This is the first internationalization of the Taiwan security issue since the Sept. 23, 1997, announcement of the Joint Statement on US-Japan Defense Guidelines, which included security in the Taiwan Strait through the introduction of the phrase "situations in areas surrounding Japan."

The revelation late last year that Chinese nuclear-powered submarines had entered Japanese territorial waters alerted the US to China's ambition to expand its naval powers, and revealed that China was testing US determination to defend the Asia-Pacific island chain. The hurried adjustment to the defense guidelines and the "situations in the Taiwan Strait" construction could be seen as Washington's response to Japanese requests to officially include Taiwan in its East Asia defense system.

Post-war Japan has constantly turned a blind eye to its old colony Taiwan, and there have been no attempts at historic reconciliation.

In contrast, the Taiwanese people's loathing for the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) government has made for more romantic, selective memories of the colonial period.

Ever since the 1950s, the US-led military alliance between the US, Japan and South Korea has seen China as its main enemy, without ever saying so. Lately, the US has been forced to feign sympathy for a rising China to put pressure on the hooligan-like North Korea. Similarly, Japan has had to accept Chinese arrogance because of its guilt burden resulting from its war against China.

China's recklessness during the 1996 Taiwan Strait missile crisis, however, was a brutal wake-up call for the US and Japan, who could not sit idly by as China broke through the Asia-Pacific defenses jointly built by the two nations. The result was the new guidelines announced the following year. Although this military alliance isn't a deliberate attempt to encircle China, it does aim at maintaining a fundamental military balance in Northeast Asia.

These developments show that even if Taiwan loses its importance as an unsinkable aircraft carrier, the promise of defensive help enshrined in the Taiwan Relations Act made it possible for the US to renew its semi-military alliance with Japan. Retired officers from Japan's naval self defense forces, which also make up the right wing of the US Seventh Fleet, no longer avoid visiting Taiwan, which shows that the Taiwan-Japan relationship is no longer restricted to purely military exchanges.

President Chen Shui-bian's (陳水扁) revelation that Taiwan had provided Japan with intelligence about the intruding Chinese submarines was evidence that there is no longer any need to cover up the military connection between the US, Japan and Taiwan.

Compared to former Democratic US president Bill Clinton's strategy of befriending China and distancing himself from Japan, the Republican US President George W. Bush treads cautiously when it comes to China, while turning his gaze toward Japan.

There have been reports that the new US Secretary of State, Condoleezza Rice, and Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld have had a joint meeting with Japan's foreign minister and high-ranking officials from the Japanese defense department, which is evidence that pro-Japan forces are holding the upper hand over pro-China forces in the US government.

Although this means that Taiwan's military value has increased sharply, there is still quite some distance to go before the US and Japan will be willing to stand up to China.

Even if the US and Japan would agree to send humanitarian intervention teams to protect Taiwan, we would not be far from the fate of South Vietnam if the people of Taiwan do not want to maintain a capable national defense force to protect their way of life.

translated by Perry Svensson