My friend and fellow member of the Ohio Diaspora Brian Benedictus (his excellent blog) and I spanked Julian Ku hard in The Diplomat today: US Policy and International Law: Taiwan's Friend. Enjoy...
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10 comments:
Michael: Good informative article in the Diplomat!
Very good.
One disagreement: whilst U.S. policy and international law may provide a legal basis for U.S. intervention, the ethics of such intervention are independent, which is to say that, were said policy and law to be modified in favour of a PRC annexation of Taiwan, then a U.S. decision to stand back and do nothing in the face of a "Taiwan contingency" would not consequentially become the ethical thing to do.
Yeah, but the way I see it, for once the US is on the side of law and right. How often does that happen? Cause for celebration.
Yes, but we don't want it to have to come to U.S. intervention in the first place - that is a last resort and hopefully an unnecessary one; I don't even trust U.S. politicians to do what they say they will do, let alone to do what they will not say they will do.
Besides, it is better for Taiwanese people to act and continuously act for the value of remaining politically independent. Better defence equipment (e.g. missiles and possibly subs) would be a start, but the defence department is likely compromised by Chinese intelligence. I think a non-military approach of depoliticization would be better on the conjecture that it would strengthen the culture of independence and self-government by taking it down to the lowest possible denominators. We could start by abolishing the hated Land Expropriation Act.
A question arises as to how a Hofstra Law Professor can get it so wrong and what his impetus was in writing the article in the first place.
Steve Hoover, Greater Hsinchu & Cols.
I don't know, Steve H, we've all been wondering how (1) he couldn't find it out before he wrote (2) he didn't go and look when a whole bunch of smart people shouted he was wrong. In a way it was scarier that he was merely uninformed than when I had misread him as a PRC shill.
Michael
A few years ago, Dani Rodrik (Harvard) claimed that the protests in Tunis and Cairo during the so-called "Jasmine Revolution" had nothing to do with the economy (e.g. the inflation of staples prices). Error, is by no means exclusive to bloggers.
How can a law professor not understand languages such as "fully understands" and "respects" and "does not challenge" are legalese for we politely disagree.
>>How can a law professor not understand languages such as "fully understands" and "respects" and "does not challenge" are legalese <<
When someone is trying extremely hard to pretend to be sleeping, you can never wake him up no matter how earth-shatteringly you shake his head.
On the other hand, a light tap on the shoulder will instantly wake up someone who accidentally nods off.
Wow, great article, great response! Bravo! We are all lucky to have an advocate among us thoughtful, concise, and cutting as you!
-Long time reader of your blog.
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