The director of China’s Taiwan Affairs Office (TAO), Wang Yi (王毅), has given Taiwan the jitters by suggesting the opening up of the Taiwan Strait median line. Such discussions had always been held behind closed doors and bringing it out into the open challenges the Chinese Nationalist Party’s (KMT) policy of avoiding discussion of unification, independence or armed conflict.
The KMT has only itself to blame because it has taken satisfaction in its ability to maintain cross-strait peace since it returned to power last year and it feels it should receive full credit for the international acclaim over the detente across the Taiwan Strait.
However, has the cross-strait crisis ever been that serious? Is the contribution of the KMT to cross-strait relations so remarkable? Why has the government decided to adamantly defend the Taiwan Strait median line?
Beijing has suggested opening the Taiwan Strait median line, a symbol of cross-strait animosity, to air traffic. This move has exposed the true colors of the KMT’s policy of avoiding armed conflict and prioritizing cross-strait economic exchanges. It seems the ruling and opposition parties have reached a consensus on defending the median line, and from their and the public’s unanimous reaction, it is clear that very few people consider that absence of armed cross-strait conflict is the same as “true peace.”
However, the idea that the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) must be prevented from taking military action to avoid cross-strait military conflict is built on the premise that the PLA can wantonly engage in military aggression.
It is thus clear that the KMT’s policy to avoid armed conflict is essentially a Cold War containment policy. But the Cold War has ended, and the PLA and the Chinese regime are evolving. If the KMT continues to insist on a containment policy, it will only contain Taiwan.
The Taiwanese independence extravaganza put on by high-level government officials to further their own interests under the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) government never really jeopardized cross-strait peace. The reality is the PLA has never wanted to invade Taiwan, nor does Washington want to fight a proxy war between Taiwan and the PLA. The promotion of Taiwanese independence only provided Beijing with an opportunity to give Washington the impression of being a peacemaker while building its own power and creating the impression that it was cooperating with the US to manage the cross-strait situation.
When President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) was forced to define his position, his declaration was never aimed at Beijing and didn’t even have anything to do with maintaining cross-strait peace. After all, cross-strait relations have never been under threat since the great powers started watching over the Strait, and the KMT itself can do nothing to change cross-strait peace. Ma’s motive was thus simply to show independence supporters the KMT’s determination not to abandon Taiwan. In addition, with the opposition spreading rumors about the National Security Council head abandoning arms procurement, the KMT had no choice but to make concessions on the median line issue.
If Taiwan were to declare independence, the median would be the national border. If the KMT had not declared its stance to defend the median line, it would have meant that the party denied the possibility of Taiwanese independence, which would have been tantamount to the KMT destroying its future.
Therefore, consolidating the impression of a war crisis is a KMT strategy to comfort independence advocates. In so doing, the KMT has been given the opportunity to proclaim that it is better qualified to maintain cross-strait peace than the opposition.
The PLA has given up its intention to cross the Taiwan Strait, the KMT has never wanted to provoke its Chinese counterpart, supporters of Taiwanese independence dare not declare war with China, and Washington is far from prepared to go to war.
This is a top national secret with the potential to destroy the government’s legitimacy, and it has now been exposed by Wang’s proposal to open up the median line.
Shih Chih-yu is a political science professor at National Taiwan University.
TRANSLATED BY PERRY SVENSSON AND TED YANG
On May 7, 1971, Henry Kissinger planned his first, ultra-secret mission to China and pondered whether it would be better to meet his Chinese interlocutors “in Pakistan where the Pakistanis would tape the meeting — or in China where the Chinese would do the taping.” After a flicker of thought, he decided to have the Chinese do all the tape recording, translating and transcribing. Fortuitously, historians have several thousand pages of verbatim texts of Dr. Kissinger’s negotiations with his Chinese counterparts. Paradoxically, behind the scenes, Chinese stenographers prepared verbatim English language typescripts faster than they could translate and type them
More than 30 years ago when I immigrated to the US, applied for citizenship and took the 100-question civics test, the one part of the naturalization process that left the deepest impression on me was one question on the N-400 form, which asked: “Have you ever been a member of, involved in or in any way associated with any communist or totalitarian party anywhere in the world?” Answering “yes” could lead to the rejection of your application. Some people might try their luck and lie, but if exposed, the consequences could be much worse — a person could be fined,
Xiaomi Corp founder Lei Jun (雷軍) on May 22 made a high-profile announcement, giving online viewers a sneak peek at the company’s first 3-nanometer mobile processor — the Xring O1 chip — and saying it is a breakthrough in China’s chip design history. Although Xiaomi might be capable of designing chips, it lacks the ability to manufacture them. No matter how beautifully planned the blueprints are, if they cannot be mass-produced, they are nothing more than drawings on paper. The truth is that China’s chipmaking efforts are still heavily reliant on the free world — particularly on Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing
Last week, Nvidia chief executive officer Jensen Huang (黃仁勳) unveiled the location of Nvidia’s new Taipei headquarters and announced plans to build the world’s first large-scale artificial intelligence (AI) supercomputer in Taiwan. In Taipei, Huang’s announcement was welcomed as a milestone for Taiwan’s tech industry. However, beneath the excitement lies a significant question: Can Taiwan’s electricity infrastructure, especially its renewable energy supply, keep up with growing demand from AI chipmaking? Despite its leadership in digital hardware, Taiwan lags behind in renewable energy adoption. Moreover, the electricity grid is already experiencing supply shortages. As Taiwan’s role in AI manufacturing expands, it is critical that