Secret Deals, Secret Deals, Those Damned Secret Deals!
Thursday December 13, by Jerome F. Keating Ph.D.
[A French translation by Jerome Besson is available at Taiwan 1st!]
The more they protest, the more time and verbiage they expend, the more they insist that they respect Taiwan's democracy; the more it becomes obvious. The US State Department, its officials and henchmen seem to have once again made another secret deal, a secret deal with China to limit and control the democracy and freedom of Taiwan.
Raymond Burghardt recently finished up a special trip to Taiwan to talk to both presidential candidates; he also sought reassurances from President Chen Shui-bian that he will honor his past pledges and do nothing drastic in his last months in office. Earlier Stephen Young, AIT's Taiwan Director had visited the President to also gain similar assurances. Thomas Christensen with a round table with reporters on December 6th replayed the worn out record of how much the US needed to make its position clear, very clear. We had heard the same lines from John Negroponte, Dennis Wilder and the same Christensen this past September.
Any rational person must ask why, why such overkill, why such concern and why such effort to clarify and clarify ad nauseam how the USA cares deeply about Taiwan's democracy, except that it doesn't want Taiwan to practice it. The issue is Taiwan's UN referendum, a referendum that everyone agrees will have no binding power or consequence, so then why all the effort? Shades of Henry Kissinger, the sell out king par excellence, has the USA again made another secret deal with China, and again have they let China define the terms?
Credibility Ranking Zero: Will someone please throw these US officials more straws to grasp at. The lady doth protest too much. While they try to place the burden of sincerity and responsibility on President Chen of Taiwan, the spotlight instead focuses on them. These are the people who repeatedly insist that they have not changed their "one China policy" but they have. These are the people that justified war by insisting that there were Weapons of Mass Destruction in Iraq, but there weren't. These are the same people who insist that they have always done what is best for Taiwan, but they haven't.
Have you ever wondered why Taiwan is the only country that seems capable of upsetting the fictitious "status quo" in the Taiwan Strait? Have you ever wondered why Taiwan is the only country of the three (China, Taiwan, and the USA) that is bound to honor its pledges, that Taiwan is the only country that has had to spell out its pledges? Can anyone clearly state in black and white what the USA is obligated to do as regards Taiwan and the status quo? Can anyone clearly state what China is obligated to do as regards Taiwan and the status quo? The burden only falls on Taiwan and evidence points to the fact that this burden comes from a secret deal that Taiwan was not privy to.
The USA policy on Taiwan and China is vacuous, vague, and vapid. It has purposely been kept this way for over half a century so that no one can clearly define its obligations. China on the other hand has always insisted that it has no obligations except the right to declare war when it feels offended and that it can move the goal posts that determine what offends it when it so pleases.
That so much effort has been expended over such minutia as Taiwan's UN referendum can only point to one thing, a secret deal with China where the USA had promised to contain Taiwan in the ways and minutia that China wants Taiwan contained,
What exactly could or does the USA gain from such a secret deal with China? Could it be a host of cheap products? Port privileges for its Navy? Token help with North Korea? A promise of help with Iran after China finishes selling Iran what it needs to build nuclear weapons? What exactly is the USA getting out of jumping through these hoops for China and why does it continually let China define the terms and limits of the agreements?
This is the same USA which has no hesitancy in supporting Kosovo's independence in opposition to Russia. This is the same USA that continues to force feed democracy on three disparate groups in Iraq. This is the same USA that made past secret deals with China prior to the Shanghai Communiqué.
Burghardt's message finished with the words that new leaders present a new opportunity to solve problems as regards important issues; he did not want President Chen to cause problems for his successor. It is no wonder that the USA shows favoritism for wishy-washy Ma Ying-jeou who is also China's favorite in the upcoming Taiwan elections. However, the USA is also going to have new leadership in the future. Will its new president be bound by the secret deals of the past? Will he/she have a new opportunity to solve problems and deal with the important issues of the Taiwan Strait in a new way? Will we even see some new faces in the State Department?