Taiwan and the USA on Arms Sales with No One to Blame

Friday July 04, by Jerome F. Keating Ph.D.

The charade of the blame game goes on. Now that the United States State Department and the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) cannot use Chen Shui-bian as a scapegoat for their problems and inadequacies; they don't know how to talk to each other. Case in point, Jason Yuan who is soon to be Taiwan's representative in Washington DC says his top priority will be to mend fences and rebuild trust; he followed this up by quoting President Ma Ying-jeou as saying countries should not "play games" with each other. Noble thoughts, so how are things working out between these two countries now that the KMT has absolute control of Taiwan's politics. Ironically, not so well, they have already fallen into playing "the game of not me."

Examine the case of arms sales from the USA to Taiwan. We recently had seen that the USA said that the KMT and Ma were the culprits in any lack of progress; Ma and the KMT had told the USA back in December 2007 to hold off on arms sales. But wait, now the KMT and Jason Yuan are claiming the opposite. It's not their fault, Yuan states. President Ma "absolutely" never said such a thing. What's this? The USA says the KMT is responsible for nothing going on and the KMT says it's the USA. So who is responsible? It seems no one wants to step up to the plate and take responsibility. Instead of mending fences, Yuan seems to be tearing them apart. Life was so much easier when the continued lack of progress between Taiwan's KMT dominated Legislative Yuan and the USA could be blamed on Chen Shui-bian.