April 27, 2005
MEMORANDUM TO: OPINION LEADERS
FROM: WILLIAM KRISTOL
SUBJECT: Off to Beijing: The KMT in China
I would like to draw your attention to the following oped (“Lien's Trip Takes Taiwan Down the Wrong Path”), which appeared in today's Asian Wall Street Journal. The piece is co-authored by Project Executive Director Gary Schmitt and AEI fellow Dan Blumenthal.
Lien’s Trip Takes Taiwan Down the Wrong Path
Dan Blumenthal and Gary Schmitt
Asian Wall Street Journal
April 27, 2005
What a strange time for the leader of Taiwan’s main opposition party, the Kuomintang, or KMT, to embark on a “peace” visit to the mainland. Recent weeks and months have seen a series of provocative acts by Beijing, from state supported anti-Japanese protests that turned violent, to enactment of an “anti-secession” law which threatens the use of force against Taiwan, and pressure on Australia to “re-examine” its treaty with the United States.
Yet none of this has deterred KMT Chairman Lien Chan from undertaking an unprecedented eight-day visit to China, the first such trip by a KMT leader since his party lost the civil war with the Communists and fled to Taiwan 56 years ago.
Mr. Lien, who began his visit in Nanjing yesterday, has been reluctant to reveal exactly what will be discussed during the trip. But it’s likely he’ll return to Taiwan next week with a goody bag of economic and political gestures, perhaps even including an offer by Beijing to discuss a pullback of some of the 600-plus missiles it has pointed at Taiwan. Never mind that any such offer will amount to no more than a gesture. Such short-range missiles are easily moveable and, even after a pullback, could be quickly redeployed to threaten Taiwan again. The more fundamental problem is that Mr. Lien will be discussing matters that fall clearly within the authority of the democratically elected government of Taiwan President Chen Shuibian.
Americans are, of course, only too familiar with major politicians running off to meet with governments with whom Washington has tense relations. But they are equally familiar with virtually every administration’s refrain that when it comes to substantive talks: “No thank you, we run foreign policy.”
But that’s not how some in the Bush administration have responded to the KMT’s initiative. Instead U.S. State Department Spokesman Adam Ereli praised “recent travels to China by Taiwanese individuals” as “positive steps.” U.S. officials were also reported to have put pressure on Taiwan not to criticize Mr. Lien’s visit.
The administration’s position ignores the game that Beijing and Mr. Lien are playing, and only encourages behavior that is likely to worsen, rather than resolve, cross-Strait tensions. The real story behind Mr. Lien’s visit is his continuing refusal to recognize the legitimacy of Mr. Chen’s government. In control of a majority coalition within Taiwan’s legislature, he has directed his party to block virtually all legislative proposals, bringing the government to a grinding standstill.
Particularly serious from the U.S. perspective is Mr. Lien’s repeated attempts to prevent the legislature from considering a special budget to buy arms desperately needed for Taiwan’s defense. Introduced into the legislature almost one year ago, this supplemental budget would fund the purchase of diesel submarines, anti-submarine P3-C aircraft, and PAC-3 missile defense batteries. If passed, it would mark a major step forward in Washington’s long-standing goal of prodding Taiwan to provide the necessary resources to defend itself against Beijing’s military buildup. The Chen government and the Taiwan military have worked assiduously to promote this supplemental budget, only to have it blocked from debate time and again.
KMT officials and legislators have provided a laundry list of complaints, questioning everything from $15.38 billion price tag to the use of a special budget process, as well as arguing that missile defenses are unnecessary or should by provided by the U.S. for free as a symbol of its commitment to defend Taiwan’s democracy. The lack of coherence in these criticisms tells its own story: That the real reason is raw political animus against President Chen and his Democratic Progressive Party. How else to explain their opposition given the fact that the KMT requested the same weapons systems when it held power in Taiwan?
