Uncle Sam hasn't abandoned Taiwan

Obama welcomes China as an emerging strong and prosperous power that should play an increasingly important role in world affairs. He may continue to heap praise on a peacefully rising China to put a formal end to Washington's containment of China policy, but Washington simply has to support India as a counterweight to China and member states of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) that are jittery over a possible Chinese hegemony. Taiwan has to be supported, too, lest China extend its sphere of influence over the Pacific. Uncle Sam won't stop his sales of defensive arms to Taiwan, which are mandated in the 1979 act Obama omitted mentioning in Beijing.

One thing must be very clear. No matter what has happened over the past three decades, East Asia has remained an inescapable part of the American present — and of the American future. A retreat from the tremendous involvement on the Asian mainland occasioned by Chiang Kai-shek's defeat in the Chinese Civil War and the war in Vietnam is inevitable. A retreat to indifference toward Asia is impossible.

The rise of China as a military power and the decline of Japan as a counterforce, accompanied by the erosion of European power, have made Asian countries, including Taiwan, just as important as they were still Japanese and European colonies. The fall of the Soviet Union has not removed all the U.S. worries about Asia. The People's Republic is rising, though it has yet to pose a real threat to the Pax Americana like the Soviet Union before its disintegration.

American policy toward China is framed against the larger setting of international politics. Washington takes into consideration the need to coexist with the People's Republic as well as the new need of smaller countries in the region to cope with the Chinese power.

Actually, it is to the advantage — not the disadvantage of other nations — when China continues to become more prosperous. A more prosperous country won't seek hegemony, because it can keep peace within its own borders and will refrain from the use of force to ensure its continued prosperity. Smaller nations must be made strong enough not to invite aggression from without.

The United States hopes for the peaceful progress of China, and will help make Asian countries feel comfortable coexisting in peace with their giant neighbor.

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