論台、美關係的未來

「展望美、台關係」-

“The Future of US -Taiwan  Relations “-

請觀賞影片：https://youtu.be/iDcIYOIKTgQ

  

看完短片後，下列是我們對證詞的看法-

Testimony of Deputy Assistant Secretary

美國副助理副國務卿的作證

- the testimony was made by  Susan Thornton, Deputy Assistant Secretary in the Bureau of East Asian Affairs at the U.S. Department of State. She testifies before the House Foreign Affairs Committee in Washington, D.C. in February…

美國國務院助理副國務卿- Ms Thornon在眾議院外交委員會作證說明台美關係

 (2/11/2016)  

In the testimony by Ms. Thornton, we found following unusual points she keeps emphasizing about the relations between USA and Taiwan:

在證詞中我們發現下列不尋常的特點：

A.    Facts:

1)      The distinguished achievement TWN made in economic during the recent years, starting from 2012

提及2012年以來台灣傑出的經貿發展。

2)      The unusual progress made in democracy, especially Ms. Tsai Eng-wen won overwhelmingly victory in a recent presidential election.  She stresses, that Taiwanese people enjoy much more political freedom than most of Asian countries.

台灣特殊的民主政治成就，尤其蔡英文以壓倒性勝利取得總統寶座。她強調台灣享有大多數亞洲人所沒有的政治選擇自由。

3)      The stability of Taiwan, signifying there is not any perceivable conflict, politically or militarily between the Taiwan Strait. She admires the political wisdom of leaders on both side of the Strait.

台灣內部的安定意謂台海政治與軍事的穩定；她讚美兩岸政治領導人之政治智慧。

4)      Taiwan ranks one of the leading trading partners of China in recent years, benefiting both sides.

台灣在大陸貿易伙伴中名列前茅，雙方互利。

5)      The successful and peaceful dialogue between both sides bring about peace for both.

海峽兩岸和平對話，導致和平。

B.     Significance of the Testimony and our Comments:

(作證之意義及我們的看法)

1)      Ms. Thornton mentions the name of Taiwan for several times in her testimony, though in Shanghai Communique, China insisted in 1970s that there should be only one China, not one China, one Taiwan.

Thornton小姐數次提到台灣兩字，雖然在1970年代中、美的上海公報中，中國堅持一中，不可有一中、一台。

2)      In general, Ms. Thornton’s prepared statement and testimony is fair, reasonable.  It is far from being provocative to China; in fact, US cannot afford to provoke China in any way.

她的事先準備的講稿陳述，大體上是公正與合理的；毫無對中國有挑釁之意，事實上也挑釁不起。

3)      The testimony was made by a government official though her rank is as low (to China) as deputy assistant secretary.  However, it is high enough for Taiwan government. Anyway, it’s an government official statement.

對中國言，作證者的身分雖低至東亞事務局之副助理國務卿，但對台灣政府而言卻已夠高了。反正是官方陳述。

4)      Is the timing of the testimony good enough? Or are there any alternative better choices? 作證時機點適當? 或另有更隹選擇?

China has been trying very hard to bring to justice her many corrupted officials, currently escaped and taking shelter in the U.S.  China is seeking all possible means from US government for help to take them back to China. Besides, some booksellers in Hong Kong were arrested by the Chinese judicial officials in Hong Kong. The booksellers were arrested because they were publishing some books in relation with defamation of top Communists’ officials, even Si, jin-ping himself included. The recent riots breaking out in 旺角, 香港。Presidential campaigns are fervently going on in the US.  China may try not to instigate or excite emotional feelings of American electorate against China.

中國擬追捕藏匿美國的貪污要犯，並引渡回國，出版禁書的書商在香港捕(英、美同表關切)，禁書中含習近平的私生活。香港旺角的民主暴動，美國總統大選如火如荼進行中，避免受人以口實，給予候選人機會煽動美國選民反中國。以上這些客觀事實，也許是美國政府認為適當的時機。

5)      Why did China not strongly react or even protest? Causes might be related with the above.

   為何中國沒有強烈反應，甚至抗議? (或與上列因素有關)

6)      What did the US government profit from this testimony?

在此次作證事件中，台灣、美國獲得什麼好處?

The status quo of Taiwan & USA, China & USA is getting more transparent than ever before.  It’s hard to say how long China will endure current situation – one China, one Taiwan.  But, it is to the best interest of the three parties involved. Any party will be so stupid as to attempt to break the existing balance. Besides, Taiwan gains some ground with U.S. government officials saying something in its favor.

