On Selling Taiwan…

So you’ve probably seen something about Paul Kane’s “Sell Taiwan” op-ed in the New York Times; effectively, Kane’s suggestion would mean that the US would guarantee non-intervention in any PRC-ROC dispute in exchange for forgiveness of a portion of the Chinese held US debt.  I’m not sure exactly how the economics would work out, other than to say that the effects would probably be minimal.  But “selling” Taiwan would also relieve the US of the (self-imposed) responsibility of defending Taiwan from China, potentially creating the conditions for a more stable strategic framework in East Asia.

Kane argues that the op-ed was intended as satire, designed to force us to think through our foreign policy values and commitments. While the attempt seems somewhat clumsy to me (and the rejoinders to his critics even more clumsy), I think there’s considerable value in these exercises.  As I’ve mentioned before, I always assign David Brin’s Thor Meets Captain America to my National Security Policy course, along with Arnold Wolfers’ National Security as an Ambiguous Symbol and Charles Lindblom’s The Science of Muddling Through. The Brin brings the process of choosing between values into relief, and opens the door to questions such as “under what circumstances would we exchange Florida for peace and security?”  And so the responses to Kane’s hypothetical about Taiwan could range widely between discussions of Taiwan’s direct military value, of its reputation value, and of the intrinsic value of defending a democracy from an authoritarian state. These then could lead to productive conversations about the relation between military, reputational, and intrinsic value, how they interact, and so forth. These are not bad conversations to have, even if you doubt the wisdom of selling out the ROC.