"Dangerous Straits"

That is the title of the PBS video we watched in International Politics class today. The topic? China and Taiwan. It turned out to be quite fascinating. My focus internationally is usually in the Middle East or Africa, and China has never really piqued my interest until now. Obviously I knew what everyone else knows - it's a rapidly growing economic giant that is and will continue to greatly influence the economic and political world of the 21st century. However, I had never really thought much about it beyond that - and the extent of my knowledge about Taiwan came from two West Wing episodes :)

The video explored a bit of the history of US relations with and policy towards China, especially the Taiwan question. It characterized US policy as that of "strategic ambiguity" - although a laughable term for US foreign policy, it does in fact accurately describe the situation. Since 1972 the US has recognized "one China", affirming Communist Beijing and not democratic Taipei as the legitimate authority. However, since 1979 US has been a major supplier of arms to Taiwan in accordance with the Taiwan Relations Act, which requires the US to supply weapons of a defensive nature. The ambiguity comes in because nowhere is it specified under what circumstances the US would be obligated to protect Taiwan militarily from the Chinese.

So there's our little history lesson for today :) But this got me thinking, and one sentence from the video particularly jumped out at me. Bush was articulating (at least trying to :) US policy on Taiwan, and at one point said something to the effect of: this is in the interest of the United States. In my notes I wrote: why is Taiwan in our interests? I started thinking about this in terms of the rubric of US foreign policy theories I learned in my last class. How would each of them explain our policy towards Taiwan?

From a Balance of Power perspective, it could be argued that our unofficial support for Taiwan functions as a way to check the growing power of China. Thus, by arming Taiwan we have a strong ally in the region to counter China. That makes sense, but I'm not entirely convinced that it's the whole reason.

An American Values approach would see it as our obligation to support the struggling democratic state living in the shadow of Red China. This is a very convincing argument, and one that is often used, but I am inclined to think that it functions as more of a justification to the American people than an actual reason for policy.

Looking at Domestic Politics, many theories could be floated, but the one seemingly plausible one in this case is economic. I am becoming more and more convinced that US policy is often primarily motivated by economic gain, and so I couldn't help but wonder, could our policy towards Taiwan in fact be motivated by cold, hard cash - weapons sales? This hypothesis really intrigued me, so I lost myself in research for several hours. I certainly uncovered some interesting things...

1. In an address to the U.S.-Taiwan Business Council Defense Industry Conference in 2006, the tone of the US government spokesperson seemed to confirm my suspicions. He emphasized the US's commitment to ensuring Taiwan's security, and urged the Taiwanese to take that task more seriously, specifically by increasing the percentage of their budget allocated for defense! I couldn't believe this was a US government official talking - why did he care about Taiwan's defense budget? But the answer was obvious - a larger Taiwanese defense budget means more money for US weapons.
(Source: http://www.state.gov/p/eap/rls/rm/72100.htm)

2. The next fact fit well with that - the US is Taiwan's principle supplier of weapons. There are only 3 other countries that have sold Taiwan weapons at all since 1999 (France, Germany, and Israel) but those together only totaled $108 million. In comparison, US arms sales to Taiwan since 1999 came to a whopping $4.8 billion - 98% of all arms sold to Taiwan during the period. WOW. So it's safe to say that this is a market US weapons manufacturers can monopolize.
(Source: http://armstrade.sipri.org/arms_trade/values.php)

3. The number I was really curious about was where Taiwan ranked in the US's overall arms exports - that would make or break my hypothesis. In 2005, Taiwan was the 3rd-highest purchaser of US defense articles and services (1.3 billion) - below Israel (1.7 bn) and Egypt (1.3 bn), and above Saudi Arabia (990 mn) and South Korea (610 mn). WOW again. So I might just be right...
(Source: http://armstrade.sipri.org/arms_trade/values.php)

Although these facts could be circumstantial and not causal, I think there's something going on here. Taiwan was an untapped market before the US came along - the rest of the world either could not or would not sell weapons to them on any significant scale. Weapons manufacturers (a notoriously powerful interest group in Washington) must have put pressure on the government, which was likely already inclined to arm Taiwan for Balance of Power and American Values reasons. In addition to the billions of dollars accrued annually as a result, this policy keeps China on its toes without disrupting normal trade. And all in the name of protecting democracy :) Perfect!

(A related hunch... I wouldn't be surprised if Bush and/or those in his Administration have lucrative connections to weapons manufacturing companies, and have benefited directly or indirectly from increased weapons sales. But I have no proof of that...)