During the controversy surrounding Japan’s detention of the captain of a Chinese fishing boat in the waters off the Diaoyutai Islands (釣魚台), China displayed the strength of a major power, forcing Japan to call on the US-Japan security treaty and Washington’s assistance in reining in Beijing.
The question of how to counterbalance the power of a rising China has become a matter of grave concern to the international community.
Although power in the Taiwan Strait is rapidly tilting in Beijing’s favor as its military, diplomatic and economic powers develop far beyond Taiwan’s reach, Taipei still possesses certain strengths that remain crucial when dealing with China.
Although Beijing often talks about “socialism with Chinese characteristics,” its growth has essentially followed Taiwan’s export-led development model.
As a result, the capital, technology and export experience brought in by China-based Taiwanese businesspeople has been an important catalyst for development, presenting a practical example of how Taiwan’s soft power is helping to change China.
As the emerging middle class and the number of people who have received higher education in China grow, Chinese society is reaching a turning point, as these groups pay more attention to public affairs and demand a greater part in decision-making.
This makes a clash with the one-party rule of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) almost inevitable.
As social tensions increase, China will have to move toward political reform.
Taiwan went through this process in the 1970s and 1980s. As discontent with the Chinese Nationalist Party’s (KMT) own one-party rule increased among the emerging middle class, people began to demand democracy, freedom and other rights. Despite the KMT’s efforts to suppress such demands, which led to the Kaohsiung Incident and the jailing of many pro-democracy dissidents, the party was ultimately forced to end martial law and lift the ban on establishing new political parties and newspapers.
Those moves then led inexorably to free legislative elections and the first popular election of Taiwan’s president. The KMT was unable to resist increasing social pressure and in 2000, Taiwan experienced its first peaceful transfer of power.
The Chinese leadership is now beginning to realize that economic reform will lead to similar demands for political reform, which is why Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao (溫家寶) has recently addressed the topic. Chinese President Hu Jintao (胡錦濤) also broached the subject in a speech at the fifth plenary session of the CCP’s 17th Central Committee. Clearly, the Chinese leadership understands the need for political reform. The question is how extensive it should be and at what speed it should be carried out so as not to cause social instability and minimize its impact on the CCP.
When the Nobel Committee awarded the peace prize to Liu Xiaobo (劉曉波), it was an indication of strong support for China’s democracy movement and while change will not be immediate, it is unavoidable.
The CCP needs to decide whether to attempt to obstruct democracy or facilitate its development. If it chooses the former then history will pass it by, just as it did the Communist Party of the Soviet Union. If, however, the CCP decides to embrace change then it could repeat the experience of the KMT, which suffered in the short run, but remains a political force in Taiwan.
The experience of Taiwan over the past 20 years shows that a peaceful and bloodless change from authoritarianism to freedom and democratic rule has built public support for human rights. The best way for Taiwan to help China and the world is to promote such change.
“History does not repeat itself, but it rhymes” (attributed to Mark Twain). The USSR was the international bully during the Cold War as it sought to make the world safe for Soviet-style Communism. China is now the global bully as it applies economic power and invests in Mao’s (毛澤東) magic weapons (the People’s Liberation Army [PLA], the United Front Work Department, and the Chinese Communist Party [CCP]) to achieve world domination. Freedom-loving countries must respond to the People’s Republic of China (PRC), especially in the Indo-Pacific (IP), as resolutely as they did against the USSR. In 1954, the US and its allies
Mainland Affairs Council Deputy Minister Shen You-chung (沈有忠) on Thursday last week urged democratic nations to boycott China’s military parade on Wednesday next week. The parade, a grand display of Beijing’s military hardware, is meant to commemorate the 80th anniversary of Japan’s surrender in World War II. While China has invited world leaders to attend, many have declined. A Kyodo News report on Sunday said that Japan has asked European and Asian leaders who have yet to respond to the invitation to refrain from attending. Tokyo is seeking to prevent Beijing from spreading its distorted interpretation of wartime history, the report
Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi arrived in China yesterday, where he is to attend a summit of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) with Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) and Russian President Vladimir Putin today. As this coincides with the 50 percent US tariff levied on Indian products, some Western news media have suggested that Modi is moving away from the US, and into the arms of China and Russia. Taiwan-Asia Exchange Foundation fellow Sana Hashmi in a Taipei Times article published yesterday titled “Myths around Modi’s China visit” said that those analyses have misrepresented India’s strategic calculations, and attempted to view
When Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) stood in front of the Potala Palace in Lhasa on Thursday last week, flanked by Chinese flags, synchronized schoolchildren and armed Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA) troops, he was not just celebrating the 60th anniversary of the establishment of the “Tibet Autonomous Region,” he was making a calculated declaration: Tibet is China. It always has been. Case closed. Except it has not. The case remains wide open — not just in the hearts of Tibetans, but in history records. For decades, Beijing has insisted that Tibet has “always been part of China.” It is a phrase