The article makes it abundantly clear that the US has encouraged Taiwan to spend more of it's own money on defence, but the KMT dominated legislature of mid last decade blocked the arms packages that the US offered Taiwan. This article to the US Congress tells a similar story, describing how the Taiwanese knocked back the substantial arms sales offerred by the Bush administration and how the Pentagon has questioned the seriousness of Taiwan's commitment to it's own defence.

 

The fact is that since the end of single party rule Taiwanese defence expenditure dropped to by an order of magnitude of around 40%, i.e. when the Taiwanese People were put in charge they started to raise the white flag. In contrast, democratic Israel spends about 6.5% of GDP on defence ... that means that they still spend 5% of their own money with the consent of the People. That is because the Israeli people have spine and commitment, whereas on the evidence Taiwanese people don't. 

 

What's more, the US spends about 3.5%, much of which would be dedicated to saving your sorry friggin arses. My question is, if you aren't prepared to make at least the same commitment, why should the US jepardise it's relationship with the most important emerging nation in the World for your sake?

 

If you had any brains and character, you would accept this reality and start pushing for change, rather than just making these stupid excuses.

Yellichink, you can call me a racist, a leftist and whatever else you like but that isn't going to change the facts of this matter. It is a lack of commitment by the Taiwanese people, through the actions of their elected representatives, to do what is necessary to defend themselves. Take this article from the Taiwanese central news agency:

 

"U.S. SUGGESTS TAIWAN RAISE DEFENSE BUDGET TO 3.5% OF GDP: PAPER"

 

Only when the US keeps the promise to defend Taiwan, can the US morally dictate our defense strategy the way it currently is. Otherwise, they are just making us weak and preparing us to be fed to the commies. If the former is true then we only really need to spend on essential, but not stockpile; if the later is true, then no amount of spending can reverse the inevitable, just pissing money away on useless things that are bound to be targets.

 

That pretty much sums up the issue at stake here doesn't it, you think that if the US is there to look after you then you don't need to reach into your own pockets to contribute. Well let me explain to you, it is not ok for you to spend just enough to survive until the US and other free nations come to save your arses. Every platform that you don't provide for your own defence is one that somebody else has to. That impacts on military planning and increases budgets for those allied nations - especially the US, and can affect the operational capacity of those nations to win wars if they are engaged in more than just a conflict to save Taiwan from it's own neglect.

 

Even worse, for every Taiwanese platform that isn't provided and put in harms way, an allied one is. What that means is that your failure to provide for yourselves could potentially get US and allied service personal who would otherwise not need to be deployed, killed.

 

It is an appallingly cowardly, disrespecful and stingy attitude that I see amongst many citizens of US allies, including Australia, though Taiwan is one of the worst examples because it is one of those for whom the immediate threat of drawing the US into a conflict is most stark. Irrespective of US military power, every free nation has an obligation to do whatever it can to provide for it's own defence, with the US only being obliged to help with those capabilities that the nation in question just can't provide. With an attitude like that I wouldn't blame the Americans if they turned around and said "screw you" to Taiwan and let you get rolled up by the PRC as an example to all it's other lax allies that they need to look after themselves. On the balance the Western World would probably be a stronger place for it.

 

Also, you are wrong about the amount of US economic aid to Israel, it has only every been about a third of military aid and the most that both have totalled was about $4 billion in 2003. That would have been about 2% of Israeli GDP at that time, which means Israelis were still forking out well over 4% of their own accord when the aid was at it's peak, and that had to fund ongoing operations that Taiwan doesn't need to. See link.

 

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