“Those whom heaven wishes to destroy, it first makes mad,” China’s Taiwan Affairs Office spokesman Ma Xiaoguang (馬曉光) said on Wednesday, responding to Legislative Speaker You Si-kun’s (游錫堃) earlier comment that the Taiwan-developed Cloud Peak cruise missile, with a range of 2,000km, could reach Beijing.
The US Center for Strategic and International Studies in July last year revealed on its Web site that the missile had a general range of 1,200km, with an extended range of up to 2,000km. Taipei is about 1,700km from Beijing, so You seemed correct in his estimation of its reach.
Now that we know Taipei has the ability to make a decisive strike on the Chinese capital, what should be the next step?
As the Chinese Communist Party’s 20th National Congress approaches, Beijing has begun ramping up its campaign of pressure and intimidation against Taiwan.
Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) on Monday last week signed the “Outline of Military Operations Other Than War for the Army” (軍隊非戰爭軍事行動綱要), laying out a legal basis for mobilizing armed forces for nonmilitary actions, and on Wednesday he spoke to Russian President Vladimir Putin, expressing willingness to provide support in matters pertaining to core interests such as sovereignty and national security.
This was just one example of China’s many veiled threats to Taiwan’s sovereignty, and there is no guarantee that the Cloud Peak would never be used.
With great power comes great responsibility. As Taiwan upgrades its self-defense capabilities, it must also prepare to avoid errors of judgement in military matters.
Taipei should propose to the Chinese government the establishment of a military hotline, similar to the one set up between North and South Korea, to ensure that if any emergencies or special circumstances arise, military communications could take place. This would be superior to the Track II dialogue between nonofficial entities that the two sides are relying on.
Now that Taiwan has revealed its possession of Cloud Peak missiles and the consequences they could bring about, creating such a communication mechanism is a geopolitical responsibility.
Shih Ya-hsuan is an associate professor in National Kaohsiung Normal University’s Department of Geography.
Translated by Paul Cooper
A response to my article (“Invite ‘will-bes,’ not has-beens,” Aug. 12, page 8) mischaracterizes my arguments, as well as a speech by former British prime minister Boris Johnson at the Ketagalan Forum in Taipei early last month. Tseng Yueh-ying (曾月英) in the response (“A misreading of Johnson’s speech,” Aug. 24, page 8) does not dispute that Johnson referred repeatedly to Taiwan as “a segment of the Chinese population,” but asserts that the phrase challenged Beijing by questioning whether parts of “the Chinese population” could be “differently Chinese.” This is essentially a confirmation of Beijing’s “one country, two systems” formulation, which says that
On Monday last week, American Institute in Taiwan (AIT) Director Raymond Greene met with Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) lawmakers to discuss Taiwan-US defense cooperation, on the heels of a separate meeting the previous week with Minister of National Defense Minister Wellington Koo (顧立雄). Departing from the usual convention of not advertising interactions with senior national security officials, the AIT posted photos of both meetings on Facebook, seemingly putting the ruling and opposition parties on public notice to obtain bipartisan support for Taiwan’s defense budget and other initiatives. Over the past year, increasing Taiwan’s defense budget has been a sore spot
Media said that several pan-blue figures — among them former Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) chairwoman Hung Hsiu-chu (洪秀柱), former KMT legislator Lee De-wei (李德維), former KMT Central Committee member Vincent Hsu (徐正文), New Party Chairman Wu Cheng-tien (吳成典), former New Party legislator Chou chuan (周荃) and New Party Deputy Secretary-General You Chih-pin (游智彬) — yesterday attended the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) military parade commemorating the 80th anniversary of the end of World War II. China’s Xinhua news agency reported that foreign leaders were present alongside Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平), such as Russian President Vladimir Putin, North Korean leader Kim
Taiwan People’s Party (TPP) Chairman Huang Kuo-chang (黃國昌) is expected to be summoned by the Taipei City Police Department after a rally in Taipei on Saturday last week resulted in injuries to eight police officers. The Ministry of the Interior on Sunday said that police had collected evidence of obstruction of public officials and coercion by an estimated 1,000 “disorderly” demonstrators. The rally — led by Huang to mark one year since a raid by Taipei prosecutors on then-TPP chairman and former Taipei mayor Ko Wen-je (柯文哲) — might have contravened the Assembly and Parade Act (集會遊行法), as the organizers had
RSS