Straight News: What do you think of the movement when the island authorities launched a defense budget that was nearly 15 percent higher than last year?
Special Commentator Zhang Sinan: The DPP authorities are naturally trying to buy more weapons from the United States when they expand their defense budget. However, this issue is not something that Taiwan can decide, and the key lies in whether the United States is willing to sell more weapons.
Some people say that the US government is calculating the economic account in this matter, and the greedy military-industrial complex behind it is certainly willing. But I have previously counted that since the "Severance of Diplomatic Relations between the United States and Taiwan" in 1979, the United States has sold more than a hundred arms to Taiwan, with a paper amount of more than $70 billion, which is converted into $100 billion according to today's purchasing power.
What is the concept of $100 billion for the United States, the world's largest arms dealer? According to a December report by the U.S. State Department, U.S. global arms sales in fiscal 2021 were $161.1 billion. 43 years of arms sales to Taiwan add up, but 62% of the total annual arms sales of the United States, this number is not large to be honest, and we can read two points from it.
First, don't think that diplomatic rhetorical warnings and condemnations are useless, because as part of China's deterrent power against the United States, they show our attitude and make the United States hesitate to sell arms to Taiwan. In the four years of Trump's administration from 2016 to 2020, arms sales to Taiwan accounted for only 1.6% of U.S. foreign arms supplies.
So what would the United States do without scruples? Taking Saudi Arabia, whose economy and population are similar to those of Taiwan, for example, it has eaten 24% of the total arms sales of the United States in the same four years. The United States continues to provoke incidents in the Middle East and refuses to promote a peaceful settlement of the situation in Yemen for a long time, in order to maintain Saudi Arabia's huge demand for US weapons, which is why the military-industrial complex calculates the economic account.
Second, apart from not daring, the United States is unwilling to be the most important consideration; in other words, the United States is actually calculating a political account on the issue of arms sales to Taiwan.
On the surface, the United States has adopted a so-called "fuzzy strategy" in the Taiwan Strait, but this vague strategy I think has been completely destroyed in the past less than a month. After Pelosi's visit to Taiwan, the United States took an extremely conservative response to the PLA's high-intensity and sustained rim of Taiwan military exercises, that is, there was no substantive response, and the nearest aircraft carrier strike group from Taiwan, the "Reagan", maintained a distance of more than 1,000 kilometers from Taiwan. This has led the outside world to believe that whether out of a lack of determination or a lack of ability, the United States will most likely not intervene in the final moments of the Taiwan issue by force. Just like I saw the feelings of some Taiwan netizens on the Internet: The People's Liberation Army really dares to fight, and the Yankees really dare to run.
We can judge that the first strategic goal of the United States in the Taiwan Strait is to raise the cost of armed reunification of Taiwan as much as possible without direct conflict, so as to create the necessary mediation space for low-cost, low-threshold, but more cost-effective political intervention by the United States.
If we understand this strategic goal, it is not difficult for us to find that continuing to increase arms sales to Taiwan is actually not in line with the strategic interests of the United States. Especially in the current tense situation in the Taiwan Strait, continuing to stimulate the Chinese mainland with a highly sensitive issue of arms sales is undoubtedly stupid for his mother to open the door for stupidity, and stupidity has arrived home. The United States wants to test the bottom line of Chinese mainland through Pelosi's ascension to the stage, and the United States has done so, and it has also seen the bottom line of the Chinese mainland, that is, the inevitable strength and determination of the People's Liberation Army to reunify Taiwan. Unless the United States wants to make some "significant contribution" to China's eventual reunification, it is likely to be more cautious. This is why we have seen that in the face of China's "three cancellations and five suspensions," the United States has not been tough on the Taiwan issue, but has acted as a "resentful woman" in the posture of a victim.
Interestingly, on August 25, the island authorities introduced a sharply increased defense budget, and on the same day, Reuters got information from within the US government that the United States would not increase arms sales to Taiwan, and the reason could not be clearer - to avoid the already tense relationship between China and the United States from further deteriorating due to arms sales to Taiwan.
Direct News: Some people also say that the United States has taken the initiative to exercise restraint in arms sales to Taiwan, and it is the military-industrial complex that is engaged in "starvation sales." What do you think of this?
Special Commentator Sinan Zhang: This is an interesting question, but the essence of this question is to understand the strategic thinking of the United States in terms of what I just called the "economic account", that the US military-industrial complex has kidnapped the US foreign policy.
In 1961, U.S. President Eisenhower, a military veteran, first proposed the concept of a "military-industrial complex" in his farewell speech. The concept is so intuitive and intuitive that it can be summed up in only three sentences: conflict brings profit, and in the pursuit of new profits, new conflicts are therefore pursued.
This is indeed a way of understanding U.S. foreign policy, but the problem is that the strategic interests of the United States as a nation, even if they can be measured in money, do not mean that money itself is the sole goal of U.S. foreign policy.
As I said just now, the United States calculates the political rather than economic accounts in arms sales to Taiwan, with the aim of raising the cost of Chinese mainland armed reunification as much as possible and making the Taiwan issue exist for a long time as a grasp of offshore balance, rather than maximizing the cargo. The so-called "starvation sales" are not so much to induce the authorities on the island to buy more, but rather to avoid overstimulating the mainland and preventing the arrival of the final moment from being triggered prematurely, and this is also the fundamental significance of the so-called "maintaining the status quo in the Taiwan Strait" for the United States. The United States is by no means creating conflicts in the Taiwan Strait for the sake of arms sales profits, but rather to raise tensions in the Taiwan Strait and even the tension in the entire Asia-Pacific region, and to create necessity and rationality for the United States to maintain a strong military and political presence in the Asia-Pacific region.
Inappropriately speaking, who in the world most wants to Chinese mainland insist on not giving up the bottom line of reunifying Taiwan by force, in addition to the descendants of Yan Huang who are eager for the reunification of the motherland no matter what, perhaps also some Americans, if their game theory level and vision are high enough.
Ironically, this is also doomed that from the very beginning the weapons sold by the United States will not change the overall situation of the situation in the Taiwan Strait at the level of war, both quantitatively and qualitatively, because these weapons are not aimed at changing the overall situation, but constantly inject unrealistic illusions into the island authorities' "resistance to reunification by force," constantly add fuel to the island's "fear of reunification" ideology, and create difficulties for the mainland on the final reunification issue, because the Chinese mainland is not aimed at the reunification of purely political and geographical territories, but is pursuing the unity of the people. What the mainland wants to safeguard is the common interests of the two sides of the strait.
As I said in my previous comments, for Chinese mainland, Taiwan is a flesh and blood compatriot, as long as there is still hope, it is not willing to resort to the option of relatives and enemies, and the United States is also cruelly using this cross-strait affection to blackmail Chinese mainland, expecting Chinese mainland to continue to make concessions because they cannot bear it, so as to meet the national interests of the United States.
The author 丨 Zhang Sinan, the main writer of straight news, is a special commentator of Shenzhen Satellite TV's "Live Broadcasting, Hong Kong, Macao and Taiwan"
Editor 丨Liu Ying, editor-in-chief of Shenzhen Satellite TV Direct News