Message from eisler

I find it most interesting that Taiwan, a country I loved, could see myself living in, and therefore one that resembles modern culture, politics, and economics, is not recognized by most industrialized countries. It was interesting going to the President's House and seeing all of the countries that recognize Taiwan as a country but not seeing countries I have been to. Riggers does a nice job of explaining that it was in the 1970s when the United States switched their allegiance from supporting Taiwan to now supporting China. Their reasons were China is bigger and there is a larger risk involved if they do not cooperate with them. Unfortunately, once the US took a side then other countries and organization followed suit. I found it most interesting that President Ma cannot even come to the United States and if he is invited to speak he must instead do so through videoconferencing.

Few countries recognize Taiwan because, unfortunately, they are being overshadowed by the larger mainland China. China has grown immensely and members of prominent political organizations like the UN are more interested in appeasing China and not recognizing Taiwan as the Chinese do- as part of the PRC.

I was asked at the delicious steak dinner what "strategic ambiguity" means and now, after reading the chapter, I understand that it means the United States cannot let Beijing or Taipei know how we will respond or when. We must choose our battles but we can, when necessary, intervene on Taiwan's side to help them militarily. Strategic ambiguity means we can choose when to listen to both sides and when we will clearly side with Beijing. It is interesting that we are still following what seems to be a similar political stance that we were using in 1949 with Taiwan and China, when we first recognized ROC and supported Chiang even though he was a dictator and ruthless, but now we are supporting China.