THINK TANK SEMINAR: Former National Security Bureau director-general Tsai Der-sheng said that Taiwan should not bet on either side to win in Sino-US conflicts

Taipei Times
Date: Oct 17, 2018
By: Shelley Shan  /  Staff reporter

Taiwan would always be used as a pawn in confrontations between the US and China, and the conflicts are likely to escalate from a trade war to military confrontations, foreign affairs experts said yesterday at a National Policy Foundation seminar in Taipei.

The seminar at the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) think tank, which also examined President Tsai Ing-wen’s (蔡英文) foreign policy, drew several officials from the former KMT administration, including National Security Bureau director-general Tsai Der-sheng (蔡得勝), minister of foreign affairs Francisco Ou (歐鴻鍊), deputy minister of foreign affairs Bruce Linghu (令狐榮達) and National Security Council adviser Chiu Kun-shuan (邱坤玄), as well as former KMT legislator Lin Yu-fang (林郁方).

Taiwan should not bet on any side to win in Sino-US conflicts, Tsai Der-sheng said, adding that it should seek to strengthen its economic power amid the trade disputes between the two nations.

Commenting on a Sept. 25 article in Foreign Policy by Tanner Greer, which argued that Taiwan could win a war with China even without US assistance, Tsai Der-sheng said that in a conflict involving China’s southeastern provinces, the rest of China would continue to operate normally and offer logistic support, but Taiwan would not have the same option given its small size.    [FULL  STORY]