台美、中美的現狀比以前更透明化。中國能忍耐一中一台的情勢到多久，不易明白，但它卻是最符合三方面的利益。任何一方試圖破壞現有的平衡，是不智之舉。美國政府發表對台灣有利談話-希望現狀的維持，台灣當局當然求之不得。當然美國希望繼續維持在東南亞，尤其是南海的既得利益。

Justin Lai (賴正雄) 編

02/17/2016

       

China has taken up Russia's greatest fear:

China has taken up Russia's greatest fear:



(Reuters) A poster depicting Russian President Vladimir Putin and his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping pasted on the Brancusi Atelier by activists from Reporters Without Borders to mark the 20th annual World Press Freedom day in Paris in 2013.President Xi Jinping wants his people to know that the greatest threat to China is an insidious export from the West — ideas that could lead to a color revolution.

"The one non-neglectable factor [in the development of] color revolutions in these countries is the spreading of Western ideology, especially from the US," Xu Songwen of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences wrote Sunday in The People's Daily (via the South China Morning Post).

The People's Daily is a Chinese Communist Party paper known to reflect the sentiments of Xi's regime.

Xu wasn't alone either. In the same issue, four other academics also shared their thoughts on the dangers of color revolutions. The message was clear. There will be no nonviolent political movements in China. There will be no regime change. This will not be Lebanon or Ukraine in 2005. This will not be the Middle East in 2011.

Don't even think about it.

That's where the danger is, after all — in the thinking.

China has been systematically shutting out Western ideals from research centers, school curriculums, and higher learning for some time now, but it is rare to see these thoughts broadcast by a government mouthpiece.

The basic gist of all of the papers in Sunday's People's Daily is fairly simple. It's like this: The proliferation of Western democratic ideals are a Cold War tactic that helped bring about the end of the Soviet Union.

The ideas bring unrest and discontent to populations and ultimately lead to bloodshed. They also tend to end in failure (see: Arab Spring). Those who foment this kind of unrest are enemies of the state.

There is "a high price to pay for nations that fall into the trap of color revolutions," one article said, according to the South China Morning Post.

Besides, a People's Daily commentary that ran Friday said, the Chinese Communist Party is "rigid enough to protect against threats, and resilient against internal problems and external shocks."

So don't even try it.

(Reuters) Putin and Xi arriving for a festive concert marking the 70th anniversary of the end of World War II in Europe, at Red Square in Moscow on May 9.China is taking a play right out of Russia's book with this one. In March, The Security Council of Russia railed against the US security strategy, writing: "In relation to Russia, there is a high probability of the US using extensively advanced means for 'color revolutions' to eliminate unwanted political regimes."

So where do color revolutions start?

Aside from schools and research centers, they start on the internet. The People's Liberation Army knows that all too well, having released a chilling memo last month that said "the internet has become the main battlefront for struggle in the ideological area."

Western hostile forces and a small number of "ideological traitors" in our country use the network, and relying on computers, mobile phones and other such information terminals, maliciously attack our Party, blacken the leaders who founded the New China, vilify our heroes, and arouse mistaken thinking trends of historical nihilism, with the ultimate goal of using "universal values" to mislead us, using "constitutional democracy" to throw us into turmoil, use "color revolutions" to overthrow us, use negative public opinion and rumours to oppose us, and use "de-partification and depoliticization of the military" to upset us.

Hours after these papers appeared in The People's Daily, Hong Kong authorities said they had taken nine people into custody for potentially attempting to plan an attack on a legislative building on the island. Officials think they may advocate "localism," or the belief that the mainland should stay out of Hong Kong affairs,according to The New York Times.

06/15/15

發動伊拉克戰爭是錯誤-

發動伊拉克戰爭是錯誤-

有希望入主白宮者同意：White House Hopefuls agree: Iraq war a mistake.

  

A dozen years later, American politics has reached a rough consensus about the Iraq War: It was a mistake.

Politicians hoping to be president rarely run ahead of public opinion. So it’s a revealing moment when the major contenders for president in both parties find it best to say that 4,491 Americans and countless Iraqis lost their lives in a war that shouldn’t have been waged.

Many people have been saying that for years, of course. Polls show most of the public have judged the war a failure by now. Over time, more and more GOP politicians have allowed that the absence of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq undermined Republican President George W. Bush’s rationale for the 2003 invasion.

It hasn’t been an easy evolution for those such as Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Rodham Clinton, who voted for the war in 2002 while serving in Congress. That vote, and her refusal to fully disavow it, cost her during her 2008 primary loss to Barack Obama, who wasn’t in the Senate in 2002 but had opposed the war.

