China is once again putting its military might on display in order to threaten Taiwan. Hong Kong media outlets reported Tuesday that China would hold military exercises on Dongshan Island off Fujian Province. According to the reports, the exercises would involve large numbers of personnel, aircraft and submarines.
The purpose of making threats is to frighten one's opponent and in so doing to hijack that opponent's freedom to think and act. As long as no attack actually materializes, the threat of attack always remains. Former president Lee Teng-hui (
Lee, in his straightforward way, revealed what lies at the heart of China's military threats. China doesn't have to attack; by making occasional threats, it can always frighten some Taiwanese, ensuring that they don't dare contravene China's wishes.
But given the sensitivity and fragility of the international economic environment, China does not really need to invade Taiwan. It can hurt Taiwan more than enough by test-firing the occasional missile and complicating Taiwan's international relations -- for this is sufficient to cause investors to pull out of Taiwan, the stock market to crash, Taiwanese society to be disrupted and people to leave the country.
Since China stopped shelling Kinmen in the 1970s, Chinese threats have caused Taiwan's economic and political reform to make progress very slowly. Only US promises of military assistance have been able to relax the political and economic situation in Taiwan.
But China's threat-making has been constant, though new pretexts are sometimes provided for it. During the Lee era, China threatened Taiwan time and again, calling Lee a traitor and saying that he would be swept into the dustbin of history. Now that President Chen Shui-bian (
We don't know if the Chinese people should be proud or sorry that China, a country claiming to have a glorious 5,000 year-old culture, has become the nightmare of Taiwan, a country sharing its culture.
In short, it is difficult to reason with China's leaders -- so Taiwan must help itself.
Only by improving its military preparedness will Taiwan have any bargaining chips in cross-strait negotiations. Only by tightening military exchanges with the US and Japan and upgrading the nation's military hardware will Taiwan gain an effective deterrent against rash Chinese action.
China's military expenditures have increased over the years while those of Taiwan have gradually declined. To improve that nation's anti-missile equipment and strengthen its naval capability, yesterday the Cabinet finally proposed a NT$610.8 billion (US$17.9 billion) special budget to buy modern weapons from the US. Cabinet spokesman Chen Chi-mai (
Security across the Taiwan Strait is crucial not only to the development of Taiwan's politics and economy but also to regional peace in Asia. Once disorder occurs in Taiwan, it may damage the political and economic stability of neighboring countries -- such as Japan, South Korea and Southeast Asian countries. In particular, as China's political and economic power increases, its military expansion threatens the military balance in East Asia.
The Chinese military expansion is indeed worrisome. No wonder US State Department spokesman Richard Boucher expressed his concern during a press briefing on Tuesday, saying that the US sees "the [Chinese] military buildup and missile deployments as destabilizing."
There is much evidence that the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) is sending soldiers from the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) to support Russia’s invasion of Ukraine — and is learning lessons for a future war against Taiwan. Until now, the CCP has claimed that they have not sent PLA personnel to support Russian aggression. On 18 April, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelinskiy announced that the CCP is supplying war supplies such as gunpowder, artillery, and weapons subcomponents to Russia. When Zelinskiy announced on 9 April that the Ukrainian Army had captured two Chinese nationals fighting with Russians on the front line with details
On a quiet lane in Taipei’s central Daan District (大安), an otherwise unremarkable high-rise is marked by a police guard and a tawdry A4 printout from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs indicating an “embassy area.” Keen observers would see the emblem of the Holy See, one of Taiwan’s 12 so-called “diplomatic allies.” Unlike Taipei’s other embassies and quasi-consulates, no national flag flies there, nor is there a plaque indicating what country’s embassy this is. Visitors hoping to sign a condolence book for the late Pope Francis would instead have to visit the Italian Trade Office, adjacent to Taipei 101. The death of
By now, most of Taiwan has heard Taipei Mayor Chiang Wan-an’s (蔣萬安) threats to initiate a vote of no confidence against the Cabinet. His rationale is that the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP)-led government’s investigation into alleged signature forgery in the Chinese Nationalist Party’s (KMT) recall campaign constitutes “political persecution.” I sincerely hope he goes through with it. The opposition currently holds a majority in the Legislative Yuan, so the initiation of a no-confidence motion and its passage should be entirely within reach. If Chiang truly believes that the government is overreaching, abusing its power and targeting political opponents — then
The Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT), joined by the Taiwan People’s Party (TPP), held a protest on Saturday on Ketagalan Boulevard in Taipei. They were essentially standing for the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), which is anxious about the mass recall campaign against KMT legislators. President William Lai (賴清德) said that if the opposition parties truly wanted to fight dictatorship, they should do so in Tiananmen Square — and at the very least, refrain from groveling to Chinese officials during their visits to China, alluding to meetings between KMT members and Chinese authorities. Now that China has been defined as a foreign hostile force,
RSS