Print

Mail

wiki links

Cross-strait threats versus reality

POPULAR CHINESE ECONOMIST Hu Angang (胡鞍剛) has famously commented that Taiwan would not last more than seven days if China were to initiate trade and economic warfare, as it is overly reliant on China. Some in Taiwan anxiously cite his words to oppose direct links and the lifting of the 40 percent cap on China-bound investment, because they believe such moves would make Taiwan even more dependent on China. These individuals demand that those in favor of direct links first convincingly refute Hu's argument before they discuss opening direct links or lifting the investment cap.

The problem is that whether China decides to initiate economic warfare is not dependent on someone convincingly refuting Hu. Instead, it depends on whether Beijing has been convinced by Hu's arguments. Although Hu has influenced mainstream economic policy, he is a rabid nationalist and a total fundamentalist when it comes to cross-strait policy. There's no country in the world without fundamentalists. However, they rarely grasp the reins of power.

Under the threat of the fundamentalist faction, China engaged in military exercises last year, causing Japan and the US to announce a new direction for their security pact by officially listing China as a target for military containment. The US even raised the specifications on arms sales to Taiwan on this pretext. The pursuit of immediate satisfaction brought significant strategic losses for Beijing -- and later led to transfers for the military officials who advocated strong offensive attitudes toward the US.

Previously, pro-unification supporters often echoed Beijing's insistence that China could bring Taiwan to heel militarily in less than one month -- thus Taiwanese independence, legislative elections, direct presidential elections, constitutional amendments or referendums must not be pursued for fear of reprisals. In 2000, then Chinese premier Zhu Rongji (朱鎔基) threatened dire consequences if the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) presidential candidate were elected president. However, Beijing did not end up taking any action. In the end, threats abounded, but actions were restrained.

Now, there are only economic sanctions rather than missiles, which project a very different international image and are apparently capable of bringing about unification within seven days. This is an ultra low-cost option with an extremely good payoff, to the point that not pursuing it would be illogical. Some say that Beijing is only holding off temporarily, rather than holding off because it is incapable. This is even more bizarre: Why would politicians leave a good scoring opportunity to those who come after them?

What is the possibility that China will take action against Taiwan? Currently, in the global electronics industry supply chain, half of China's international export surplus is made possible through Taiwanese businesses. In The World is Flat, Thomas Friedman claims that China could not possibly bear the cost it would have to pay for destroying Taiwan as an independent country. He says that any two countries that are slave to the same global supply chain would not actually engage in war. If they did, the consequence of economic recession in China would probably not something that Beijing's leaders -- who are ever attentive of their authority -- would be willing to confront.

This is why when President Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁) was elected president on Mar. 20, 2000, China had to use concrete non-military means to refute its own threats of reprisal prior to the election. Now, Hu is also about to contradict himself, without any help from Taiwan's supporters of direct links. Actually, he has already reversed himself: After saying that Taiwan is overly reliant on China, so that Beijing could defeat Taiwan after just seven days of economic warfare, he said that Taiwan has marginalized itself in the integration of the East Asian economy through its "no haste, be patient" policy.

These two viewpoints are completely contradictory. If over-reliance on China is a fact, and China has been integrated with East Asia, then would Taiwan not also be integrated because of its high reliance on China? How is this marginalizing? If the "no haste, be patient" policy effectively prevented Taiwanese businesses from investing in China to the point that Hu must voice his strong opposition, then Taiwan would not be overly reliant on China. So how could China defeat Taiwan in seven days of economic warfare?

Fundamentalists the world over will always come to contradictions between arguments and reality -- sometimes their arguments are even self-contradictory. Hence Hu will refute himself, and save anyone else the trouble.

Lin Cho-shui is a former Democratic Progressive Party legislator.

TRANSLATED BY ANGELA HONG
This story has been viewed 1307 times.