Tuesday, May 01, 2007

EU Parliamentarian Says Taiwan should beef up its defense

Taiwan's parliament was informed again that it should purchase weapons.....

A European parliamentarian urged Taiwan yesterday to bolster its defense capabilities while acknowledging that the EU would not intervene militarily should China attempt to take Taiwan by force because it would be outside Europe's regional security responsibility.

Dr. Georg Jarzembowski, the head of the Taiwan Friendship Group of the European Parliament, said Taiwan needed to act in procuring weapons to defend itself to be taken seriously on security issues in the rest of the world.

"If the people of Taiwan feel threatened by 900 missiles across the Straits, people from the outside would say what are the Taiwanese doing to defend themselves," Jarzembowski said. "Then you would wonder how long it takes until the (Taiwan's) parliament takes a decision on these questions."

Jarzembowski has long been a Taiwan advocate and more power to him. We need people to advocate for Taiwan in Europe. But it would behoove the good Dr. Jarzembowski to put some study into the issues. Taiwan is quite serious about procuring arms from abroad, being generally among the top five arms importers among the world's developed nations. I wish Taiwan's friends would instead focus on the real issue: the perfidious behavior of the pro-China side, with perhaps a nod to the problems the US has created as well. If you're going to hack on Taiwan, at least direct your hacks at something useful.

One long-term goal of the pro-China side is to drive a wedge between the West and Taiwan, and especially, between the West and the pro-Taiwan parties. Each time someone outside of Taiwan blames "Taiwan" for the arms purchase impasse, this strategy is rewarded. Time to pinpoint our attacks on the source of the problem, instead of on some abstraction called "Taiwan."


channing said...

Interesting how the KMT-ruled ROC had been supported by and supportive of the US for so long, but now the pan-blue side has its eyes set on befriending China, despite losing the presidency. Too busy trying to save itself, I suppose, and in that process it feels that it has to boycott budgets in the legislature to get some leverage.

Anonymous said...

i think it's ironic the europeans are telling taiwan to buy more military arms to defend herself when no european country wants to sell weapons to taiwan for fear of angering china. and instead, europe wants to renew the sale of arms to china. isnt that just funny? that's so like europe.