While calling on the international community to respect China’s “right” to peaceful development, Beijing has yet to abandon its tendency to make requests that are diametrically opposed to that goal.
Again this week, Beijing called on Washington to facilitate mutual understanding and respect its core interests, which include its claim of sovereignty over Taiwan. The problem with such assertions is that Beijing’s definition of mutual understanding is often irreconcilable with reality, or at least morality.
It is very difficult, for one, to increase mutual understanding when one side’s position is underscored by the deployment of 1,600 ballistic missiles. Surely, mutual understanding cannot include the other party’s acknowledgement that the Chinese military has a right to threaten Taiwan’s 23 million peace-loving people, let alone ignore their own preferences regarding their identity and the destiny of their nation.
Bowing to such calls for mutual understanding, with the threat of force as one of the main elements of that understanding, would be tantamount to moral capitulation on Washington’s part, whether as a country that perceives itself as a beacon of democracy or as Taiwan’s sole security guarantor.
The other, equally fatal, flaw in Beijing’s plea for mutual understanding is that on core issues, the understanding in fact is not mutual: It expects its counterparts to absorb, and if possible abide by, its own idiosyncratic view of the world, while categorically refusing to compromise. Taiwan again serves as a perfect example.
It is therefore anxiety-provoking when supposedly seasoned diplomats and strategists, such as former US national security adviser Zbigniew Brzezinski, argue that at some point, the US will have to address the Taiwan “question” and “be sensitive to the meaning of this issue to China,” which in effect represents abdicating to calls by Chinese Minister of Foreign Affairs Yang Jiechi (楊潔篪) to increase mutual trust.
Never mind that Brzezinski was once again exhibiting his utter inability to understand Taiwan or that mutual trust should also include input from the 23 million people in Taiwan who would be most affected by a decision — which he only vaguely hints at — to abandon Taiwan.
The same applies to the argument, repeated by Brzezinski, that the desired “one China” could, through a peaceful process, exist in the form of several political systems. Here — and we have Hong Kong’s and Tibet’s experience as models — what we have is not mutual understanding, but wishful thinking, if not downright naivety. Beijing does not brook the existence of different political systems under “one China.” Since 1950, when the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) invaded Tibet, Tibetan customs and religion have become shadows of their former glory. The same applies to the tottering democratic system in Hong Kong, which little by little is being chopped away at the edges by Beijing and its minions inside the territory.
Beijing is not exactly receptive to the need for reciprocity that underscores mutual trust and understanding. Tibetans, Uighurs and Hong Kongers know full well from their own, for the most part painful, experience that, by Chinese definition, mutual understanding is a one-way street, and one that leads straight to Zhongnanhai.
So now Brzezinski and other China apologists would have Taiwanese show understanding for the PLA forcing them to live under the shadow of war? No sane person would understand, let alone accept, such a threat. That Beijing continues to aim those missiles at its “own blood” and “compatriots” only proves the point that the Chinese leadership could not care less about the opinions of others.
Ideas matter. They especially matter in world affairs. And in communist countries, it is communist ideas, not supreme leaders’ personality traits, that matter most. That is the reality in the People’s Republic of China. All Chinese communist leaders — from Mao Zedong (毛澤東) through Deng Xiaoping (鄧小平), from Jiang Zemin (江澤民) and Hu Jintao (胡錦濤) through to Xi Jinping (習近平) — have always held two key ideas to be sacred and self-evident: first, that the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) is infallible, and second, that the Marxist-Leninist socialist system of governance is superior to every alternative. The ideological consistency by all CCP leaders,
The US on Friday hosted the second Global COVID-19 Summit, with at least 98 countries, including Taiwan, and regional alliances such as the G7, the G20, the African Union and the Caribbean Community (CARICOM) attending. Washington is also leading a proposal to revise one of the most important documents in global health security — the International Health Regulations (IHR) — which are to be discussed during the 75th World Health Assembly (WHA) that starts on Sunday. These two actions highlight the US’ strategic move to dominate the global health agenda and return to the core of governance, with the WHA
Just as the cause of the Kursk submarine disaster remains shrouded in mystery — the nuclear-powered Russian submarine suffered an explosion during a naval exercise on Aug. 12, 2000, and sank, killing all 118 crew onboard — it is unlikely that we will ever get to the bottom of the sequence of events last month that led to the sinking of the Moskva guided missile cruiser, the flagship of the Russian navy’s Black Sea fleet. Ukraine claims it struck the vessel with two missiles, while Russia says ammunition onboard the ship exploded and the ship tipped over while being towed
The war in Ukraine continues, and lines are slowly being drawn in the sand. Nations have begun imposing sanctions; few can ignore the reality of Russia’s aggression and atrocities, especially as it edges to the possibility of making a full declaration of war. For Taiwan, this resurrects a different reality, the tangled web of its own complex past and how as a colony of Japan, it became involved with Russia, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT). Some role reversals are immediately evident. Taiwan is now an independent nation and the CCP rules China. The CCP indirectly