Most people would like to see a reduction in tensions across the Taiwan Strait.
The outdated "Taiwan Crisis," as many news wires and think tanks melodramatically call a "dispute" that is usually quite boring, is generally cited as potentially one of the most explosive conflicts in Asia, if not the world.
Dramatizing China-Taiwan relations is all well and good for people trying to sell books championing policy proposals that are so unrealistic as to sound like parody (think Ted Galen Carpenter's America's Coming War with China, which essentially advocates a complete US withdrawal from all of Asia to stop the "coming war").
But when senior diplomats from the countries involved sensationalize the issue, people must first let their shock at the official's irresponsibility and callousness subside, before trying to determine what the motivation was.
Yesterday, China's ambassador to the UN, Sha Zukang (
"The China population is six times or five times that of the United States," Sha said. "Why blame China? [for it's rising defense spending] ... It's better for the US to shut up and keep quiet. It's much, much better."
Later, with regard to what China would do if Taiwan declared independence, he added: "We will do the business at any cost," which one can only assume means going to war.
"It's not a matter of how big Taiwan is, but for China, one inch of the territory is more valuable than the life of our people. We will never concede on that," Sha said.
Now, there isn't much here that hasn't been said before. Chinese military officers and academics often make threats of dire consequences if Taiwan declares independence.
There is little need to address the ambassador's emotionally charged ranting.
Obviously people aren't concerned about the relationship between defense spending and demographics: They're concerned about sudden and substantial increases in military spending by authoritarian states with a history of internal and external violence.
What is most shocking in this case is the fact that this was not a retired colonel writing a paper in an obscure Chinese defense journal; this was Beijing's envoy to the UN being interviewed by one of the most influential news agencies on the planet.
Why would he say such things now? The Taiwanese government hasn't done anything "provocative" lately. US-China relations aren't particularly bad at present, although they have been gradually worsening throughout the Bush administration.
Contrast these comments with recent events in Taiwan. Efforts to liberalize cross-strait trade restrictions are finally gaining momentum. Meanwhile, pro-unification supporters are in ascendancy as the ruling party implodes over a flurry of scandals.
So what do Sha's comments mean?
They mean that the world needs to be very alarmed. No one questions that China is a rising power. But there are a lot of people who are convinced that all China wants is a little respect: If they treat it like a responsible country, it will act like a responsible country. This is a mistake.
Beijing is not responsible. Tired of being the "Sick Man of Asia" that it was for most of the 19th and 20th centuries, China has been self-medicating with the only narcotic it knows: ethnic nationalism.
China isn't the Sick Man of Asia anymore: It's a drug addict.
As strategic tensions escalate across the vast Indo-Pacific region, Taiwan has emerged as more than a potential flashpoint. It is the fulcrum upon which the credibility of the evolving American-led strategy of integrated deterrence now rests. How the US and regional powers like Japan respond to Taiwan’s defense, and how credible the deterrent against Chinese aggression proves to be, will profoundly shape the Indo-Pacific security architecture for years to come. A successful defense of Taiwan through strengthened deterrence in the Indo-Pacific would enhance the credibility of the US-led alliance system and underpin America’s global preeminence, while a failure of integrated deterrence would
The Executive Yuan recently revised a page of its Web site on ethnic groups in Taiwan, replacing the term “Han” (漢族) with “the rest of the population.” The page, which was updated on March 24, describes the composition of Taiwan’s registered households as indigenous (2.5 percent), foreign origin (1.2 percent) and the rest of the population (96.2 percent). The change was picked up by a social media user and amplified by local media, sparking heated discussion over the weekend. The pan-blue and pro-China camp called it a politically motivated desinicization attempt to obscure the Han Chinese ethnicity of most Taiwanese.
On Wednesday last week, the Rossiyskaya Gazeta published an article by Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) asserting the People’s Republic of China’s (PRC) territorial claim over Taiwan effective 1945, predicated upon instruments such as the 1943 Cairo Declaration and the 1945 Potsdam Proclamation. The article further contended that this de jure and de facto status was subsequently reaffirmed by UN General Assembly Resolution 2758 of 1971. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs promptly issued a statement categorically repudiating these assertions. In addition to the reasons put forward by the ministry, I believe that China’s assertions are open to questions in international
The Legislative Yuan passed an amendment on Friday last week to add four national holidays and make Workers’ Day a national holiday for all sectors — a move referred to as “four plus one.” The Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) and the Taiwan People’s Party (TPP), who used their combined legislative majority to push the bill through its third reading, claim the holidays were chosen based on their inherent significance and social relevance. However, in passing the amendment, they have stuck to the traditional mindset of taking a holiday just for the sake of it, failing to make good use of
RSS