Yesterday, three closely related events occurred in three cities -- two in Taiwan and one in China. Major rallies were held in Taichung and Kaohsiung by tens of thousands of Taiwanese supporting the nation's bid to join the UN. Meanwhile, Shanghai held its largest air raid drill since 1949, with sirens ringing across the city for as long as 20 minutes. These events indicate that the two sides of the Taiwan Strait will not back down over Taiwan's sovereignty.
Yesterday's air raid drill in Shanghai was not widely publicized by the Chinese government. Despite the sirens, people and cars were not required to stop or take refuge. Instead, everyone went about their day as usual. It goes without saying that the intended audience of the air raid drill was on the other side of the Taiwan Strait, and the message conveyed was the possibility of war.
The truth of the matter is that Taiwan has very little chance of entering the UN in the immediate future, regardless of whether it applies under the name "Taiwan" or "Republic of China." After all, China wields great power within the UN, holding a permanent seat on the Security Council and having formal diplomatic relations with most UN members.
So why does it matter if Taiwan holds a referendum on entering the UN? Even if an overwhelmingly large percentage of the people in Taiwan vote in favor of joining it, this would not make Taiwan a UN member.
But if Taiwanese were to vote in a referendum on the UN bid, the act would represent a clear example of Taiwanese self-rule, which is intolerable to Beijing.
Taiwan's frustration over decades of international isolation has become increasingly acute as Beijing tightens its iron grip on Taiwan's "permissible" international activities. In the past, the Taiwanese government has focused on joining non-political organizations such as the WHO. With the exception of the WTO, which Taiwan joined not as a sovereign state but as a "custom tariff territory," almost all its efforts to join international organizations have been blocked by China.
With the Beijing Olympic Games just around the corner, Beijing cannot threaten Taiwan as it has before.
Therefore, the job of warning Taiwan against independence activities has been left in the hands of the US, which has already publicly cautioned Taiwan against holding a referendum.
Between Beijing and Washington, the latter obviously still carries more weight with the Taiwanese government. Unless Beijing is ready to go to war, it has very little leverage over Taipei.
But what if there is something slightly less than a formal declaration of independence, such as a referendum on UN entry?
It seems there is little consensus on what China would do.
But one way or another, Beijing had to respond to yesterday's rally in Taiwan. The air raid drill in Shanghai clearly showed its true colors.
When Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) sits down with US President Donald Trump in Beijing on Thursday next week, Xi is unlikely to demand a dramatic public betrayal of Taiwan. He does not need to. Beijing’s preferred victory is smaller, quieter and in some ways far more dangerous: a subtle shift in American wording that appears technical, but carries major strategic meaning. The ask is simple: replace the longstanding US formulation that Washington “does not support Taiwan independence” with a harder one — that Washington “opposes” Taiwan independence. One word changes; a deterrence structure built over decades begins to shift.
The cancelation this week of President William Lai’s (賴清德) state visit to Eswatini, after the Seychelles, Madagascar and Mauritius revoked overflight permits under Chinese pressure, is one more measure of Taiwan’s shrinking executive diplomatic space. Another channel that deserves attention keeps growing while the first contracts. For several years now, Taipei has been one of Europe’s busiest legislative destinations. Where presidents and foreign ministers cannot land, parliamentarians do — and they do it in rising numbers. The Italian parliament opened the year with its largest bipartisan delegation to Taiwan to date: six Italian deputies and one senator, drawn from six
Recently, Taipei’s streets have been plagued by the bizarre sight of rats running rampant and the city government’s countermeasures have devolved into an anti-intellectual farce. The Taipei Parks and Street Lights Office has attempted to eradicate rats by filling their burrows with polyurethane foam, seeming to believe that rats could not simply dig another path out. Meanwhile, as the nation’s capital slowly deteriorates into a rat hive, the Taipei Department of Environmental Protection has proudly pointed to the increase in the number of poisoned rats reported in February and March as a sign of success. When confronted with public concerns over young
Taipei is facing a severe rat infestation, and the city government is reportedly considering large-scale use of rodenticides as its primary control measure. However, this move could trigger an ecological disaster, including mass deaths of birds of prey. In the past, black kites, relatives of eagles, took more than three decades to return to the skies above the Taipei Basin. Taiwan’s black kite population was nearly wiped out by the combined effects of habitat destruction, pesticides and rodenticides. By 1992, fewer than 200 black kites remained on the island. Fortunately, thanks to more than 30 years of collective effort to preserve their remaining
RSS