America's Stake In Taiwan

Heritage Foundation ^ | January 11, 2007 | John Tkacik, Jr.

[Paul Ross]

America's strategic position in Asia is now reach­ing a tipping point vis-à-vis China. In February 2006, the Pentagon's Quadrennial Defense Review warned that "of the major and emerging powers, China has the greatest potential to compete militarily with the United States and...over time offset traditional U.S. military advantages absent U.S. counter-strategies." The review then pointedly asserted that "the pace and scope of China's military buildup already puts regional military balances at risk."

....In 1945, President Harry Truman declared "a strong, united and democratic China to be one of the most vital interests of the United States." Two out of three is not good enough. Until China is democratic, the most vital U.S. interest must be to maintain America's strategic posture in the Western Pacific"

Bump!

[Paul Ross]

FYI Good summary of the situation.

[JockoManning]

Um, summary ???

Thanks for the Taiwan article. Good reference thread.

jm

[Last Dakotan]

Predatory Chinese government policies are driv­ing the migration of advanced technology away from Taiwan (and from the United States, for that matter).[10] Ultimately, leading-edge research, devel­opment, and design functions are drifting away from the U.S., and the United States will soon con­front the erosion of the basic institutional and human infrastructure necessary to sustain world leadership in nanoelectronics.

The Heritage Foundation gets it.

[Paul Ross]

The Heritage Foundation gets it.

Indeed, they do. The whole reason for the existence of the Heritage Foundation was to safeguard our liberties...and the military capacities we need to make sure we don't lose them or a future war. They, the Hudson Institute, the Manhattan Foundation, and Rand and the DSB all apparently are seeing the writing on the wall more clearly than some of the other think-tanks.

These others are "in the tank" for continuing the dissipations of our position as "business as usual."

[RightWhale]

Taiwan is a USA Territory. As such it might be sold if the offer is sufficient.

[Paul Ross]

Now that's harsh...

[maui_hawaii]

Some say that "one China" is the old Republic of China, while others say that "one China" is merely a "historic, cul­tural and geographic term within which are two sovereign, independent, mutually non-subordi­nate states."

Not done reading yet, but "China" is a political term in so many ways.

The word "China" is an english created word, not a Chinese one.

The Chinese version is "Zhong Guo" which means 'middle kingdom'.

I might emphasize the word 'kingdom'. Who's kingdom?

Its geographic only to the extent of where the emperor's courts said the kingdom stopped and of course this was ammended a time or two as one might observe. Of course those ammendments were based on what? Politics.

The author knows this I am sure, but here it goes. It is the realm and boundaries of a literal fifedom, or empire, led by royalty and its court. That is what 'zhong guo' is. If the neighbors are nice then there was two 'zhong guo' s', ie empires. If they were not cordial a fight would ensue for political survival.

The term "one China" really means, "we are all one culture but we cannot have another party or another government challenging the empire".

Its equivalent to Democrats (or Republicans) saying the other doesn't have the right to exist.

Political power in China has long been sought after, and when its been won, its been absolute...except in the case of the communists who have not been able to wipe out the last bastian of people who can politically challenge them.

[Alamo-Girl]

Thanks for the ping!

[maui_hawaii]

I read a little more... so far good stuff.

The problem arises from a key aspect.

In the post cold war era, IE the clintonista era, that the cold war was over, and hence everything is fine.

There was almost a shilling voice screaming, its over its over! and as a result it led the US into a false sense of security.

The military was cut, intel neglected...they "had no real purpose anymore".

The US rested on its butt and in brief miscalculated big time.

9-11 caused a resurgence somewhat, but I would contend that:

1. The US started this chain reaction of miscalculations regarding China as a result of the ending of the cold war. It didn't happen over night, but it did reach its pinnacle during the Clinton times.

2. The US is still unwilling to concede a change in course is needed regarding political forces in China.

Its no different than how after the Cold War the US almost went isolationist in a different aspect of the word.

The US ignored threats and in the case of China continues to ignore it.

[exmachinan]

The word "China" is an english created word, not a Chinese one. The Chinese version is "Zhong Guo" which means 'middle kingdom'. I might emphasize the word 'kingdom'. Who's kingdom?

