Taiwan People’s Party Legislator-at-large Liu Shu-pin (劉書彬) asked Premier Cho Jung-tai (卓榮泰) a question on Tuesday last week about President William Lai’s (賴清德) decision in March to officially define the People’s Republic of China (PRC), as governed by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), as a foreign hostile force.
Liu objected to Lai’s decision on two grounds. First, procedurally, suggesting that Lai did not have the right to unilaterally make that decision, and that Cho should have consulted with the Executive Yuan before he endorsed it.
Second, Liu objected over national security concerns, saying that the CCP and Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) would be enraged by the designation, because it labels the PRC as a foreign country, when the CCP insists that Taiwan is an “inalienable part of its territory.”
Liu quoted China’s 2005 “Anti-secession” Law, specifically from Article 8: “In the event that ... possibilities for a peaceful reunification should be completely exhausted, the [PRC] state shall employ non-peaceful means and other necessary measures to protect China’s sovereignty and territorial integrity,” as if that should have given Cho pause.
The term “foreign hostile forces” appears in Article 2 of the 2020 Anti-infiltration Act (反滲透法), promulgated during the term of then-president Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文). The law defines it as “countries, political entities or groups that are at war with or are engaged in a military standoff with the Republic of China [ROC],” including “countries, political entities or groups that advocate the use of non-peaceful means to endanger the sovereignty of the Republic of China.”
Although it does not specify the PRC or the CCP as a foreign hostile force, the evidence that they should be so called is irrefutable, and Liu knows it, unless she takes the same position as the CCP.
Liu was right about the anger, but wrong that Lai should pussyfoot around the truth. She was wrong, too, as a Taiwanese lawmaker, to do Xi’s work for him by reminding government officials of the explicit threat that the CCP made in the 2005 law, and which the Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA) is incessantly reiterating with military incursions and drills around Taiwan.
Liu was essentially acting as a policewoman for China, reminding Taiwanese officials of the “law of the land”: China’s law, not Taiwan’s.
A charitable position on Liu’s intention would require giving her a comparable benefit of the doubt that is needed when trying to make sense of the Chinese Nationalist Party’s (KMT) pro-China rhetoric, without coming to the conclusion that if it sounds like a CCP-colluder and it acts like a CCP-colluder, it is probably a CCP-colluder.
The charitable interpretation is that perhaps Liu and the KMT are genuinely interested in not provoking Xi and the CCP in the interests of decreasing tensions and avoiding war. Who in Taiwan would want to encourage a situation in which the PRC could threaten Taiwan’s national security?
In a conversation posted on YouTube on April 15 entitled “Geopolitics, Realism and the Future of Asia,” American political scientist John Mearsheimer recounted a story of how in 2014 he had a one-on-one conversation in Taiwan with then-president Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九).
Mearsheimer said that Ma “was very interested in ... helping the Chinese economy to grow,” which Mearsheimer had told him was a major mistake.
“You are going to turn China into a great power, and China has its gunsights on Taiwan ... from a geopolitical point of view, that does not make sense ... great powers can try to settle things with coercive threats or sometimes with military force when they get to be really powerful,” he said.
It is unwise to give any of them — Liu, the KMT or Ma — the benefit of the doubt.
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