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Thursday, February 24, 2005

What should Taiwan do?

Marc Plumb wrote an informative letter to the Taipei Times on the EU drive to resume selling weapons to China.
For Taiwan, the upcoming trouble the US will have with Iran may push the Chinese navy to make a move to blockade Taiwan, not only to challenge those who support independence, but also to give the US more to deal with since China (and Russia) have partnered with Iranian oil interests. North Korea may complicate matters as well. Taiwan may end up having to fend for itself.
Between the suicidal violence of US policy, and the venal hypocrisy of the EU, Taiwan doesn't have much of a choice. With US power steadily eroding on its way to an (increasingly probable?) Argentina-style meltdown, what is the proper stance for Taiwan?

Even as we speak Japan is haltingly drawing closer to Taiwan, and this trend needs to be encouraged. Americans are apt to view the natural counterweight to China as Japan, but the reality is that China's main rival in Asia in the long-term is India. The region along the Himal, from Kashmir on one end to the tiny Himalayan states on the other, is one of the most explosive, though least remarked on, tinderboxes on earth. Taiwan, as I recommended many years ago, needs to be reaching out to India and developing it as a counterweight. This may sound like a bizarre recommendation but in dollar terms India's economy is only about twice the size of Taiwan's, and it is much less developed in many ways.

Perhaps, though, there is just no more time for a strategy like this. Time to bristle with missiles, folks.

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