If the competing territorial claims between the People’s Republic of China (PRC) in China and the Republic of China (ROC) on Taiwan were represented as a Venn diagram, the central overlap would contain Taiwan’s outlying Kinmen and Lienchiang (Matsu) counties.
The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) could claim a historical and legal right over the territories, certainly with more legitimacy than it could for its claim over Taiwan proper, as the islands were part of China prior to the end of World War II. The ROC claims control over them because the ROC defended them against the CCP after it was expelled from China in 1949.
However, is Taiwan still engaged in a civil war with China, as Beijing contends, or has it long been an independent, sovereign, self-ruling country, as most Taiwanese see it?
The Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) might claim all parts of the Venn diagram, but that would be an absurd proposition today. The CCP does claim the entire diagram, but its claims over Taiwan proper have no historical basis, in international law or in reality, and so are equally absurd.
KMT Legislator Chen Yeong-kang (陳永康) has proposed amendments to the Act Governing Relations Between the People of the Taiwan Area and the Mainland Area (台灣地區與大陸地區人民關係條例), which would transfer jurisdiction over the waters surrounding Kinmen and Matsu to the Coast Guard Administration, from the Ministry of National Defense. Chen said the amendments are to reduce the possibility of a military conflict in the area, and would in no way dilute Taiwan’s sovereignty.
However, the proposal says that the relationship between the PRC and the ROC is one of an unresolved civil war. That characterization implies “one China.” That, in turn, would mean the Taiwan Strait is effectively an inland sea belonging to that “one China,” and not a waterway between two sovereign nations that is considered international waters.
In the past few years, Chinese officials have increasingly tried to push the idea that the Taiwan Strait does not constitute international waters, while many countries have sent ships through it to consolidate its status as international waters and their right of innocent passage under international law, specifically the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea.
If the CCP wins that argument, there would be no necessary right of passage; China would control an important shipping lane and be able to constrict passage by military and commercial vessels. That would also mean that the Chinese People’s Liberation Army could blockade Taiwan and implement “customs inspections” in the area, severely impacting international trade and supply chains, and with some legitimacy. It would also force Taiwan into accepting Beijing’s terms. It could equally demand that other countries do not intervene, because that would constitute “external interference” in China’s “domestic affairs.”
It could also more legitimately call for negotiations based on the so-called “1992 consensus.”
The significant change of affairs, originating in what appears to be an innocent proposal for an amendment designed to reduce tensions, would play right into the hands of the CCP and its concerted “lawfare” plans that go all the way back to the implementation of the 2005 “Anti-Secession Law.” For that reason, the proposed amendments should be treated with caution and suspicion. The same applies to the party that is promoting them.
US President Donald Trump last week told reporters that he had signed about 12 letters to US trading partners, which were set to be sent out yesterday, levying unilateral tariff rates of up to 70 percent from Aug. 1. However, Trump did not say which countries the letters would be sent to, nor did he discuss the specific tariff rates, reports said. The news of the tariff letters came as Washington and Hanoi reached a trade deal earlier last week to cut tariffs on Vietnamese exports to the US to 20 percent from 46 percent, making it the first Asian country
Life as we know it will probably not come to an end in Japan this weekend, but what if it does? That is the question consuming a disaster-prone country ahead of a widely spread prediction of disaster that one comic book suggests would occur tomorrow. The Future I Saw, a manga by Ryo Tatsuki about her purported ability to see the future in dreams, was first published in 1999. It would have faded into obscurity, but for the mention of a tsunami and the cover that read “Major disaster in March 2011.” Years later, when the most powerful earthquake ever
Chinese intimidation of Taiwan has entered a chilling new phase: bolder, more multifaceted and unconstrained by diplomatic norms. For years, Taiwan has weathered economic coercion, military threats, diplomatic isolation, political interference, espionage and disinformation, but the direct targeting of elected leaders abroad signals an alarming escalation in Beijing’s campaign of hostility. Czech military intelligence recently uncovered a plot that reads like fiction, but is all too real. Chinese diplomats and civil secret service in Prague had planned to ram the motorcade of then-vice president-elect Hsiao Bi-khim (蕭美琴) and physically assault her during her visit to the Czech Republic in March last
As things heated up in the Middle East in early June, some in the Pentagon resisted American involvement in the Israel-Iran war because it would divert American attention and resources from the real challenge: China. This was exactly wrong. Rather, bombing Iran was the best thing that could have happened for America’s Asia policy. When it came to dealing with the Iranian nuclear program, “all options are on the table” had become an American mantra over the past two decades. But the more often US administration officials insisted that military force was in the cards, the less anyone believed it. After
RSS