For A Taiwanese America

"If Donilon’s press conference is any indication of US President Barack Obama’s strategy for dealing with Hu, it shows us that rather than seek to set the agenda on a problem that continues to haunt Northeast Asia, Washington will allow the Chinese leader to do so, at which point US officials will have little choice but to backtrack or use soothing language that can then be exploited by Beijing."

"By attempting to avoid the matter, Washington places itself in a difficult position that invites aggressive and prying rhetoric by Hu and his delegation, which cannot end well for Washington and, by extension, Taipei... true leadership does not shy away from reality or ignore difficult areas in the hope that problems will disappear on their own."

Whoever wrote that editorial in today's Taipei Times has it exactly right - unfortunately. Where are all those so-called "Americans" in Taiwan who voted for Nosferatu in 2008 and what do they have to say to this? The U.S. government is not playing this game to win, and, barring some electoral miracle over there, everyone in Taiwan is eventually going to have to deal with the consequences of that - which is something every Taiwanese man and woman who values freedom should be doing anyway, and which involves applying clear thought and effort to the tactical problems of how to reduce their dependence on the State, as I have mentioned previously here and here. If the Americans will not come to help us, then we had better start learning how to become Americans ourselves.

Update: the link at the second of those "heres" mistakenly went to a short exchange with J.Michael Cole, instead of to my piece on strategy. Fixed now.