In this NYTimes op-ed, Paul Kane argues that Obama "should enter into closed-door negotiations with Chinese leaders to write off the $1.14 trillion of American debt currently held by China in exchange for a deal to end American military assistance and arms sales to Taiwan and terminate the current United States-Taiwan defense arrangement by 2015." He believes that Taiwan is of "little strategic interest" to the US and that "the island’s absorption into mainland China is inevitable."
For the US to adopt such an attitude and willfully ignore the majority of Taiwanese who do not support unification with the mainland would be hypocritical and a direct repudiation of the ideals that America is founded on. How can America's wars in the Middle East in the name of democracy be taken seriously if the US then ambivalently shrugs as one of the only true democracies in Asia is taken over by the largest Communist country in the world?
The Chinese government openly suppresses peaceful protests, practices censorship of the internet and media, and experiences rampant government cronyism. Are these the practices we wish to implicitly condone by withdrawing support from a true democratic nation? Certainly the Taiwanese government has its share of troubles. But no one can deny that freedom of speech and open media are much more widely practiced than in mainland China.
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