The naive faith that a pan-green failure to secure a legislative majority two Saturdays ago would lead to relaxed relations with China didn't even last a week. That this was the mantra adopted by the foreign media in its entirety after the elections just goes to show how the collective fascination with a rising China seems to lobotomize commentators who should know better.
China is in the grip of a raging nationalism based on a virulent sense of historical wrong. It has the imperial ambitions of Wilhelmine Germany with the sense of historical victimhood of the Third Reich. "Relax" isn't a word in China's diplomatic lexicon.
The message China received was that intimidation works. It ignores -- probably is entirely ignorant of -- the pork-barrel nature of Taiwan's legislative election campaigns, and therefore President Chen Shui-bian's (
Thus we can expect at the weekend China's rubber stamp parliament to pass the "anti-secession law," whose purpose is to forbid the secession of any part of what China considers its national territory. Its purpose is to mandate military attack on Taiwan should it declare independence; or, according to some speculation in the Hong Kong papers, remember that no draft of the law has been released yet -- even if it fails to reunify by a certain date.
There are a number of things that might be said about this law. The first is that it is absurd; whoever heard of one country making laws for another?
The second is that, absurd though it might be, it is clearly indicative of China's hegemonic intentions.
China is determined to be master of the Western Pacific, something it cannot be while it does not control Taiwan. Those with strategic interests in the region, the US and Japan, need to wake up to the fact that China's intention to take over Taiwan is not based on some nonsense about the inalienability of historically Chinese-controlled territory -- note that China has made no claim to Outer Mongolia.
China wants Taiwan because it wants regional dominance, for which the "unsinkable aircraft carrier" is the key. There is a lot more at stake here than questions of Taiwanese identity.
Since the US has been so critical of Chen "proposing to change the status quo," it will be interesting to see if they rap China's knuckles in the same way.
It is hard not to see yesterday's news that serving military officers are to be stationed here for the first time since 1979 as anything other than a response to China's plans, though the US move was probably planned long beforehand.
The new law might have the benefit of waking the US up to how it has let itself be hopelessly manipulated by Beijing for the last year or so into putting pressure on Taiwan and working against its better, strategic interests.
But the important message that has to be understood in Washington and broadcast to Beijing is that the new law will be a disaster for any kind of cross-strait dialogue. Taiwan has been willing to talk for a long time. It simply wants to do so without preposterous preconditions which nobody could possibly find acceptable.
This leaves the ball in Beijing's court to soften its stance and allow talks to take place. Actually Beijing needs an internal debate about how best to woo Taiwan. But all the regime understands is pressure. It thinks pressure works and it is about to go some way toward criminalizing the suggestion that pressure should be abandoned. This is a great and dangerous leap backwards.
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,
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