Taiwan now a pawn in US game
Stephen Young, former director of the Taipei office of the American Institute in Taiwan (AIT), announced last week the United States would station a Marine Guard at the new AIT office compound in Taipei scheduled to open later this year.
He made the revelation during a summit at Global Taiwan Institute, a think-tank in Washington, where President Donald Trump’s Taiwan policy was also discussed.
Young, who served as US consul general in Taipei for three years, said he pushed strongly for the United States to have a security detachment protect the American mission in Taipei – as a “symbolic expression” of the US commitment to its friends in Taiwan.
But is it?
It’s symbolic all right. But Uncle Sam’s commitment to his friends in Taiwan? Hardly. We note that President Trump is all set to use Taiwan as a bargaining chip in a give-and-take negotiation with his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping, to keep at least the status quo of Sino-American relations. US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson met with Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi at Bonn last Friday to make arrangements for the first Trump-Xi summit talks to alleviate tensions arising from Washington’s proposed review of the “one China” policy. In a telephone call with Xi on February 9, Trump agreed to honour Washington’s close-to-four-decade-old “one China” policy and to meet with Xi.
US Marines are posted at 148 American overseas missions around the world to protect the diplomatic facilities and the personnel stationed there. They are also charged with guarding national security information. A Marine Guard was at the American Embassy in Taipei when a mob occupied its compound and reportedly seized classified documents on May 24, 1957. It was the Taipei police who, with the support of a military garrison, put down the anti-American riot that left one dead and a dozen injured.
In pushing for a Marine Guard to be stationed on Taiwanese soil, was Young seeking to prevent a repetition of the May 24 incident? No mobs will attack the new compound. Nor can a platoon of troops protect its personnel and prevent the compromise of Uncle Sam’s security information.
Media in Taipei have reported that the posting of a Marine Guard at the de facto American embassy in Taipei would be an indication of warming Taiwan-US relations, albeit it could worsen cross-strait tensions since President Tsai Ing-wen took office on May 20 last year.
They are wrong to assume that the presence of US troops in Taipei will tighten ties between Taiwan and the United States. But they are right in their prediction that troubled relations between Taipei and Beijing will worsen if American Marines are stationed here.
