If China were an elementary-school student, its report card would read: “Does not play well with others; often tries to bully smaller children.”
Beijing does not like to play in a group where it cannot dictate the rules or the results. That seems to be the message from this week’s ASEAN+ meeting in Phnom Penh, Cambodia, where China once again rebuffed calls from the Philippines, Vietnam and others to agree to talks on operating in disputed areas of the South China Sea.
Chinese Vice Foreign Minister Fu Ying (傅瑩) was quoted as saying on Wednesday that Beijing would discuss a code of conduct in the South China Sea — that would be legally binding and comply with the UN’s Law of the Sea treaty — “when conditions are ripe,” which, reading between the lines, means when pigs can fly.
Beijing prefers one-on-one negotiations with its smaller neighbors where it can throw its weight around in the form of trade and political pressure. It does not want to have to face a united front of other countries, including Taiwan, that claim, either wholly or in part, islands, reefs and waters in the South China Sea.
The nationalistic slant is that China was once the victim of unequal treaties with Western powers and Japan and it will not allow itself to be put in that position again.
The problem is that the longer Beijing maintains that position, the less reason there is for the others to agree to wait and not try to work out something for themselves, particularly as China continues to demonstrate its reluctance to be governed by the rule of law when it comes to commercial disputes, whether on the private or national level.
Taiwanese companies and businesspeople have learned this the hard way, with Shin Kong Mitsukoshi Department Store Co the latest to downsize its investment in a joint venture in China in a bid to end years of disputes with its Chinese partner that saw the general manager of its Beijing operations detained by Chinese security a few years ago.
Think of all the stories recorded in recent years by Victims of Investment in China Association president William Kao (高為邦). Shen Po-sheng (沈柏勝), Chang Chiu-lin (張九麟) and countless other businesspeople have fallen foul of the dirty tricks adopted by their Chinese partners or local and municipal governments. Many sought redress in Chinese courts, with little to show for their belief in law. Others received physical threats to desist in their attempts to seek legal redress or even ended up in prison.
There have been calls in Taiwan for the government to speed up the inking of an investment protection pact with China to provide a legal framework to deal with such disputes, but it is not Taipei that has been dragging its feet in such negotiations, it is Beijing. There is also nothing to guarantee that such a framework would be worth the paper it is printed on.
For a framework to work there has to be a level playing field and that is the one thing that Beijing will never allow; in fact, it appears terrified of the idea.
So whether it is a small(ish) investment by an entrepreneur or a corporation or a nation seeking to explore and exploit the oil, gas, mineral or fishing rights in its own exclusive economic zone, the hard truth is that you cannot expect China to play by the rules.
Beijing is simply trying to drag out the matter while the People’s Liberation Army Navy expands, providing it with a bigger stick to try and enforce its point of view.
It is high time Taiwan, the Philippines, Vietnam, Malaysia and Brunei reached their own accords, whether via ASEAN or some other format, instead of waiting for China to decide to play.
Taiwan stands at the epicenter of a seismic shift that will determine the Indo-Pacific’s future security architecture. Whether deterrence prevails or collapses will reverberate far beyond the Taiwan Strait, fundamentally reshaping global power dynamics. The stakes could not be higher. Today, Taipei confronts an unprecedented convergence of threats from an increasingly muscular China that has intensified its multidimensional pressure campaign. Beijing’s strategy is comprehensive: military intimidation, diplomatic isolation, economic coercion, and sophisticated influence operations designed to fracture Taiwan’s democratic society from within. This challenge is magnified by Taiwan’s internal political divisions, which extend to fundamental questions about the island’s identity and future
The narrative surrounding Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s attendance at last week’s Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) summit — where he held hands with Russian President Vladimir Putin and chatted amiably with Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) — was widely framed as a signal of Modi distancing himself from the US and edging closer to regional autocrats. It was depicted as Modi reacting to the levying of high US tariffs, burying the hatchet over border disputes with China, and heralding less engagement with the Quadrilateral Security dialogue (Quad) composed of the US, India, Japan and Australia. With Modi in China for the
The Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) has postponed its chairperson candidate registration for two weeks, and so far, nine people have announced their intention to run for chairperson, the most on record, with more expected to announce their campaign in the final days. On the evening of Aug. 23, shortly after seven KMT lawmakers survived recall votes, KMT Chairman Eric Chu (朱立倫) announced he would step down and urged Taichung Mayor Lu Shiow-yen (盧秀燕) to step in and lead the party back to power. Lu immediately ruled herself out the following day, leaving the subject in question. In the days that followed, several
The Jamestown Foundation last week published an article exposing Beijing’s oil rigs and other potential dual-use platforms in waters near Pratas Island (Dongsha Island, 東沙島). China’s activities there resembled what they did in the East China Sea, inside the exclusive economic zones of Japan and South Korea, as well as with other South China Sea claimants. However, the most surprising element of the report was that the authors’ government contacts and Jamestown’s own evinced little awareness of China’s activities. That Beijing’s testing of Taiwanese (and its allies) situational awareness seemingly went unnoticed strongly suggests the need for more intelligence. Taiwan’s naval
RSS