Taiwan observers have been watching the daily WikiLeaks releases of U.S. diplomatic cables for documents in a large cache of messages from the American Institute in Taiwan, the defacto embassy of the United States. The United States has never recognized the sovereignty of the Republic of China in-exile over Taiwan, thus no embassy.
The United States is the “principal occupying Power” of Taiwan under the San Francisco Peace Treaty that officially ended World War II with Japan. At the end of the war the United States installed the embattled Republic of China as the occupation government to control the former Japanese territory. Six decades of “strategic ambiguity” have left the island under control by the Chinese Nationalist government, barred from the United Nations, and under threat of invasion from the People’s Republic of China.
Thus far only one of 3,456 WikiLeaks cables from the AIT has been released. The lone Taipei cable was about U.S. concerns over lax ROC export controls over munitions and related technology. The rest of the documents from Taiwan to Washington remain sealed.
However, U.S. embassy message traffic from Beijing isn‘t just about China. Wikileaks has posted a June 13, 2008, cable marked SECRET that discusses Taiwan. The secret message was sent to the Department of State with copies to the Central Intelligence Agency, the Defense Intelligence Agency, and the National Security Council.
The Beijing document described a working lunch meeting between Ben Moeling from the U.S. embassy and PRC Assistant Foreign Minister He Yafei. Also present was John Rood, Acting Under Secretary for Arms Control and International Security.
Rood pressed the Chinese official on missile development. Minister He countered with a sharp warning on Taiwan. The secret memo quotes He as saying, “any “proliferation” of missile defense technology to Taiwan would affect China’s national security, “since there is no clear line between defensive and offensive missile technology” and would be an issue Beijing “would have to confront.”
Minister He went on to propose “the United States and China continue discussing this topic.”
The memo continues: “Rood welcomed further discussions, saying it could help alleviate Chinese concerns. He stressed to AFM [Assistant Foreign Minister] He that U.S. missile defense capabilities are very limited.”
In 2009 the District of Columbia U.S. Court of Appeals called Taiwan’s six decades-old “strategic ambiguity a “political purgatory.”
Source: Michael Richardson - Boston Progressive Examiner
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