COUNTERING WITH COOPERATION: The Hoover Institution fellow said Taiwan should not join any ‘anti-China alliance,’ but instead invest in its own strength and seek partnerships

Taipei Times
Date: Aug 18, 2018
By: Sean Lin  /  Staff reporter

Taiwan should spend its military budget wisely, engage in cooperative partnerships with key players in the Indo-Pacific region and prevent China from penetrating its society, Hoover Institution senior fellow Larry Diamond told a forum in Taipei yesterday.

With a trade war brewing between Washington and Beijing, and China on its way to becoming the largest economy in the world, US policy on Taiwan and China is at a watershed as the US faces an intensified and “ominous” challenge from China — its growing military presence in the South China Sea, Diamond said at a forum held by Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Legislator Jason Hsu (許毓仁) on Taiwan-US-China relations.

Behind China’s claim over islands in the South China Sea and its defiance of a 2016 ruling by a tribunal under the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea in The Hague is a desire to obtain freedom of navigation and geopolitical hegemony over countries such as Indonesia and the Philippines, and a mentality that China is the “boss” of the region and can tell other nations to “move out of its way,” which worries US academics and officials, he said.

Another challenge is China’s theft of US technologies and intellectual property through dual-use telecommunications equipment, which has continued for at least two decades, he said.    [FULL  STORY]