When Chinese Minister of Foreign Affairs Wang Yi (王毅) met with US Secretary of State Antony Blinken on Sept. 27, Wang said that the greatest threat in the Taiwan Strait is the increasingly unchecked actions of “Taiwan separatists.”
Blinken responded by emphasizing the importance of maintaining peace and stability in the Taiwan Strait, before turning to concern for human rights issues in Xinjiang, Tibet and Hong Kong.
Wang’s statements are nothing new and can be found in the official “united front” talking points and phrases curated by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) over the past several decades.
The CCP employs the world’s most peculiar system of “logic”: It accuses anyone not complying with the party’s intentions as “endangering the peace,” while at the same time it refuses to take the threat of invasion off the table. Its absurd logic says that if you do not accept its so-called “peaceful unification,” it would resolve the matter through the use of military force.
Nowhere else in the world could you find an aggressor that regards their actions as “peaceful.” It is as absurd as a sexual predator pulling out a knife and declaring that they and their victim are made for each other.
The CCP’s excuse for wanting to invade Taiwan is that it wants to “maintain territorial integrity.” President William Lai (賴清德) pushed back on this assertion during an interview with Taiwanese news anchor Catherine Chang (張雅琴), asking rhetorically that if the CCP really wanted to uphold its territorial integrity, then why does it not reclaim the vast lands stolen by Russia in the 1858 “unequal” Treaty of Aigun?
Lai correctly identified the expansion of hegemonic power as the CCP’s true motive.
Occupying Taiwan would certainly allow China to expand its hegemony, but this would lead to a face-off between China and the US, in addition to other nations that are part of a democratic alliance. China would certainly pay dearly for getting involved in such a confrontation.
Taiwan has been a democracy for almost three decades, and Taiwanese are well-accustomed to a life of freedom and liberty. If the CCP annexed Taiwan, it would have to exert great effort to suppress democratic activity here.
If the CCP is truly aiming for world domination, it should try the following steps:
First, it should understand why the vast majority of Taiwanese are uninterested in accepting unification. After all, it is not rocket science. Why would Taiwanese, with a 94-point global freedom rating from Freedom House’s Democracy Index, be willing to accept being governed by the CCP, when China only has 9 points in that rating and is not considered a free society? Taiwan’s desire for independence has been forced upon it by the CCP’s actions.
The CCP, as well as its proxies in Taiwan, including the legislative coalition between the blue and white camps, often blame Taiwan for traveling a more pro-US path. The CCP does not seem to realize that Taiwan’s reason for going in this direction is because Taiwanese wish to maintain the democratic rights and freedoms they enjoy.
If the CCP does not want Taiwanese independence, then why is it not implementing democratic reforms to make the proposition of unification more palatable to Taiwanese? It would be better to find a way to make Taiwan take a more pro-China path instead of wanting to align itself with the US.
How could the CCP achieve this? In addition to introducing democratic reforms, China would need to recognize Taiwan, establish an equal and mutually beneficial relationship, respect Taiwan’s wish to join the UN, and accept bilateral exchanges of diplomats. Perhaps Taiwan and China could then go on to forge a military alliance. That would certainly raise eyebrows in Washington.
The situation calls to mind the cross-strait circumstances of more than 340 years ago, when the Manchu Qing Dynasty government offered its final terms for peace to Cheng Ching (鄭經), who had attempted an invasion of China from Taiwan in support of an unsuccessful rebellion in south China against the Qing court.
The missive read: “Great men know what the times call for. There is no need to fan the embers of extinguished fires, nor to add to the misery of the people who have already gone through so much. Lay down your arms, and you no longer have to come to this land, nor wear your hair in a queue, nor don Manchu clothes. If you wish to be a vassal and make tribute to the court, you can; if you do not wish to do so, that is also acceptable. You can live your life on Taiwan, just as Jizi (箕子) found a home on Joseon (on the Korean Peninsula) when the Shang Dynasty fell, and as the Qin Dynasty alchemist Xu Fu (徐福) established himself in Japan. The world will see no calamity, the people will see no more trouble, and the coastal regions will know peace. This is for you to decide.”
Would Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) be willing to lay down his arms and allow the coastal regions to know peace?
After all, having allied himself with a more China-friendly Taiwan, if he then went on to assist Xinjiang and Tibet to establish their own sovereignty, the whole world would be transfixed on what he was doing.
This is for him to decide.
Lee Hsiao-feng is an honorary professor at National Taipei University of Education.
Translated by Tim Smith and Paul Cooper
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