US Protection of Taiwan

Originally posted by FMF
re: the rationale: Ditto, allowing for different proper nouns, longitude and latitude, and whatnot, for why the U.S. 'protected' murdering dictatorships and helped them to repress millions of people all around the world for most of the 20thC.

Er... no. Wait a sec..

This thread is about the US and Taiwan which is not, never has been, nor is ever likely to be a 'murderous dictatorship', so once again you are attempting to turn the subject under discussion so to give wing to one of the bees in your bonnet.

Originally posted by Sartor Resartus
This thread is about the US and Taiwan which is not, never has been, nor is ever likely to be a 'murderous dictatorship', so once again you are attempting to turn the subject under discussion so to give wing to one of the bees in your bonnet.

Not at all. sh76 answered the OP by claiming policy towards Taiwan was something akin to a 'principle' on the part of the U.S. My aside was pertinent because clearly this 'principle' has been inconsistently applied and totally betrayed numerous times down through history, depite the theory/myths. The meaning of this in terms of hypocrisy aside, in the case of Taiwan, the U.S. appears to be applying 'principle'. I wasn't "attempting to [change] the subject under discussion". My point is, the U.S. could - based on its record and irrepressible whim - just as easily take an 'unprincipled' stand on the Taiwan issue. As for bees in bonnets, I happily have many, many of them - being a student of the human condition and intellectually curious. Meanwhile you seem to have just the ONE bee in your bonnet. Me/my posts. And it makes you rather funny.

Originally posted by FMF
Not at all. sh76 answered the OP by claiming policy towards Taiwan was something akin to a 'principle' on the part of the U.S. My aside was pertinent because clearly this 'principle' has been inconsistently applied and totally betrayed numerous times down through history, depite the theory/myths. The meaning of this in terms of hypocrisy aside, in the case of Ta ...[text shortened]... to have just the ONE bee in your bonnet. Me/my posts. And it makes you rather funny.

Once again you demonstrate your talent for posting gobbledegook in an attempt to justify your inability to stick to the point at issue. The OP asked 'Why does the US protect Taiwan', but instead of answering the question you rave on about 'murderous dictatorships' with which Taiwan has nothing to do.

Originally posted by Sartor Resartus
Once again you demonstrate your talent for posting gobbledegook in an attempt to justify your inability to stick to the point at issue. The OP asked 'Why does the US protect Taiwan', but instead of answering the question you rave on about 'murderous dictatorships' with which Taiwan has nothing to do.

Taiwan WAS a military dictatorship, and not a democracy, up until the late 1980s.

'Why does the US protect Taiwan?' Well, nowadays, perhaps because of democratic affinity - or perhaps more cynical geopolitical reasons. This thread may well delve into it.

If it is because of shared democratic values, all well and good. The 'principle' involved however has been applied by the U.S. and pointedly betrayed by the U.S. over the years.

The 'principle' was decidedly absent, however, when the U.S. lent varying degrees of rhetorical and material support to Chiang Kai-shek's martial law and effective one party state for almost 4 decades, it's 'recognition of one China' notwithstanding.

Taiwan [...] never has been, nor is ever likely to be a 'murderous dictatorship'...

It would have served you well to look into this topic a bit before making the baseless assertions that you have.

Originally posted by sh76
Because it's a democracy that has been threatened with extinction at every moment since its inception by its sometimes brutal neighbor.

Because the people of Taiwan don't want to live under Chinese sovereignty and shouldn't be forced to do so against their will.

Why not?

Why doesn't USA support Tibet? Why does USA accept the Chinese occupation of their country?

May I use your own words why USA should defend Tibet:
"Because it's a democracy that has been threatened with extinction at every moment since its inception by its sometimes brutal neighbor.
Because the people of Tibet don't want to live under Chinese sovereignty and shouldn't be forced to do so against their will."

Originally posted by AThousandYoung
The Cold War is over.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hainan_Island_incident

Hainan Island incident

On April 1, 2001, a mid-air collision between a United States Navy EP-3E ARIES II signals surveillance aircraft and a People's Liberation Army Navy (PLAN) J-8II interceptor fighter jet resulted in an international dispute between the United States and the People's Republic of China (PRC) called the Hainan Island incident.

