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Washington, Feb. 28 (CNA) For the very reasons Communist China may make war on Taiwan, the United States should continue to provide the weapons and support that will preserve the island's democracy, and "preserving its existence is perhaps the most effective way for the US to encourage mainlanders who desire real democratic reform," according to an American senior policy analyst.

Richard Fisher, a senior fellow at Jamestown Foundation, wrote Monday in The Washington Times that President Bill Clinton is leaving a dangerous legacy in the Taiwan Straits, namely political appeasement that has encouraged Beijing's belligerence, and the essential disarmament of Taiwan in the face of a growing Communist Chinese juggernaut, both of which could hasten war.

The Clinton administration could mollify history's potentially harsh judgment by selling Taiwan the AEGIS naval defense system, the AMRAAM anti-aircraft missile and starting a crash program to build lasers capable of dealing with the missile threat to Taiwan, said the former director of the Center for Asian Studies at the Washington-based Heritage Foundation.

Otherwise, Fisher, who has studied the PRC military and its equipment for many years, pointed out that the next US president will have to choose between selling Taiwan the arms it needs to deter a PRC attack and forgetting about civil relations with Beijing for most of his first term, or forgoing those sales and possibly presiding over a war that could herald the real US retreat from Asia.

He said the PRC could learn a great deal from Taiwan's March 18 presidential election, but Beijing has instead issued a threat in its white paper on its Taiwan policy.

Beyond this election, what angers Beijing most is Taiwan's very existence as a democracy and its preservation of economic freedom amid growing political freedom, "which exposes the Communist Party's dictatorship as a lie," he added.

"If the next century is to be marked by a new Cold War with China, then its defining conflict will be over Taiwan," wrote Fisher. However, the Clinton administration refuses to give the next American president the necessary tools to deter conflict in the Taiwan Straits. The administration reportedly will oppose Taiwan's requests for the AEGIS naval defense system, the AMRAAM air-to-air missile and much needed conventional submarines.

But by 2010, Communist China could have up to 1,000 ballistic and cruise missiles pointed at Taiwan and US forces in Asia. These missiles will be capable of pulverizing Taiwan's air and naval forces, whose reduced numbers will face hundreds of modern Russian fighters and new Russian submarines, destroyers and supersonic anti-ship missiles, he wrote.

And the US system that could best defend Taiwan, the US Navy's theater-wide missile defense cruisers, lack funding and may not enter the fleet until 2010. This trend severely reduces US deterrence, concluded the former aide to Rep. Christopher Cox (R-CA) on Asian security affairs. (By Nelson Chung)