The Chinese guo doesn't mean "kingdom," although it's often translated that way poetically. The best Germanic language translation for "guo" is actually "-land", as in England, Ireland, Scotland, The Netherlands, Deutschland. The actual Chinese term for "kingdom" is ''wangguo'' (literally: "King" + guo/"land").

If you look at the names of East Asian countries, they are all called "-guo" or variants of the term (-guk/-kuk, -koku/-goku). It's equivalent to the Germanic -land.

[maui_hawaii]

Many American policymakers and academics view China as an unstoppable force of nature. Dur­ing an intense grilling by the House International Relations Committee on May 10, 2006, Deputy Secretary of State Robert Zoellick said:

But we have to be very careful, you see. And this is the balance, is that we want to be supportive of Taiwan, while we are not en­couraging those that try to move toward independence. Because I am being very clear: Independence means war. And that means American soldiers.

There are alternatives. Being the USTR has blurred a larger view.

The US needs to disarm Beijing slowly and meticulously.

Beijing weilds its influence to pressure businesses, the US needs to do the same.

We need to slowly and steadily influence businesses to move out of China and diversify around Asia.

We should provide incentives for those investing elsewhere and try to influence the game.

We should also provide dis incentives for the stubborn types.

The whole game at this point is economic, but it has a larger political effect.

The US isn't willing to pressure the business community, thats about the jist of it.

[exmachinan]

The Chinese term for China (Jhongguo/Zhongguo) literally means "Midlands" (referring to the plains in central China); it has nothing to do with "Center of the World" or "Central Kingdom."

[exmachinan]

We need to slowly and steadily influence businesses to move out of China and diversify around Asia. We should provide incentives for those investing elsewhere and try to influence the game.

You don't seem to understand, Taiwan itself is China's LARGEST foreign investor and China's largest source deficit. The US doesn't even come close. You seem to think all Taiwanese want independence? That's obviously not the case. There are 1.5 million Taiwanese living in China. What Deputy Secretary of State Robert Zoellick said was very sensible.

[maui_hawaii]

'di' is land.

If you want to get into the semantics of it, lets do so.

The Chinese character for guo is a 'kou' around the character 'huo' which leads me to believe a couple of things.

At first glance one may think this character is a 'xing sheng' (sorry FR cannot support Chinese characters or I would type it in Chinese for you). Xing sheng means the character mimics its compents sounds.

Huo, Guo, similar sound...

However upon further investigation, the character "huo" that makes up the center of the character 'guo' actually is a pronoun in classical chinese, IE wen yan wen and has been around for ages.

So linguistically, if we were making a deduction here, this character would fall under 'hui yi', meaning you can visualize the meaning of the character by its components.

Everyone knows 'zhong'. It is a box with a line in the middle of it, denoting centralization. "Guo" has a box, or a border, around 'a certain person', thus denoting a reference to a central or supreme leader, namely the emperor.

The character 'huo' that makes up the middle of the character guo is again, a pronoun referencing a person.

When you combine these two characters together it speaks for itself.

There is no reference to land in the physical sense, other than maybe to denote the area that the 'certain person' controls.

But no, it does not have any reference to physical land.

Even if you look at the jianti simplified character, even the communist translators knew this. The center of 'guo' in jianti is that of jade, which has a clear reference to emperial persons and power.

[maui_hawaii]

I am all to aware of how China's economy works. Believe me.

Not all Taiwanese want independence. But not all want to serve under Beijing either.

As for economics, things change. We just need to help it along.

[maui_hawaii]

The Chinese term for China (Jhongguo/Zhongguo) literally means "Midlands"

BS

[maui_hawaii]

Also regarding post #15, I can provide a whole litany of other ancedotal evidence proving my point.

[exmachinan]

Chinese characters are 94% phonetic. That jade means nothing, it's a phonetic element. In ancient Chinese (and in Japanese and many Chinese dialects), jade (yu) rhymes with "guo." In Japanese, the jade character is still pronounced "goku." In traditional characters, the phonetic element "huo" obviously also rhymes with "guo." And your additional analysis is merely post hoc, a mnemonic to teach 1st graders so they can remember the character.

[MARKUSPRIME]

You are a newly signed up chicom troll.