US must stay out of Beijing-Taipei spat
(chinadaily.com.cn/Reuters)
Updated: 2006-04-14 08:36
The United States should renounce military commitments to Taipei to avoid a
potentially costly conflict if the island declares independence from China, said
the author of book which warns of a possible US-China war within the next
decade.
Ted Galen Carpenter,
vice-president for defense and foreign policy studies at the Cato
Institute. [cato.org] | Defending Taiwan from the
assault, that Beijing threatens to unleash in the event of an independence
declaration, is "a bridge too far" for the United States, said Ted Galen
Carpenter, vice-president for defense and foreign policy studies at the Cato
Institute, a libertarian Washington think tank.
His book, "America's Coming War with China: A Collision Course over Taiwan,"
says the United States stands between two inexorably opposed forces and
unfinished Chinese civil war.
"There may not be a way to avoid a collision between the two, unless one side
or another blinks," Carpenter told Reuters in an interview. "What the United
States needs to do is to get out of the middle of that quarrel."
A war between the United States and China could erupt by about 2013, the
estimated date Beijing would be militarily capable of taking back Taiwan,
Carpenter says in the book. An attack on Taiwan could draw in the United States
because it has given defense assurances to the island.
"At some point either Taiwan provokes Beijing beyond endurance or Beijing
decides the time is right to settle this issue on Chinese terms," Carpenter, a
frequent author on military issues, said in the interview with Reuters.
"Given the trends on Taiwan and the mainland, I think a collision is very
likely at some point within the next decade," he said.
Chinese President Hu Jintao will visit the United States next week and is
expected to press President George W. Bush to do more to rein in Taiwan, which
has angered Beijing by taking steps to loosen the island's ties to the mainland.
China says it will use military force if Taiwan declares independence. The
United States admits Beijing's "one China" policy -- that Beijing is the sole
legitimate government of China, and Taiwan is an integral territorial part of
China, but the Taiwan Relations Act approved by the Congress says Washington
would provide arms to help defend Taiwan.
Withdrawing the U.S. defense commitment "will be a very hard sell
politically," Carpenter acknowledges. But he argues that more arms sales to
Taiwan might provide cover for Washington to back away from a pledge of direct
involvement.
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