China has 496 missiles pointed at Taiwan. It has threatened an "abyss of war" if Taiwan refuses to acknowledge Chinese sovereignty. China's top military leaders have stated in no uncertain terms that force will be used if Taiwan declares independence -- even if doing so could mean the cancellation of the 2008 Beijing Olympics, cause a slowdown in China's economic development and lead to the deaths of many people.
Less publicized, but widely acknowledged by experts, is the information warfare that Beijing is waging against Taiwan.
China is known to have placed thousands of spies in all sectors of Taiwanese society. In its attempts to disrupt Taiwan's communication and transportation networks, to instill fear and to induce an economic breakdown, China has resorted to such measures as hacking computers, spreading rumors and dispensing erroneous economic information.
It has gone so far as to provide financial or moral support to politicians and political parties that are deemed acceptable to Beijing.
Surely, these are not initiatives designed to preserve the status quo and yet, in the recent summit between US President George W. Bush and Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao (
Taiwan is famous for its "economic miracle." More remarkable has been its rapid transition toward full democracy in the past two dozen years.
Beijing has been doing everything in its power to thwart the development of democracy in Taiwan. It sided squarely with the Chiang regime at a time when the democracy movement in Taiwan was in full swing.
In 1996, when Taiwan was taking an unprecedented step toward full democracy by allowing its president to be popularly elected, China reacted by hurling missiles toward the island, which created an international diplomatic crisis. In the 2000 presidential election, Beijing openly warned the Taiwanese electorate that a victory for the DPP's Chen Shui-bian (
Recently the legislature, on the initiative of Chen, passed a resolution allowing the people of Taiwan to exercise their democratic right to voice their views on the missile build-up across the strait and the Chinese military threat in general.
This "defensive referendum," to take place next March, has since been labeled by Beijing as a provocation designed to upset the status quo in the region.
Similarly, any talk in Taiwan of moving democracy forward by adopting a new constitution is seen in China as treacherous.
There is no doubt that it is China that is instigating fundamental change across the Taiwan Strait, and that it is the Chinese dictatorship that is trying to strangle Taiwan's democracy movement.
In this context, Bush's statement during the summit at the White House is both ironic and unfortunate.
It is ironic because the US seems to object to the Taiwanese expressing their political views peacefully through a referendum at a time when the US is sending troops to distant lands to fight terror and promote democracy.
It is unfortunate because the US seems to have sided with a country that is bent on annexing a neighbor that is seeking only peaceful, dignified coexistence with all nations.
To rebuke Taiwan for upsetting the status quo is really barking up the wrong tree.
Lin Tsung-kuang is a professor of history at Drake University in Des Moines, Iowa.
Could Asia be on the verge of a new wave of nuclear proliferation? A look back at the early history of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), which recently celebrated its 75th anniversary, illuminates some reasons for concern in the Indo-Pacific today. US Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin recently described NATO as “the most powerful and successful alliance in history,” but the organization’s early years were not without challenges. At its inception, the signing of the North Atlantic Treaty marked a sea change in American strategic thinking. The United States had been intent on withdrawing from Europe in the years following
My wife and I spent the week in the interior of Taiwan where Shuyuan spent her childhood. In that town there is a street that functions as an open farmer’s market. Walk along that street, as Shuyuan did yesterday, and it is next to impossible to come home empty-handed. Some mangoes that looked vaguely like others we had seen around here ended up on our table. Shuyuan told how she had bought them from a little old farmer woman from the countryside who said the mangoes were from a very old tree she had on her property. The big surprise
The issue of China’s overcapacity has drawn greater global attention recently, with US Secretary of the Treasury Janet Yellen urging Beijing to address its excess production in key industries during her visit to China last week. Meanwhile in Brussels, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen last week said that Europe must have a tough talk with China on its perceived overcapacity and unfair trade practices. The remarks by Yellen and Von der Leyen come as China’s economy is undergoing a painful transition. Beijing is trying to steer the world’s second-largest economy out of a COVID-19 slump, the property crisis and
As former president Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) wrapped up his visit to the People’s Republic of China, he received his share of attention. Certainly, the trip must be seen within the full context of Ma’s life, that is, his eight-year presidency, the Sunflower movement and his failed Economic Cooperation Framework Agreement, as well as his eight years as Taipei mayor with its posturing, accusations of money laundering, and ups and downs. Through all that, basic questions stand out: “What drives Ma? What is his end game?” Having observed and commented on Ma for decades, it is all ironically reminiscent of former US president Harry