Links: Stephen Yates on Taiwan's Presidential Elections, Arms Sales

Interesting Q & A from Forbes' Russell Flannery with China/Taiwan expert Stephen Yates:

Stephen Yates On Taiwan’s Presidential Election, U.S. Arms Sales

Yates gives a good analysis of the upcoming Taiwanese presidential elections and the matchup between current President Ma Ying-Jeou and DPP candidate Tsai Ying-Wen. I thought he was particularly insightful in explaining the closeness of the race (despite it being early days) with an observation of the Ma administration's governing style:

"Then there’s leadership styles. In some ways, President Ma governs in ways that are similar to Chen Shui-bian, George W. Bush, and some other politicians I’ve seen, where he has a relatively small number of advisors that are really close-in, inner circle people. And people in his own party, at times, wonder how representative these decisions are of the greater interest of the whole party."

The insularity of the current administration in Taiwan, given the extraordinary mandate it was given in the 2008 election, is definitely affecting public opinion and perception, as Yates notes when he says, "... there’s a sense that with several of these leaders (that) they’re a bit detached." An interesting thing for Yates to say, considering he worked for Cheney in the height of the groupthink Bush years and likely saw firsthand the dangers of insularity and closed government.

He also had some good things to sale about US-Taiwan arms sales - one of the issues I think is really important to the United States, frankly, is not whether Beijing gets pissy over arms-sales to Taiwan. That's a given. Rather, it's a consideration of what risks selling US arms to Taiwan would have for US security interests, given the current pro-China stance in the Taiwanese government. Hopefully the voice of caution over security and intelligence issues will carry some weight in the US as they consider how much they want to encourage Taiwan's closeness to China, not just in terms of short-term "don't cause problems" but in long-term strategic interests.

I also liked Gordon Chang's profile of Tsai Ying-Wen: Tsai Ing-wen, Pathbreaking Politician