Taiwan Tati Cultural and Educational Foundation

On June 16, the US House of Representatives’ Foreign Affairs Committee held a hearing on US-Taiwan relations, entitled “Why Taiwan Matters.” The meeting and the testimony from four US experts on relations with Taiwan produced quite an amazing bipartisan consensus on the present status and the way forward. Most members of the US Congress and all the presenters emphasized that US-Taiwan relations rested on a solid basis, reiterating that the Taiwan Relations Act and shared democratic values were the cornerstones of the relationship. However, there was general disappointment that ties had been allowed to drift.

Former US deputy assistant secretary of state Randy Schriver said that the administration of US President Barack Obama, like previous administrations, “does not have high enough aspirations for Taiwan.” Washington must be more creative and move away from the image that Taiwan is a “problem” to be managed as a subset of its relations with China.

Since the inauguration of President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九), the national defense budget has plummeted. Taiwan’s arsenal is aging and defense capabilities are weakening, while China is spending more than 10 percent of its annual budget on defense every year. The cross-strait military imbalance is a clear concern for many countries, with even US and Japanese military experts shaking their heads in disbelief.

A cable from the US embassy in Bangkok recently released by WikiLeaks shows that former minister of foreign affairs Francisco Ou (歐鴻鍊), in a conversation with AIT Chairman Raymond Burghardt on March 20, 2009, said that the Ma administration would make three commitments to the US: Taiwan would not request that the US sell specific weapons systems to Taiwan simply to prove that the US would do so; Taiwan would not request any special transit arrangements just to show that the US supports Taiwan, and Taiwan would not insist on the use of specific names based on political concerns.