In her memoir last year, Clinton wrote that she had voted based on the information available at the time, but “I got it wrong.(終於認錯?) Plain and simple.”

What might seem a hard truth for a nation to acknowledge has become the safest thing for an American politician to say — even Bush’s brother.

The fact that Jeb Bush, a likely candidate for the Republican nomination in 2016, was pressured this past week into rejecting, in hindsight, his brother’s war “is an indication that the received wisdom, that which we work from right now, is that this was a mistake,” said Evan Cornog, a historian and dean of the Hofstra University school of communication.

Or, as Rick Santorum, another potential Republican candidate, put it: “Everybody accepts that now.”

Santorum didn’t always see the war that way. He voted for the invasion as a senator and continued to support if for years. Last week, he mocked Jeb Bush’s reluctance to give what now seems the obvious answer when he was initially asked to reconsider the war in light of what’s known today. “I don’t know how that was a hard question,” Santorum said.

It’s an easier question for presidential hopefuls who aren’t bound by family ties or their own congressional vote for the war, who have the luxury of judging it in hindsight, knowing full well the terrible price Americans paid and the continuing bloodshed in Iraq today.

Florida Sen. Marco Rubio and Texas Sen. Ted Cruz weren’t in Congress in 2002 and so didn’t have to make a real-time decision with imperfect knowledge. Neither was New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie or Ohio Gov. John Kasich, who served an earlier stint in Congress.

All these Republicans said last week that, in hindsight, they would not have invaded Iraq with what’s now known about the faulty intelligence that wrongly indicated Saddam Hussein had stockpiled weapons of mass destruction.

Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker, in an interview Sunday on CBS’ “Face the Nation,” summed up that sentiment: “Knowing what we know now, I think it’s safe for many of us, myself included, to say, we probably wouldn’t have taken” that approach.

(Rubio, in a long exchange on “Fox News Sunday,” tried to navigate the Iraq shoals once again, making a glass-half-full case that while the war was based on mistaken intelligence, the world still is better off with Saddam gone.)

Those politicians didn’t go as far, however, as war critics such as Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul, a declared Republican candidate who says it would have been a mistake even if Saddam were hiding such weapons. Paul says Saddam was serving as a counterbalance to Iran and removing him from power led to much of the turmoil now rocking the Middle East.

Former President George W. Bush and his vice president, Dick Cheney, still maintain that ousting a brutal and unpredictable dictator made the world safer.

In his 2010 memoir, “Decision Points,” Bush said he got a “sickening feeling” every time he thought about the failure to find weapons of mass destruction and he knew that would “transform public perception of the war.”

But he stands by his decision.

The war remains a painful topic that politicians must approach with some care.

Jeb Bush, explaining his reluctance to clarify his position on the war’s start, said “going back in time and talking about hypotheticals,” the would-haves and the should-haves, does a disservice to the families of soldiers who gave their lives.

Cornog, the historian, said even if a majority of Americans have turned their backs on the war, many never will.

“I think if I had lost a loved one in that war I would be unwilling to say it was a futile effort or destructive of America’s security,” he said. “How we interpret it depends on how we are invested in the question at hand.”

When he finished withdrawing U.S. troops in December 2011, Obama predicted a stable, self-reliant Iraqi government would take hold. Instead, turmoil and terrorism overtook Iraq and American leaders and would-be presidents are struggling with what to do next. The U.S. now has 3,040 troops in Iraq as trainers and advisers and to provide security for American personnel and equipment.

For the most part, the public and the military — like the politicians — are focused less on decisions of the past than on the events of today and how to stop the Islamic State militants who have overrun a swath of Iraq and inspired terrorist attacks in the West.

“The greater amount of angst in the military is from seeing the manifest positive results of the surge in 2007 and 2008 go to waste by misguided policies in the aftermath,” said retired U.S. Army Col. Peter Monsoor, a top assistant to Gen. David Petraeus in Baghdad during that increase of U.S. troops in Iraq.

“Those mistakes were huge and compounded the original error of going into Iraq in the first place,” said Monsoor, now a professor of military history at Ohio State University. “There’s plenty of blame to go around. What we need is not so much blame as to figure out what happened and use that knowledge to make better decisions going forward.”

Associated Press writers Jim Kuhnhenn and Robert Burns contributed to this report.

WASHINGTON (AP) —05/18/2015

O6/09/2015

中國要買下巴基斯坦?

