国交正常化すべき島国はキューバでなく台湾（米評論家） |
アメリカが国交正常化すべき島国は、独裁の続くキューバではなく、巨大独裁体制に圧迫されつつ、自由民主制を維持する台湾だ、という議論です。
筆者のジョシュ・ガラーンターは米保守系誌『ウィークリー・スタンダード』などによく書いています。
NATIONAL REVIEW ONLINE
January 24, 2015
Cuba and Taiwan
Taiwanis a free society in the shadow of a brutal, repressive Red China.
ByJosh Gelernter
In the president’s State of the Union speech, he patted himself onthe back for establishing diplomatic ties with Cuba’s dictators — a decision, he said, that has “extend[ed] the hand of friendship to the Cuban people.” Never mind that the Cuban people have no say in the government up to which Mr. Obama is cozying — but if the president is in a friendly mood, there’s adifferent island nation that could really use American diplomatic ties. One whose government derives its power from the consent of the governed. It’s time were-recognized Taiwan.
We have no official diplomatic relations with Taiwan, no embassy in Taipei; our interests on the island are managed by the semi-private “American Institute in Taiwan.”
……
Though terminating the mutual-defense treaty was a disgrace,r ecognizing Beijing was a defensible decision. Communist China was then — as itis now — a brutal, repressive dictatorship, but Taiwan was still governed under postwar martial law. Recognizing the Red Chinese government was a decent trade-off: The damage dealt to Soviet authoritarianism was worth switching ties from a military dictatorship to a Communist one. But now, Taiwan is a legitimately free country, with free elections, a free press, freedom of religion, and a free economy. It is a beacon of democracy.
……According to the text of China’s 2005 Anti-Secession Law, if peaceful unification cannot be achieved, Communist China “shall employ non-peaceful means and other necessary measures.”
……the prospect of recognizing the government of Taiwan as the legitimate government of Taiwan, and reestablishing our lapsed mutual-defense treaty, is not only realistic, it verges on a moral imperative.
……
Taiwan, like Israel, is a free country loomed over by barbarous, genocidal despots. Like Israel, it needs, and deserves, our support. Kennedy didn’t vow only that we would “oppose any foe,” but also that we would “support any friend . . . to assure the survival and the success of liberty.”
Words to live by. He meant friends like Taiwan, like Israel, and — Idare say — like the oppressed people of Cuba.
— Josh Gelernter writes weekly for NRO and is a regular contributor to The Weekly Standard.
