SINGPAORE -
Media OutReach - 23 September 2019
- Prof Kishore Mahbubani clarified Taiwan's position in the China-US relations
during his book launch in Hong Kong on the 3^rd September 2019.

"Taiwan is
an incredibly difficult and sensitive subject to address in the China-US
relations. When two great powers fight, often the bystander will get hurt.
There will be geopolitical pawns that will be used by one against the other.
Taiwan faces the danger of becoming a geopolitical pawn that could be used to
embarrass China if necessary or that could also be dropped.

In 2003,
when the US wanted to get UN security council to legitimize American occupation
in Iraq, it had to get the 5 permanent members including China in the UN security
council to agree. China agreed based on Taiwan's surrender. President Chen Shui
Bian was then put under enormous pressure by President George W Bush to reduce
as the geopolitical pawn in 2003. And, with regards to the upcoming Taiwan's
election in 2020 and buying of weapons from the US on 6^th September
2019, Taiwan will again be positioned as a geopolitical pawn today.

As the
struggle between China and the US intensifies and it will only get more
intense, it is safer and wiser that Taiwan will not stand in the middle and be
shot by both sides.

Submitted
by Sam Wong of Flat Globe Capital Partners Pte Ltd