Recently, the United States and Taiwan are up to a negociation on arm sales. Taiwan sent out a request to USA for an arm sale. The request includes new F-16 C/D fighter jets and upgrades for existing F-16s. US is still hesitate to make a decision due to the reason that the arm sale might infuriate China. Towards US’s reaction, China has warned that US should carefully come up with the decision, otherwise it would damage the relationship between the two countries. At the same time, the Tawan Defense Minister Kao Hua-Chu is trying to draw attention from US with the recent plane crash during a millitary training caused by aging F-5. The request also revealed the fact that Taiwan’s millitary is at its low.
Obviously, Taiwan is desire to strengthen its power as its millitary power is threatened by mainland China. Since 1949, Taiwan has never identified itself as part of China. Taiwan seized every opportunity to join the United Nation in order to be recognized as a country; unfortunately, it failed each time it attemped to do that. The main reason that Taiwan’s request was declined is that it is not as powerful as Mainland China. Therefore, Taiwan is trying to keep up with its economy, politics and millitary. That is one of the major reasons that Taiwan asked the United States for help; it wants to balance the power between itself and China. However, it should meanwhile realize that Taiwan cannot continue trading arms with US in the future since the United States can never aid Taiwan with arms without consider the sovereignty of Mainland China. In other words, Taiwan has to develop its own millitary industry so that it can try to surpass Mainland China. But the reality is that it is impossible for Mainland China to indulge the development of Taiwan; it is a country’s responsibility to protect its sovereignty.
Taiwan question has always been the most sensitive and significant problem between the relationship of China and the United States. The United States seems to make a flexible use of Taiwan. In 1949, when China was just established，the relationship between the United States and China was neutral since China started with no wealth or position in the world. “The United States stops military aid to Taiwan. Both the U.S. and the United Nations fail to give the PRC diplomatic recognition.” When the Korean War came in 1950, the relations started to worsen as the United States was threathened by China; therefore, U.S. decided to protect Taiwan form possible attack by Mainland China. U.S. also sent in Seventh Fleet to guard the sea area in between China and Taiwan. A year after, U.S. resumes aid either in economy or millitary for Taiwan.
“ Economic and military aid from the United States resumes with the establishment of the Military Assistance and Advisory Group in Taiwan. From this time until the mid-1960s the U.S. offers $1.5 billion in aid to the Republic of China (ROC) on Taiwan with the hope of changing the island into an industrialized nation. Taiwan begins a giant land reform project that redistributes the country's farmland and helps turn the economy around.”
During the period from 1950s to 1960s, the Sino-US relationship was intense because of the Cold War, Korean War and the Taiwan Problem. While China was receiving help from Soviet Union, the fear led to all the aid US offered Taiwan because it wanted to balance the power in the bipolar world.
In the 1970s, since both Soviet Union and China had a divergence on the political standard of Communism, the United States was able to replace Soviet Union. From then on, the relations between the two countries started to change.
“The U.S. formally announces its "two China" policy, supporting admission of the People's Republic of China into the U.N. while preserving Taiwan's membership in the General Assembly.”
After Kissinger’s visit to China, Taiwan was kicked out from the United Nation. Fllowing Kissinger’s visit, President Nixon made a visit to China too. Taiwan problem was the first thing Mao brought up. 1970s was a huge turning point for the relationship between China and the United States. At the same time, China started the reformation.
The relationship between China and U.S. went through four stages; from neutral to bad, then fine to instable and finally stable. The changes of the relationship all depended on the power both countries seize. At first, when China was still powerless, U.S. did not even bother to do anything to it. However, when China started to get involed in the conflicts within the world; U.S. reacted negatively. As soon as U.S. realized the potentiality of China, it started to adjust the relations. Since U.S. had to balance its relationship with both Mainland China and Taiwan, the relationship between itself and China was not so smooth during that period. As the position of China in the world is getting higer, the relationship between both countries is much stabler now. This is all about power shifting and national interests.
At the present, a fierce election is happening in Taiwan, both Democratic People‟s Progressive Party (DPP) and Kuomingtang (KMT) are criticizing each other for different opinions on politics, DPP even claimed that Ma Ying-jeou is exchanging the sovereignty for a short-term economic benefics from Mainland China. It’s likely that the relationship between Mainland China and Taiwan would worsen if DPP is elected. So from the Mainland China perspective, it hopes that Ma will be re-elected. There are now only 6 months left for the presidential elections in both United States and Taiwan, no one is going to know how the U.S.-China-Taiwan relations will be as the leathers are changing, but we all desire a peaceful place to live.
Sources:
"TIME FOR US TO STOP ARMS SALES." Chinadaily. September 19, 2011 Monday. LexisNexis.com
Shin-yuan LAI, Douglas H. Paal. "Facing the Challenges of Cross-Strait Relations in 2012." Carnegie Endowment. THURSDAY, JULY 7, 2011 – FRIDAY, JULY 8, 2011. WASHINGTON, D.C.
Infoplease. John Gettings and Beth Rowen.Pearson Education < Taiwan Timeline — Infoplease.com http://www.infoplease.com/spot/taiwantime1.html#ixzz1YZEGUqwV >.
MICHAEL SAINSBURY. "China up in arms over US sale." The Australian September 21, 2011 Wednesday, WORLD; Pg. 11.
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