In mid-December last year, China officially approved the amended Regulations on the Political Work of the People's Liberation Army (PLA), including the proposed "three warfares" -- psychological, media and legal warfare -- followed by related exercises for all armed services.
Among the three, the main legal concepts related to warfare, such as "legislation before resorting to war," were particularly mentioned. Beijing also emphasized the necessity to grasp the fundamental goals and principles, and basic warfare styles and methods of legal warfare, while strengthening military officers' education in international laws, the Law of Armed Conflicts, punishment for war crimes and other related laws.
When Chinese Premier Wen Jabao (溫家寶) visited the UK in May, he at one point said that China would take the establishment of a national unification law into serious consideration. On Dec. 17, Hu Kangsheng (胡康生), chairman of the Legislative Affairs Commission under the National People's Congress, gave a briefing on the draft of an anti-secession law. Meanwhile, Beijing launched its international propaganda work on the same day, as China's representative to the UN in Geneva Sha Zukang (沙祖康) held a press conference to announce the purpose of the drawing up of the law. It is thus evident that China's Taiwan policy has already moved into legal and media warfare.
By naming the draft law the "anti-secession law" rather than the "national unification law" as it was previously called, or the "Taiwan basic law," it shows that Beijing is against national separation and Taiwan independence, but is not really in a hurry to unify with the country. The draft excludes both the Hong Kong and Macao Special Administrative Regions, and targets independence forces not only in Taiwan, but also in Tibet and Xinjiang.
China's drafting of the proposed law is to establish a legal basis to stop independence and promote unification, while forming a force of restraint on Taiwan, internal forces within China, as well as other countries. Once the law is established, Beijing will inevitably reward those who support unification and punish those who go against it under the law, so as to accomplish its goal of "opposing independence and promoting unification."
As for cross-strait relations, the political and psychological impact of the law is much greater than the legal one. Since it is merely a domestic law, not an international one, it will substantially affect Taiwanese businesspeople operating in China, and the Chinese people themselves. It will also have a psychological effect on the Taiwanese people. By using the law to turn the "Taiwan issue" into an internal and legal issue, China is oppressing human rights in Taiwan. This will harm peace and stability in the Taiwan Strait. Unfortunately, Taiwan's blue and green camps had a serious fight over the establishment of the Referendum Law (公投法) earlier this year, and they are fighting each other, not Beijing, over the anti-secession law.
What China really wants is to use the law to deal with Taiwan, so as to resolve the internal problem of lacking a legal basis to do this, and its external problem of being unable to legally restrain both Taiwan and the US. The Chinese government has long wanted to make this law. Taiwan's political direction is not the most crucial factor, and the draft was not proposed simply due to pro-independence moves.
Beijing, however, still claims that it has been forced to make this decision to defend itself. What Beijing fails to examine is why must it have to gradually tighten its Taiwan policy if it is a successful one? The more Beijing tightens its policy, the more Taipei protests. This will lead to greater tension between the two sides, and is not constructive at all.
Ironically, if Beijing refrained from strengthening its forces, would Washington need to get involved in the cross-strait crisis? At the same time Beijing claims peaceful co-existence with all countries, it does not exclude the possibility of using force against its "compatriots." This clearly shows the real face of the hegemony during its so-called "peaceful rise."
Washington, which repeatedly criticized Taiwan over its "defensive referendum," should also criticize China's proposed anti-secession law, so as to maintain the balance between the two sides. Regretfully, the response of the administration of US President George W. Bush to this day remains soft. The US has merely reaffirmed objections to any changes in the Strait. This once again makes clear the danger of the Bush administration cooperating with Beijing to punish Taipei.
Lin Cheng-yi is the director of the Institute of European and American Studies at the Academia Sinica.
TRANSLATED BY EDDY CHANG
As the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and its People’s Liberation Army (PLA) reach the point of confidence that they can start and win a war to destroy the democratic culture on Taiwan, any future decision to do so may likely be directly affected by the CCP’s ability to promote wars on the Korean Peninsula, in Europe, or, as most recently, on the Indian subcontinent. It stands to reason that the Trump Administration’s success early on May 10 to convince India and Pakistan to deescalate their four-day conventional military conflict, assessed to be close to a nuclear weapons exchange, also served to
The recent aerial clash between Pakistan and India offers a glimpse of how China is narrowing the gap in military airpower with the US. It is a warning not just for Washington, but for Taipei, too. Claims from both sides remain contested, but a broader picture is emerging among experts who track China’s air force and fighter jet development: Beijing’s defense systems are growing increasingly credible. Pakistan said its deployment of Chinese-manufactured J-10C fighters downed multiple Indian aircraft, although New Delhi denies this. There are caveats: Even if Islamabad’s claims are accurate, Beijing’s equipment does not offer a direct comparison
After India’s punitive precision strikes targeting what New Delhi called nine terrorist sites inside Pakistan, reactions poured in from governments around the world. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA) issued a statement on May 10, opposing terrorism and expressing concern about the growing tensions between India and Pakistan. The statement noticeably expressed support for the Indian government’s right to maintain its national security and act against terrorists. The ministry said that it “works closely with democratic partners worldwide in staunch opposition to international terrorism” and expressed “firm support for all legitimate and necessary actions taken by the government of India
Taiwan aims to elevate its strategic position in supply chains by becoming an artificial intelligence (AI) hub for Nvidia Corp, providing everything from advanced chips and components to servers, in an attempt to edge out its closest rival in the region, South Korea. Taiwan’s importance in the AI ecosystem was clearly reflected in three major announcements Nvidia made during this year’s Computex trade show in Taipei. First, the US company’s number of partners in Taiwan would surge to 122 this year, from 34 last year, according to a slide shown during CEO Jensen Huang’s (黃仁勳) keynote speech on Monday last week.
RSS