing the total by $20 million each year. The figure had slipped to $660 million by FY90, but the trend reversed the following year as quantitative restrictions were forgotten.
US arms sales to Taiwan in FY00 would have been worth $460 million had the phased reductions continued. Instead, according to data compiled by the Federation of American Scientists, arms deliveries by the USA that year were valued at $938 million. This was down from $2.5 billion in FY99.
The American Institute in Taiwan (AIT), which represents US interests in the absence of diplomatic relations, refused any discussion of the bilateral relationship. However, a former AIT official said the reduction timetable on arms sales was self-imposed as the third communiqué leaves the issue open-ended. "We changed our mind," he said.
The policy shift was hardly altruistic, with commercial considerations quickly evident. Most notably, following a decade of rejections, Washington agreed to sell Taiwan 150 F-16A-20/B-20 fighters in 1992 when Taipei moved to buy 60 Mirage 2000-5 fighters from France.
This commercial imperative could also become pernicious, with Taiwanese officials complaining privately of "price gouging" practices by their putative friends in Washington. The most often cited examples are the Marsh Turbo Tracker S-2T anti-submarine aircraft delivered from 1990 and the Grumman E-2T Hawkeye airborne early-warning aircraft delivered from 1995, with US-dictated modifications pushing costs skyward.
Whether primarily driven by profit or ideology, Washington also began providing technological assistance in support of Taiwan's military modernisation. Sources told JDW in the late-1980s that this was geared to sidestep restrictions under the third Chinese-US communiqué, which addresses "arms sales" without specific reference to defence technology.
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