What US retreat from Afghanistan means for Taiwan

美国的阿富汗战争对台湾的启示

Source
China Military Online
Editor
Li Jiayao
Time
2021-09-17 16:41:48

By Chen Shiliang

陈士良

Ever since the US began to pull its troops out of Afghanistan, the narrative “today’s Afghanistan, tomorrow’s Taiwan” has been spreading on the island, which seems to show that people on the Taiwan island have not only been terribly disappointed at the US but also confused about Taiwan’s fate. In response, Taiwan leaderTsai Ing-wensaid at a video conference of the Democratic Progressive Party(DPP) that “Taiwan’s only option is to make itself stronger, more united, and more determined to protect itself.” Is that all she has learned from America’s disgraced pullout from Afghanistan?

自美国开始从阿富汗撤军起,在台湾岛内就有“今日阿富汗,明日台湾”的感叹。这也许说明,岛内各界不仅对美国完全失望,也对台湾未来感到迷茫。为此,台湾地区领导人蔡英文在民进党中常会的视频会议中不得不表态说,“台湾唯一的选项,就是让自己更强大,更团结、更坚定保卫自己。”这难道就是蔡英文对美国从阿富汗狼狈撤军所引发的感悟吗?

America’s “national interests” are the main source of world turmoil. The two world wars made America extremely rich and sent it to take Britain’s place as the world hegemon with superior economic and military strengths. Since then, to cement itself in that position, the US, in disregard of the UN-centered international system and the basic norms governing international relations with the UN Charter as the cornerstone, has taken it upon itself to play the “world cop” and crazily plundered resources worldwide and interfered in other countries’ internal affairs by hook and crook.

美国的“国家利益”是造成世界动荡的主要根源。两次世界大战使美国发了战争横财,一跃上升为世界经济和军事强权,并取代英国成为世界的“霸主”。此后,美国为了稳定自己世界霸权的地位,无视以联合国为核心的国际体系和以联合国宪章为基础的国际关系基本准则,以“世界警察”自居,不断通过各种手段疯狂掠夺世界资源,干涉别国内政。

Incomplete statistics show that the US has built 374 military bases of various sizes in over 140 countries and regions across the globe, with about 300,000 troops consistently stationed there, which gives it the perfect reason to charge the host countries and regions “protection fees.” Since the 1950s, the US has successively launched the Korean War, Vietnam War, Iraqi War, Libyan War, Kosovo War, and Afghan War, leaving tens of millions of refugees homeless and some countries still devastated with their people living in dire misery and poverty.

据不完全统计,美国目前在世界140多个国家和地区共有大大小小374个军事基地,常年驻军约30万人左右,并向这些国家和地区名正言顺地收取“保护费”。自上世纪五十年代以来,美国先后发动朝鲜战争、越南战争、伊拉克战争、利比亚战争、科索沃战争、阿富汗战争……由此造成数百甚至上千万难民,导致有些国家至今仍然满目疮痍、民不聊生。

Take US invasion of Afghanistan. The US has spent 20 years and threw more than USD 2 trillion intothe war in Afghanistan, but what has this most protracted war in US history left? It’s the prolonged and tremendous financial burden on the US, enduring unrest and aggravating terrorism in Afghanistan, and an abyss of disasters and tribulations for the Afghan people. The scrambled withdrawal from Afghanistan signified America’s total failure in the country, and it also threw the country into a severe humanitarian crisis. The ongoing turbulence in Iraq, Libya, and Afghanistan today is totally and entirely the making of the US and the wars it has waged.

以入侵阿富汗为例,历时20年,花费超过两万亿美元的阿富汗战争是美国历史上持续时间最长的战争,不仅给美国带来旷日持久的巨大消耗,而且也使阿富汗国家持续动荡,甚至陷入“越反越恐”的困境,给阿富汗人民带来深重灾难。美军匆匆忙忙撤出阿富汗,不仅是美国在阿富汗彻底失败的标志,也使阿富汗陷入严重的人道主义危机。今天,伊拉克、利比亚、阿富汗等国的持续动荡,完全是因为美国发动战争后埋下的祸根。

Taiwan is just a “card” played by the US against China, which can be abandoned based on the situation. There is the voice that the US ended its Afghan War to concentrate on containing China. With China’s growing economic and national strengths in recent years, it has acquired more and broader influence globally, which Washington sees as a serious challenge to its dominant position. Therefore, it will take China as another main rival after the Soviet Union, Japan, and the EU and leave no stone unturned to suppress it.

台湾仅是美国制衡中国并随时可能抛弃的“一张牌”。有舆论认为,美国结束阿富汗战争是为了集中更多的资源对付中国。近年来,随着中国经济发展和国力增强,在世界上的影响力越来越大,美国认为这是对其“霸主”地位的严重挑战。为此,美国将中国视为继苏联、日本、欧盟之后的又一个主要“竞争对手”,并使出浑身解数进行疯狂“打压”。

With such a mindset, Washington naturally takes Taiwan as an important card against China. It has sent senior officials to visit the island, sold it more weapons and equipment, and dispatched numerous military vessels and aircraft to flex muscles across the Taiwan Strait in the name of the so-called “freedom of navigation,”operations, or FONOPs, with the sole purpose of countering China with the “Taiwan card.”

“台湾牌”因此成为美国对付中国的重要“抓手”。从安排高层官员赴台湾参访到向台湾出售越来越多的武器装备;从一艘艘军舰以“航行自由”的名义穿越台湾海峡“秀肌肉”到派遣一架架军机“窜访”台湾……都是其利用“台湾牌”来制衡中国。

At the end of the day, Taiwan, Afghanistan, and those allies that were once used but later easily betrayed or abandoned by the US for the sake of its national interests are no more than a chess piece on America’s board. Once they conflict with its national interests, who can say that Washington won’t discard Taiwan the same way it had discarded Afghanistan?

但是归根到底,台湾与阿富汗,或者那些曾经被美国根据国家利益轻易背叛或抛弃的盟友一样,都不过是美国手中的一颗棋子而已。一旦与其“国家利益”发生冲突,谁能保证,美国不会像像抛弃阿富汗一样,将台湾完全抛弃?

(The author is President of the Shanghai Institute for Public Relations.)

(作者是上海市公共关系研究院院长 )

Editor's note: This article is originally published on taiwan.cn, and is translated from Chinese into English and edited by the China Military Online. The information, ideas or opinions appearing in this article do not necessarily reflect the views of eng.chinamil.com.cn.

Related News

Continue...