Taiwan News: F-16s, the UN and the 2012 Presidential Election

Taiwan has been in the international news lately with the report that the Obama administration has decided not to sell advanced F-16s to the country, but has instead offered to help upgrade the fighters they have. I don’t have the expertise to be sure whether the administration’s claim that an upgrade of existing fighters will be as good a deal as selling new aircraft (the basis for this claim being apparently that the upgrade would cover a far larger number of aircraft, would make them almost as good as the new aircraft would be, and would be cheaper), but if the administration has made this decision out of a fear of China’s reaction, then it is still a black mark on their record (of course other countries refuse to even do this much for Taiwan, also for fear of Chinese displeasure, but that doesn’t really excuse the US, especially since it is bound by the Taiwan Relations Act to assist Taiwan). It is possible that there may be legitimate reasons for a reluctance to sell new F-16, such as a fear that Chinese spies would get easier access to US technology as asserted in this article (of course the Taiwan government issued a rebuttal, but that doesn’t prove there isn’t a problem). However, I suspect that China’s touchiness about any threat to their imperialist ambitions toward Taiwan did enter into US calculations, indicating that on this issue Obama looks no better than his predecessors (though in other areas he’s been looking better lately; the little I’ve seen of his deficit plan seems pretty good, especially the so-called “Buffett Rule”, but that’s a topic for another day).

Another big international news story on the surface has nothing to do with Taiwan, but in fact is indicative of a serious lack of principle in the international community. I refer here to the Palestinian plan to seek UN recognition of Palestinian statehood. I haven’t really come down on one side or the other as far as the merits of the Palestinian move. I can understand Palestinian frustration with Israeli intransigence on the settlement issue, and as a people they certainly have some legitimate aspirations that deserve recognition. On the other hand, Israel also has legitimate concerns about security and the stability of a Palestinian state, and I’m not sure that this is the right time for the Palestinians to take this step. But most reports agree that if they take their case to the General Assembly, they’ll have a good chance of winning. My problem with that is the apparent fact that many nations are apparently willing to vote in favor of recognizing a Palestinian state that, regardless of what should be the case, is not currently a truly independent country (its borders are controlled by Israel, which also has a presence throughout much of the West Bank, and it is split between the Palestinian Authority-controlled West Bank and Hamas-controlled Gaza), and yet the vast majority of those same countries will not vote for statehood for Taiwan, which is a fully independent state and has been such for decades. This shows a disgraceful hypocrisy on the part of all those countries, or a craven fear of China, or both.

In Taiwan itself, the media is focusing more and more on the upcoming presidential election, which will take place next January. While I haven’t been reading local news as closely as I should (one problem with getting my news mainly from international websites such as Google and Yahoo and the sources they link to, rather than a local paper), I have seen articles about DPP leader Tsai Ing-wen’s outline of the general principles she would govern under, and broadly speaking, they certainly sound like an improvement over the current administration of the KMT’s Ma Ying-jeou. I particularly like her emphasis on developing a green economy and protecting the environment, as well as a more cautious approach to China. Of course talk is cheap, particularly in politics, and there’s no proof she would follow through on all of these rather vague positions. But she is almost certain to be at least a little better on both the environment and China relations than Ma, whose administration has a poor environmental record and seems intent on rushing into the claws of the Chinese. She will also no doubt be better than the previous DPP president, who was erratic and even more of a narcissist than the average politician, aside from possibly being guilty of corruption (and while the KMT legal attack on him and his family after he left office smacked of a political vendetta, particularly in the disproportionate punishment initially handed down, I suspect he was guilty of at least some of the charges). So at this point I am definitely supporting Tsai Ing-wen for president of Taiwan.