The KMT ruled Taiwan as a one-party state for the whole of the Cold War, gradually giving way to democracy in the 1990s. Its senior leaders have never really accepted the political judgment of the Taiwanese people in electing President Chen—first, in 2000, with well less than a majority and, again, in 2004, with a contested razor thin margin of only 29,000 votes. Toss in the DPP’s failure to fulfill widespread expectations that it would win a working majority in last November’s legislative elections, and it is not difficult to find KMT officials who believe that they, rather than President Chen and his advisers, should be running things.
It is not interfering in Taiwan’s internal politics for Washington to be clearheaded about the interests and principles that are at stake. Encouraging the KMT visit, as one senior administration official did, on the grounds that “talks are better than no talks” is the wrong signal to send. What form talks take does matter. The absence of a meaningful cross-Strait dialogue is the direct result of Beijing’s refusal to deal with the democratically elected leader of Taiwan.
Does Washington really want to give Beijing the prerogative of picking whom it will deal with when it comes to democratic Taiwan? Mr. Lien’s dual-legged policy of keeping Taiwan weak, while working with China to undermine President Chen, can only fuel Beijing’s bellicose ambitions. And that is, most decidedly, not in America’s best interests.
The problems Taiwan faces today are not unusual. Newly elected democrats often struggle to learn how to govern and opposition parties just as often struggle to learn how to criticize the government policies without undercutting the government. The goal should be sensible partisanship, not polarizing politics. The danger in Taiwan right now is that the KMT, under Mr. Lien, is headed toward the latter.
The next generation of KMT leaders, such as Taipei Mayor Ma Ying-Jiou and Wang Jingpyng, the president of the legislature, do not have to go down that road. They have an opportunity to lead their party into a position of responsibility and leadership on national security and defense matters—in other words, a position of loyal opposition. That means not standing passively by while Mr. Lien leads their party down a path that will be difficult to retrace. Equally important, it means Washington must be much smarter about encouraging the right kind of partisan behavior in a young democracy.