The EP-3 was operating about 70 miles (110 km) away from the PRC-controlled island of Hainan when it was intercepted by two J-8 fighters. A collision between the EP-3 and one of the J-8s caused the death of a PRC pilot, while the EP-3 was forced to make an emergency landing on Hainan. The 24 crewmembers were detained and interrogated by the Chinese authorities until a letter of apology was issued by the United States Government. It was the first foreign policy crisis in the presidency of George W. Bush.

Originally posted by AThousandYoung
There's only one China. That's the US official position.

there's probably lots of US policies that are different in their official and unofficial versions.

Originally posted by AThousandYoung
There's only one China. That's the US official position.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foreign_policy_of_the_United_States

Taiwan (Republic of China), does not have official diplomatic relations recognized and is no longer officially recognized by the State Department of the United States, but it conducts unofficial diplomatic relations through their de facto embassy, commonly known as the "Taipei Economic and Cultural Representative Office (TECRO)", and is considered to be a strong Asian ally of the United States.[11]


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/One-China_policy#One-China_policy_and_diplomatic_relations

In the case of the United States, the One-China Policy was first stated in the Shanghai Communiqué of 1972: "the United States acknowledges that Chinese on either side of the Taiwan Strait maintain there is but one China and that Taiwan is a part of China. The United States does not challenge that position." The United States has not expressed an explicitly immutable statement regarding whether it believes Taiwan is independent or not. Instead, Washington simply states that they understand the PRC's claims that the country claims Taiwan as its own. In fact, many scholars agree that US One-China Policy was not intended to please the PRC government, but as a way for Washington to conduct international relations in the region, which Beijing fails to state.

When President Jimmy Carter in 1979 broke off relations with the ROC in order to establish relations with the PRC, Congress responded by passing the Taiwan Relations Act that maintained relations, but stopped short of full recognition of the ROC. In 1982 President Ronald Reagan also saw that the Six Assurances were adopted, the fifth being that the United States would not formally recognize Chinese sovereignty over Taiwan. Still, United States policy has remained ambiguous. During the House International Relations Committee on April 21 of 2004, the Assistant Secretary of State for East Asian and Pacific Affairs, James A. Kelly, was asked by Rep. Grace Napolitano (D-CA) whether America’s commitment to Taiwan’s democracy conflicted with the so-called One-China Policy. He admitted the difficulty of defining the U.S.'s position: "I didn’t really define it, and I’m not sure I very easily could define it." He added, "I can tell you what it is not. It is not the One-China principle that Beijing suggests." [1]

The position of the United States, as clarified in the China/Taiwan: Evolution of the "One China" Policy report of the Congressional Research Service (date: July 9, 2007) is summed up in five points:

1. The United States did not explicitly state the sovereign status of Taiwan in the three US-PRC Joint Communiques of 1972, 1979, and 1982.
2. The United States "acknowledged" the "One China" position of both sides of the Taiwan Strait.
3. US policy has not recognized the PRC's sovereignty over Taiwan;
4. US policy has not recognized Taiwan as a sovereign country; and
5. US policy has considered Taiwan's status as undetermined. In an interview with Chinese students on November 16, 2009 President Barack Obama reconfirmed that the United States supports the One China Policy[7].

For any country that wants to establish diplomatic relationship with the PRC, it must first discontinue any formal relationship with the ROC by the request of the PRC government. In order to compete for other countries' recognition, each government gives money to those remaining few small countries. Both the PRC and ROC governments have accused each other of monetary diplomacy. Several small African and Caribbean countries have established and discontinued diplomatic relationships with both sides several times in exchange for huge financial support from each side.

Of the 192 members of the United Nations, only Bhutan has chosen to recognize neither the People's Republic of China nor the Republic of China. All remaining governments have recognized one or the other, recognizing that government as the sole legitimate government of all China.

Of course the real answer is realpolitik and Cold War logic.