Asia Times
Date: February26, 2018
By: Stephen Bryen
The time has come for the United States to rebuild and rethink its approach to Taiwan’s defense and security. China is becoming too provocative and aggressive, not only in the South China Sea, but also in the Taiwan straits, where it is starting to encroach on well-established red lines. It has also been carrying out military flights around the Taiwanese periphery, then heading as far as Japan, sending a message to both countries. It is not a message of peace and cooperation.
Over the years – and no matter under what administration – support for Taiwan in the United States has been, at best, mediocre. The supply of mostly obsolete defense hardware, the long delays in providing equipment, the stilted and mostly non-functional military-to-military relationship and America’s reluctance to respond to Chinese provocations: these factors have left Taiwan largely on its own.
I was in Taiwan during the 1996 Taiwan Straits Crisis, when Chinese missiles and landing ships were conducting an exercise that directly threatened Taiwan. I remember just how long it took before Bill Clinton finally sent US aircraft carriers to the area, forcing China to stand down. It was frightening, and a very close call. Taiwan had very little chance without US support – even then, when its air force and navy were stronger than now. (I was part of a three-man unofficial delegation that included former CIA head James Woolsey and Admiral Bud Edney. Later I would serve for five years as a Commissioner on the US-China Economic and Security Review Commission.) [FULL STORY]