Tampa Prep 2009-2010 Impact Defense File


Ext #3 – No Taiwan Conflict



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Ext #3 – No Taiwan Conflict



China-Taiwan at peace – Cold War conflict resolved.

Scheer 7/9/08 – professor at USC, editor of Truthdig [Robert, “China and Taiwan Declare Peace,” Alternet, 7/9/08, co-author of The Pornography of Power: How Defense Hawks Hijacked 9/11 and Weakened America, http://www.alternet.org/columnists/story/90938/?ses=d20cfe3afdd2ab05690ad3fa9d2fec59]

a public love affair now has broken out across the Strait of Formosa. On Friday, there were scheduled direct flights between the mainland and its breakaway island for the first time in 60 years, and the invasion of tourists clicking their cameras was on. Not that it was much noticed by the media or presidential candidates, but this long chapter of Cold War conflict has been closed and a new era of peace proclaimed by once strident foes. Taiwanese businessmen already are major investors in the mainland, and the new Taiwan government has recognized that reality by quickly pushing for full normalization of trade and other accommodations. For years now, the Chinese on both sides of the strait have been acting as if they are members of one nation, with the descendants of those who fled the mainland with Chiang Kai-shek building mansions in their old villages and increasingly preferring that their offspring study in China rather than at American schools. Thus, it was not surprising when the leader of the old nationalist Kuomintang Party, which won the recent Taiwan election, quickly went to the mainland to pledge the dawn of a new era. Gone is the prime excuse for a major U.S. military presence in the Pacific, now that the Taiwanese have made their separate peace. What good are our fancy military weapons to people preoccupied with a consumer revolution? The concern over mainland missiles landing on Taiwan has been replaced with a fear that some country cousins from the mainland might be given to spitting on the sidewalks. Those fears were assuaged when tourists from both sides over the weekend conducted themselves with proper comportment while shopping till they dropped. That peace has broken out is a nightmare scenario for America's military hawks in desperate need of an excuse for soaking up more than half of the U.S. government's discretionary budget. There was real panic when Mikhail Gorbachev formally ended the Cold War and George H.W. Bush announced a 30 percent cut in military spending in 1992. Then came the 9/11 terrorist attacks and the wildest peacetime spending spree in history. No one in power noticed that the expensive weapons were designed to defeat an enemy that no longer existed. That's because we were traumatized by something called terrorism, and few questioned the decision to build weapons such as the two new Virginia-class submarines, at a cost of $5 billion, to catch Osama bin Laden, probably holed up in a cave in a landlocked nation. But submarines obviously have nothing to do with fighting terrorists, forcing Sen. Joe Lieberman, an independent who represents Connecticut, where the subs are built, to play the China card: "If we do not move to produce two submarines a year as soon as possible, we are in serious danger of falling behind China." Fomenting fear of China is essential to making the case for the whole range of high-tech war toys that no longer have a legitimate military purpose. But it's a sick joke. We are paying the Chinese the interest on the money we borrow from them to build very expensive weapons to counter weapons the Chinese have no intention of building. The latest word from the Pentagon is that "[t]he Intelligence Community estimates China will take until the end of this decade or later to produce a modern force capable of defeating a moderate-size adversary." The only adversary that interested China, according to the Pentagon report, was Taiwan, and as recent events have indicated, that game is over. But don't shed tears just yet for the denizens of the military-industrial complex. Why should they doubt our continued willingness to throw money at weapons that have no targets, when few in Congress or the media ever bother to notice?
Asia-Pacific region stable – no Taiwan conflict.

Desker 6/25/08 – dean Rajartnam School of International Studies, NTU [Barry, “Why war is unlikely in Asia,” The Straits Times, 6/25/08, http://www.asiaone.com/News/the%2BStraits%2BTimes/Story/A1Story20080625-72716.html]

<THE Asia-Pacific region is both a zone of relative insecurity as well as one of relative stability. On the one hand, it contains some of the world's most significant flashpoints: the Korean peninsula, the Taiwan Strait, the Siachen glacier. Tensions between nations at these points could escalate into major wars. The region is also replete with border issues, acts of terrorism and overlapping maritime claims. It is a strategically significant area, sitting astride key sea lines of communication and important choke-points. Nevertheless, the region is more stable than one might believe. Separatism remains a challenge, but the break-up of states is unlikely. The North Korean nuclear issue, while not fully resolved, is moving towards a conclusion with the likely denuclearisation of the peninsula. Tensions between China and Taiwan seem unlikely to erupt into conflict, especially after the recent victories of the Kuomintang in Taiwan. The region also possesses significant multilateral structures such as the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation forum, the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation, the nascent Six-Party Talks forum and, in particular, Asean.>
Peace in East Asia – end of Taiwan independence.

Ross 3 - 4 - 06 – professor of political science at Boston College, associate at John King Fairbank Center for East Asian Research at Harvard ‘Robert S., “Taiwan’s Fading Independence Movement,” Foreign Affairs, vol. 85 no. 2, March/April 06, p. 141, http://taiwansecurity.org/IS/2006/FA-Ross.pdf]

<Political developments in Taiwan over the past year have eªectively ended the independence movement there. What had been a major source of regional instability—and the most likely source of a great-power war anywhere in the world—has become increasingly irrelevant. The peaceful transformation of relations between China and Taiwan will help stabilize eastern Asia, reduce the likelihood of conflict between China and the United States, and present an opportunity for Beijing,Taipei, and Washington to adjust their defense postures—all without hurting Taiwan’s security or threatening U.S. interests.>
No china taiwan war- january legislative election results means good cross-straight relations 

Times Online 2/14/08  [http://business.timesonline.co.uk/tol/business/economics/article3364880.ece] 

If, as many now predict, China and Taiwan do not go to war but become significant investment partners, it is Kaohsiung and its rich industrial and services base that stands to reap the most spectacular rewards.The lunar new year visit of the mainland Chinese tourists was the latest in a number of signs to have generated considerable excitement among investors, signs that the simmering animosity between Beijing and Taipei may, finally, be cooling.January's legislative elections in Taiwan, which dealt a crushing defeat to the ruling party, have, according to analysts at CLSA Securities, “swung the balance of probability in Taiwan's unpredictable landscape firmly in favour of breakthroughs on cross-strait relationships”. If the momentum towards rapprochement continues through presidential elections in March, business leaders say, the transformation will follow quickly.





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