The establishment media in Australia are unanimous in portraying the presidential election in Taiwan as a "rebuff" for Chinese government attempts to intimidate "democracy" on the island. In this context, the US decision to send two carrier battle groups to counter Chinese military manoeuvres is treated as almost benign.
The reality is not so simplistic.
The fact that the Kuomintang (KMT), despite half a century in government and the bonus of US backing, gets only 54% of the votes cast indicates that its real support must be wearing very thin. The media lump this figure together with the pro-independence Democratic Progressive Party's 21% to "confirm" the basic story that the Taiwanese "rebuffed" China. The 25% obtained by two pro-unification parties was down-played or even left out in most press reports.
Taiwan has been ruled by a brutal dictatorship for half a century. It is undoubtedly progress that the KMT was forced to lift martial law in 1987 and now to permit an election — for the first time — for president. But that doesn't convert the KMT or Lee Teng-hui into democrats or representatives of the people of Taiwan.
The Taiwanese are not a homogeneous whole. There are fundamental contradictions between the business interests that Lee represents and those of the Taiwanese working people. The Taiwanese election left even less room for such conflicts than did the recent Australian federal election.
But the KMT's half-century dictatorship was not directed only at suppressing the working people of Taiwan. It was an indispensable tool of US efforts to defeat the Chinese Revolution and, more generally, to turn back the upsurge of anticolonial struggles in the decades following World War II.
In addition to motivating the US to go to war in Korea and later in Vietnam, these goals several times led to the brink of all-out war with China. Washington's unreserved guarantee to Taipei in 1955 directly contributed to the 1958 crisis during which, at the KMT's provocation, a limited military conflict broke out between China and Taiwan. Washington sent a fleet armed with nuclear weapons to the Taiwan Strait.
When China replaced Taiwan as a member of the UN in 1971 despite Washington's vigorous opposition, it was a sign that the hopes of a KMT "return" in conquest to the mainland were pipe dreams. The US shifted diplomatic recognition to China from Taiwan in 1978. The move, started with Richard Nixon's visit to China in 1972, served Washington's interests by playing China against the Soviet Union and positioning US business strategically in the expanding Chinese market.
Nevertheless, the US ruling class has no intention of giving up the profitable and strategic base which Taiwan provides. In its three communiqués with China since 1978, Washington has expressed the intention to reduce and eventually stop weapon sales to Taiwan, but this supposed goal is never achieved.
Beijing's attempts to intimidate Taiwanese voters with military threats deserve nothing but condemnation — not least because they provided the pretext for the US to engage in its own gunboat diplomacy. We should not allow that pretext to blind us to the reality that the US government is once again displaying its intention to police the world — in defence of nothing but its own interests.