中國要買下巴基斯坦?

習近平訪問巴基斯坦時，宣佈中國將投資460億美元用於中巴經濟走廊的基礎建設。美國總統沒有這樣的豪氣干雲、慷慨大方，即使有，這樣風險太大的投資計劃也不可能在美國國會獲得通過。而習近平在中國近乎於皇帝的超然地位，使他在一切內政和外交議題上都可以斬釘截鐵、一言九鼎——他想投資給哪個國家就投資給哪個國家，他想投資多少錢就投資多少錢，沒有任何人和機構可以監督和制約他的決策。

460億美元這個數字，幾乎等於巴基斯坦自2008年以來吸收的外來投資總額的3倍，因此許多人相信未來它將為巴基斯坦帶來經濟奇蹟。這個數字也幾乎等於中國的13億民眾每人拿出200多元人民幣來投資（或救濟）巴基斯坦這個“難兄難弟”——如果說中國在這個世界上還有一個真正的朋友，當然不會是北韓，而是巴基斯坦。有一次，我在美國華盛頓的杜勒斯機場坐出租車回家的時候，正好遇到一位來自巴基斯坦的司機，一路上他都在滔滔不絕地讚揚中國在印巴戰爭的時候對巴基斯坦的幫助。冷戰時期，印度和巴基斯坦交惡，先後發生了三次規模不等的戰爭，而印度和中國也發生了邊境戰爭。在此情形之下，中巴兩國的關係變成了「患難之交」。

但是，半個世紀以來，中巴關係從來沒有像今天這樣好：巴基斯坦官方的歡迎標語極為高調——「中巴友誼比山高、比海深、比蜜甜、比鐵硬」。《紐約時報》報導說，習近平意味深長且熱情地讚揚巴基斯坦政府2014年針對邊境地帶的新疆維族分離主義武裝的清剿行動——“我們對此銘記於心。”而巴基斯坦總理納瓦茲·謝里夫則近乎獻媚地回應說：“巴基斯坦視中國的安全為自己的安全。”那麼，巴基斯坦是否成了中國的新殖民地？

美國之音報導說，與習近平關係密切的一個高級智囊透露說，中國知道在巴基斯坦的投資存在重大風險，但習近平將迎接這些風險看成是宏大發展計劃中的關鍵部分。比起江澤民和胡錦濤來，習近平這個“紅二代”具有更大的野心、慾望以及冒險精神。但是，460億的投資——相當於中國注入亞投行的1000億資金的將近一半——很有可能血本無歸，如果出現那樣的結局，誰來追究習近平的責任呢？

中巴之間潛在的不穩定因素至少有三個。首先，中巴兩國並沒有共同的意識形態，不可能成為惺惺相惜的、遵循共同價值真朋友。兩國的友誼一直建立在功利主義的基礎之上，即共同的敵人是印度。而當雙方與印度的關係都趨向緩和的時候，彼此在對方的戰略格局中的重要性必然降低。

其次，中巴兩國都是高度腐敗的國家，這筆巨額的投資究竟有多少會用在名副其實的基礎建設上面，究竟有多少會落入兩國貪官的私囊之中，目前不得而知。此前，中國通過國家開發銀行投資非洲，但當國家開發銀行副行長王益落馬之後，人們才發現這些款項很多並未落實，王益本人即以巨資包養多名女明星。近年來，中巴兩國在透明國際公佈的清廉指數排行榜上的排名並沒有改善，所以我們很難樂觀地認為這些錢會被用在刀刃上。

第三，巴基斯坦政府對邊境地區並未達成有效的控制。在過去幾年，巴基斯坦發生過多起地方武裝、塔利班殘餘勢力綁架甚至殺害在巴基斯坦工作的中國工程師的事件。伊斯蘭教是巴基斯坦的國教，中國對同樣信奉伊斯蘭教的新疆維族居民的殘酷鎮壓，必然引發巴基斯坦的伊斯蘭信徒的反感和憤怒。而宗教情感是很難用金錢來抹平的，支持新疆分離主義的勢力將在巴基斯坦乃至整個中亞地區長期存在。

所以，習近平在巴基斯坦的這場豪賭有可能鎩羽而歸，倘若習近平的外交政策出現重大失誤，他就會變成一頭受傷流血的鯊魚。那麼，中共黨內的其他兇猛的鯊魚立刻會聞血而動、群起而攻之。在這個意義上，這一趟巴基斯坦的榮耀之旅，有可能成為習近平未來追悔莫及的滑鐵盧。

05/2015