The first photo is of the Taiwanese ambassador to the US opening the new building for the Taiwanese military mission to the United States. Second is the historic US Military Assistance Advisory Group (MAAG) logo from the US-Taiwan Mutual Defense Treaty days. What do you see? MAAG represents decades of US military advisors and assistance in fixing a hapless China KMT military (along with Japanese military advisors ….). An era when the US interest in Taiwan not becoming a part of the PRC was official and required little doublespeak. It is impossible for the Taiwanese embassy or military attache to choose a logo without US feedback. If this is the case this would have been the most oddly inconsistent episode for a hypercautious President Tsai, and her even more hypercautious Ministry of National Defense.
So what does this mean? I don’t think it is a coincidence that the US, Japan, and even some in NATO have moved towards strategic clarity coupled with actual military muscles in and around Taiwan. I also think it is easy to see shadows – updated for a different reality in Taiwan and the US – of MAAG in the Taiwan Policy Act of 2022. The US-Taiwan-Japan strategic dilemma of 2022 is not hardware alone – Taiwan’s Ministry of National Defense, its generals and admirals and officer corps, and its national intelligence apparatus, require guidance and rapid reforms.
Much as my observation before that the salami slicing process the US and the PRC went through from 1949 to 1979, the US, Japan, and other global democracies are doing with democratic Taiwan now – with the reality that PRC is militarily more powerful than the Chiang dictatorship back during 1949-1979 – with the ultimate objective of pushing US-Japan-NATO relations with Taiwan Republic up to everything but formal diplomatic recognition, with an international consensus that a Chinese communist military invasion to annex Taiwan would not be tolerated. The process began with Taiwan’s first president Dr. Lee decades ago, the special state-to-state formula, now given substance by President Tsai, Prime Minister Abe’s free and open Indo-Pacific, and President Biden’s strategic clarity. 29.9.2022
History of MAAG in Taiwan:
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