Regarding the rise of doubts in Taiwan about US military aid if China invades, I have the following response. The doubts are reasonable, assuming that a Chinese takeover is not an existential threat to Taiwanese.
It is not, though, a response I would expect to hear from a Korean, Vietnamese, Japanese or Ukrainian.
Some Taiwanese academics and politicians do not believe a Chinese takeover is a threat to Taiwanese, not because they do not believe a Chinese takeover is a possibility or a probability, but rather because they do not believe, in their hearts, that there really is such a thing as a Taiwanese people.
I have no argument against that. A person in Taiwan can go from being Taiwanese to not being Taiwanese in a heartbeat. All they have to do is change their mind. The same cannot be said for real nationalities. A Ukrainian is going to be a Ukrainian whether they think they are or not.
A Vietnamese is going to fight a Chinese takeover even if completely abandoned by the Americans. There is no such transactional nonsense like “if you do this, this and this for us, maybe we’ll think of defending ourselves.”
If this kind of attitude becomes the norm in Taiwan, the US government should not risk its people, its wealth or its reputation to defend Taiwan. Consequently, I believe it is just a matter of letting Taiwan turn itself over to China, and finding a way to do that where the whole world can see that Taiwanese chose to do so.
If not, Taiwan’s people must resolve their national identity issue and demonstrate their will to resist a foreign (Chinese) invasion. They should go to next year’s presidential election polls and elect the Democratic Progressive Party’s candidate, Vice President William Lai (賴清德).
Simon H. Tang is an adjunct professor of California State University, Fullerton.
As China’s economy was meant to drive global economic growth this year, its dramatic slowdown is sounding alarm bells across the world, with economists and experts criticizing Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) for his unwillingness or inability to respond to the nation’s myriad mounting crises. The Wall Street Journal reported that investors have been calling on Beijing to take bolder steps to boost output — especially by promoting consumer spending — but Xi has deep-rooted philosophical objections to Western-style consumption-driven growth, seeing it as wasteful and at odds with his goal of making China a world-leading industrial and technological powerhouse, and
For Xi Jinping (習近平) and the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), the military conquest of Taiwan is an absolute requirement for the CCP’s much more fantastic ambition: control over our solar system. Controlling Taiwan will allow the CCP to dominate the First Island Chain and to better neutralize the Philippines, decreasing the threat to the most important People’s Liberation Army (PLA) Strategic Support Force (SSF) space base, the Wenchang Satellite Launch Center on Hainan Island. Satellite and manned space launches from the Jiuquan and Xichang Satellite Launch Centers regularly pass close to Taiwan, which is also a very serious threat to the PLA,
During a news conference in Vietnam on Sept. 10, a reporter asked US President Joe Biden about the possibility of China invading Taiwan. Biden replied that Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) is too busy handling major domestic economic problems to launch an invasion of Taiwan. On Wednesday last week, China’s Taiwan Affairs Office published a document outlining 21 measures to make the Chinese-controlled Fujian Province into a demonstration zone for relations with Taiwan. The planned measures would expand favorable treatment for Taiwanese people and companies, and seek to attract people from Taiwan to buy property and seek employment in Fujian.
Taiwan is beautiful — no doubt about it. In Taipei, the streets are clean, the skyline is gorgeous and the subway is world-class. The coastline is easily accessible and mountains can be seen in the distance. The people are hardworking, successful and busy. Every luxury known to humankind is available and people live on their smartphones. As an American visiting for the first time, here are some things I learned about the country. First, people from Taiwan and America love freedom and democracy and have for many years. When we defeated Japan in 1945, Taiwan was freed from Japanese rule. In
RSS