It took a while for the news to come out, but on Thursday last week the Chinese military showed its true colors and fired a missile into space, destroying an obsolete Chinese weather satellite.
In what must rank as the funniest comment to come out of China in some time, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Liu Jianchao (
Apart from the political repercussions, the missile test represents grotesque carelessness on the part of the Chinese. The wreckage from the destroyed satellite -- a spray of tiny metallic parts -- has the small but very real potential to damage other satellites and even the International Space Station, and for a long period of time.
The US has been joined by Japan, Australia and other countries in demanding some form of accountability from the Chinese for their extraordinary behavior, but regardless of how Beijing responds, this incident demolishes the suggestion that the Chinese military and its Communist Party bosses can behave in an accountable, let alone responsible, manner in military and space affairs.
In the wake of the North Korean nuclear test, this missile test suggests that Beijing has, if anything, taken on Pyongyang has a role model.
The myth of the peaceful rise of China has many subscribers who romanticize the history of Chinese civilization. What is surprising about the destruction of the satellite, however, is that the Chinese could so summarily reduce to myth the idea that it can act as a force for regional peace and mediation.
In tandem with this, it has become clearer that the Chinese military is growing more confident and playing the Pentagon for a pack of fools. It defies common sense that the Chinese could launch this missile without informing Washington and international scientific organizations beforehand, yet this is just what appears to have happened.
Almost as worrying as the missile test is the fact that the Bush administration sat on the news of this development for a week before bringing it to public attention.
Washington's delay suggests that it has frighteningly little comprehension of the need for an immediate and unequivocal response -- if not retaliation -- over Beijing's misuse of space technology and its ramping up of military tensions in what is already a tense region.
The theory that the Middle East quagmire is compromising the security interests of the US by giving the Chinese diplomatic room to maneuver and allowing it to expand its military capabilities with impunity is gaining more currency. Of greatest concern for Taiwan, therefore, is the possibility that the US government's ability to retaliate against symbolic and technical advances in China's military capabilities has been dulled.
The US State Department, and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice in particular, must denounce the Chinese launch in the strongest terms and prepare a practical response if they are to be taken seriously in the region.
Tongue-clucking and muted expressions of regret from the State Department will not wash. The Chinese can destroy satellites from ground-based missiles and they want the world to know it. Beijing must be made to understand that responsible nations will not tolerate the direction in which it has chosen to travel.
Concerns that the US might abandon Taiwan are often overstated. While US President Donald Trump’s handling of Ukraine raised unease in Taiwan, it is crucial to recognize that Taiwan is not Ukraine. Under Trump, the US views Ukraine largely as a European problem, whereas the Indo-Pacific region remains its primary geopolitical focus. Taipei holds immense strategic value for Washington and is unlikely to be treated as a bargaining chip in US-China relations. Trump’s vision of “making America great again” would be directly undermined by any move to abandon Taiwan. Despite the rhetoric of “America First,” the Trump administration understands the necessity of
In an article published on this page on Tuesday, Kaohsiung-based journalist Julien Oeuillet wrote that “legions of people worldwide would care if a disaster occurred in South Korea or Japan, but the same people would not bat an eyelid if Taiwan disappeared.” That is quite a statement. We are constantly reading about the importance of Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC), hailed in Taiwan as the nation’s “silicon shield” protecting it from hostile foreign forces such as the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), and so crucial to the global supply chain for semiconductors that its loss would cost the global economy US$1
US President Donald Trump’s challenge to domestic American economic-political priorities, and abroad to the global balance of power, are not a threat to the security of Taiwan. Trump’s success can go far to contain the real threat — the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) surge to hegemony — while offering expanded defensive opportunities for Taiwan. In a stunning affirmation of the CCP policy of “forceful reunification,” an obscene euphemism for the invasion of Taiwan and the destruction of its democracy, on March 13, 2024, the People’s Liberation Army’s (PLA) used Chinese social media platforms to show the first-time linkage of three new
Sasha B. Chhabra’s column (“Michelle Yeoh should no longer be welcome,” March 26, page 8) lamented an Instagram post by renowned actress Michelle Yeoh (楊紫瓊) about her recent visit to “Taipei, China.” It is Chhabra’s opinion that, in response to parroting Beijing’s propaganda about the status of Taiwan, Yeoh should be banned from entering this nation and her films cut off from funding by government-backed agencies, as well as disqualified from competing in the Golden Horse Awards. She and other celebrities, he wrote, must be made to understand “that there are consequences for their actions if they become political pawns of