Mr. Blumenthal is a resident fellow at the American Enterprise Institute and, prior to that, was senior director for China, Taiwan and Mongolia in the U.S. Secretary of Defense’s Office of International Security Affairs. Mr. Schmitt is executive director of the Project for the New American Century.
http://www.newamericancentury.org/taiwan-20050427.htm
【亞洲華爾街雜誌】連戰把台灣帶向歧路！
時間: Fri Apr 29 15:56:32 2005
【標題】連戰把台灣帶向歧路！
【作者】Dan Blumental／Gary Schmitt
Blumental曾任美國國防部國際安全事務局的中國、台灣及蒙古部門資深主任，
現為美國企業研究所常任專員。
Schmitt現為新美國世紀計劃的執行主任。
原文”Lien’s Trip Takes Taiwan Down the Wrong Path”
(c)Asian Wall Street Journal April 27, 2005
http://www.newamericancentury.org/taiwan-20050427.htm
蘋果日報中文編譯 2005.4.29
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【內文】
台灣最大在野黨國民黨黨主席連戰訪問大陸，展開所謂「和平之旅」，時機實在很
奇怪。近來北京當局的挑釁動作頻頻，像是官方暗助的反日示威暴亂，以及通過
《反分裂法》授權對台動武，乃至於施壓澳洲要「重新檢討」和美國的協防條約。
只是這些挑釁舉動，都無法阻止連戰展開史無前例的八天中國之行。這是國共內戰、
國府遷台的五十六年來，國民黨領導人首次踏上中國大陸。
連戰二十六日在南京展開訪問，但他卻不願講明此行的會談內容。可以預期的是，
他下周回到台灣時，會帶回中國開出的不少政經支票，甚至連中國瞄準台灣的六百
多枚飛彈，北京都願意談判後撤。只是這些支票，終究只是一種姿態。短程飛彈原
本就是高機動性，即使是後撤，也可以很快重新部署來威脅台灣。更嚴重的問題是
，連先生要討論的這些議題，原本都是台灣民選的陳水扁總統的職權所在。
越俎代庖反成正面舉措 (註)
美國國內也不乏有一些政治要員，自己跑去和華府敵對的國家訪問。但美國官員應
該更清楚，不論哪一任政府碰到這種越俎代庖的情況，都是同樣的一句：「謝謝心
領了，外交我們自己辦就好。」
只是布希政府的若干官員，卻不是以此來回應國民黨的舉動。國務院發言人厄立，
讚揚「台灣若干人士最近的中國之行」為「正面的舉措」。還有報導說，美國官員
向台灣當局施壓，希望他們不要批判連戰之行。
布希當局的立場，不僅漠視了北京當局和連先生在玩的遊戲，更是在鼓勵一些不可
取的行為，這些行為只會造成台海緊張升高，而不是和緩。連先生訪中的真正意涵
，是他至今仍不願承認陳水扁政府的合法性。他藉著政黨聯盟掌握立法院的多數席
次，指示國民黨阻擋絕大多數的議案，讓政府施政陷於停擺。
美國最感嚴重的是，連先生一再試圖阻撓立法院審議軍購特別預算案，讓台灣無法
獲得急需的國防武器。軍購案一年前向立法院提出，旨在向美國採購柴電潛艦、
P3-C反潛機及愛國者三型飛彈，一旦通過的話，將是華府長期協助台灣整軍建武、
對抗中國軍力擴張的一大突破。陳水扁當局和台灣軍方一直致力宣導軍購特別預算
案，但就是無法打破在立法院被擋關的困境。
國民黨要員和立委提出一長串的抱怨，又是嫌台幣六一○八億元的預算太高，又嫌
特別預算的編列名目不當，不然就是嫌飛彈防禦系統不管用，甚至還說美國既然承
諾協防台灣，就應無償提供飛彈，以誌民主之誼。這些強詞奪理的批評，用意很明
顯，其實說來說去都只反應了對陳水扁總統及民進黨的政治敵意。當年國民黨掌政
時，向美國要求採購的也是同樣的武器系統清單，何以昨是而今非？
國民黨在冷戰時期一黨專政、長期統治，到一九九○年代才慢慢民主化。國民黨要
員一直都不願真正接受台灣人民選出陳水扁總統的政治抉擇：二○○○年的第一次
大選，他的得票沒過半；二○○四年的第二次，則是僅以二萬九千票險勝，過程還
爭議不斷。再加上民進黨預期過高，未能在去年十一月的立院選舉泛綠過半，這樣
的結果當然讓國民黨覺得，他們才是發號施令的老大，陳水扁政府可以靠邊閃。
華府應該要看清楚其中牽涉到的利益和原則，而這並非干涉台灣的內政。若像某美
方要員說的：「有談判總比沒談判好」，從而去肯定國民黨的中國行，根本就是送
出錯誤的訊息。談判的形式仍然至關重要，台海兩岸沒有實質的對話，乃是因為北
京拒絕和台灣民主選出的領導人打交道所致。
華府真的要讓北京可以對台予取予求，隨便它高興和誰打交道都可以？連戰一面讓
台灣內部弱化，一面又和中國合作來打擊陳總統，這只會遂了北京的狼子野心。這
種情況完全不符合美國的最佳利益。
政黨政治不必兩極對立 (註)
台灣現在面對的問題，並不算少見。新當選的民主派人士，施政常是新手上路、請
多包涵，而在野黨也一樣，常要學著如何提建言而非扯後腿。朝野雙方的目標應是
進退有據的政黨政治，而不是兩極對立。台灣現所面臨的危險是，連戰領導的國民
黨，正走向對立之路。
新一代國民黨領導人，如台北市長馬英九和立法院長王金平，不必走上同樣的道路
。他們有機會展現領導力，帶領國民黨在國防及國家安全問題上勇於負責，扮演忠
貞反對黨。他們不應坐視連戰帶領國民黨走向一條不歸路。同樣重要的是，華府應
學聰明點，知道如何鼓勵新興民主國家走向正確的政黨政治。
(註) 中文編譯另外加的標題。
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