Public Split over whether US would defend Taiwan

Public Split over whether US would defend Taiwan
Bevin Chu
April 27, 2006

Public split over whether US would defend Taiwan
Taipei Times
April 27, 2006

The public is almost evenly split over whether the US would come to Taiwan's defense if China attacked, an opinion poll suggested yesterday. The poll conducted by the Taiwan Thinktank on the meeting last week between US President George W. Bush and Chinese President Hu Jintao indicated that 52 percent of the public expected US support should a war break out in the Taiwan Strait. Political scientist Lo Chih-cheng of Soochow University yesterday said the result showed that the majority of people regard the US as a friendly ally. However, Lo added that this view was at odds with public opinion in the US, as past surveys there on public support for the US sending troops to defend Taiwan averaged at only 30 percent. "There is an obvious gap between what the Taiwanese people think they can get and what the American public are willing to give to Taiwan," Lo said.

Comment: Having read the above passage, what would you say is the most striking aspect of this article?

Many people would say that it is "[the] obvious gap between what the Taiwanese [sic] people think they can get and what the American public are willing to give to Taiwan," i.e., the 22% gap between 52% and 30%.

I would say it is something else entirely. I would say it is the fact that anybody, let alone 52% of the public, expects US support should a war break out in the Taiwan Strait.

I'm assuming of course that the 52% figure conveniently offered up by the Taiwan Thinktank is not a "factoid." Pan Green NGOs on Taiwan are notorious for casually disseminating "factoids" and unscrupulously conducting "push polls."

A "factoid," as Wikipedia explains, is a spurious (unverified, incorrect, or invented) "fact" intended to create or manipulate public opinion. The term was coined by Norman Mailer in his 1973 biography of Marilyn Monroe. Mailer described a factoid as "facts which have no existence before appearing in a magazine or newspaper". Mailer created the word by combining the word "fact" and the ending "-oid" to mean "like a fact".

The alleged 30,000 "Taiwanese" dead from the 228 Incident is one such factoid. Pan Green spinmeisters know perfectly well that the actual number is fewer than 900.

A "push poll," as Wikipedia explains, is a political campaign technique in which an individual or organization attempts to influence or alter the view of respondents under the guise of conducting a poll. Push polls are generally viewed as a form of negative campaigning. [Some push polls] are attacks on another candidate. These attacks often contain information with little or no basis in fact. Perhaps the most famous use of push polls is in the 2000 United States Republican Party primaries, when it was alleged that George W. Bush's campaign used push polling to torpedo the campaign of Senator John McCain. Voters in South Carolina were asked "Would you be more likely or less likely to vote for John McCain for president if you knew he had fathered an illegitimate black child?", an allegation that had no substance, but planted the idea of undisclosed allegations in the minds of thousands of primary voters. McCain and his wife had in fact adopted a Bangladeshi girl. The main advantage of push polls is that they are an effective way of maligning an opponent ("pushing" voters away) while avoiding responsibility for the distorted or false information used in the push poll.

The Orwellian "Defensive Referendum" Chen Shui-bian unconstitutionally and illegally forced upon the voters in 2004 was a form of push polling. The two referendum questions were not serious questions to which serious answers were expected. They were merely a means by which an incumbent who knew he was about to handed his hat could demagogue the independence vs. reunification issue in the hope of getting "four more years."

Consider the referendum questions:

1. The People of Taiwan [sic] demand that the Taiwan Strait issue be resolved through peaceful means. Should Communist China refuse to withdraw the missiles it has targeted at Taiwan and to openly renounce the use of force against us, would you agree that the Government should acquire more advanced anti-missile weapons to strengthen Taiwan's self-defense capabilities?

2. Would you agree that our Government should engage in negotiation with Communist China on the establishment of a "peace and stability" framework for cross-strait interactions in order to build consensus and for the welfare of the peoples on both sides?

Anyone familiar with the political context on Taiwan knew that disingenuous "referendum questions" such as these were really about planting negative ideas in peoples' heads about "Pan Blue camp Chi-Com fellow travelers selling out Taiwan."

Fortunately, more politically sophisticated voters, largely Pan Blue but also independents, upon learning that the ruling Pan Green regime intended to demagogue the issue at Pan Blue taxpayer expense, reacted by boycotting the referendum altogether, ensuring its defeat.

Unfortunately, Chen Shui-bian's 319 Wag the Dog "assassination attempt" and 320 election fraud were eventually rubber-stamped by the US puppetmaster, and Chen squeaked by anyway.

But returning to my original point, the most striking aspect of this article is the expectation on the part of anyone, but particularly Pan Green supporters, that the US military will come riding to the rescue in the event the Taiwan independence nomenklatura goes too far and precipitates a shooting war between Beijing and Taipei.

As I have underscored countless times before, and will undoubtedly underscore countless times again, "Taiwan," according to Taiwan independence Quislings, "is a sovereign and independent nation, with its own government, its own territory, its own military."

That being the case, why in the world should any other nation come riding to its rescue, and more to the point, why would any "sovereign and independent" citizen of such a "sovereign and independent" nation cling desperately to the hope that another nation will come riding to its rescue? What the hell kind of "sovereignty" and "independence" is that?

As I wrote in my 2004 article Scrap the Taiwan Relations Act:

Independence: The state or condition of being free from dependence, subjection, or control. Political independence is the attribute of a nation or state which is entirely autonomous, and not subject to the government, control, or dictation of any exterior power.
-- Black's Law Dictionary, Fifth Edition

Chen Shui-bian and fellow Quisling Lee Teng-hui shrilly insist that "Taiwan is an independent nation." Independent means not dependent. An independent nation is a nation that is not dependent on other nations. An independent nation does not depend on another nation for its military defense. A political entity that depends on another nation for its military defense is not an independent nation. It is not a nation at all. It is a colony, dominion, mandate, possession, protectorate, satellite, or territory of another nation.

If the Taiwan independence nomenklatura genuinely wants the US government to treat Taiwan as an independent nation, they should act like an independent nation. They should stop clinging to America's apron strings, stop hiding behind America's skirts, stop being dependent on the US Navy's Seventh Fleet. They should assume responsibility for their own independent national defense.

If Taiwan independence fellow travelers genuinely consider Taiwan an independent nation, they should treat Taiwan as an independent nation. They should stop treating Taiwan as if it were Guam or Puerto Rico. Taiwan is neither an American protectorate nor an American commonwealth.