Following a barrage of interpretations over the past two weeks by local scholars over China's white paper on Taiwan, a former high-ranking defense official yesterday expressed regret that they failed to see the paper from a historical and military perspective.
"We have to know that if China wants to use force against Taiwan, it will simply do it. But it will not take the action until it has the situation under control," Vice Admiral (Ret.) Ko Tun-hwa (
Ko, one of a few former ROC servicemen who participated in the Allies' Normandy landing in WWII, previously headed the office of the deputy chief of the general staff for planning under the defense ministry, as well as the war college of the Armed Forces University.
"We also have to know that if the communists want to negotiate with you, they will first make you feel extremely uncomfortable by putting you in an unfavorable condition," Ko said.
"That is exactly the condition Taiwan is now faced with. The communists want Taiwan to follow their own rules for future negotiations between the two sides, despite being perhaps ready to make concessions. That's their negotiation strategy."
Citing the negotiations between China and the US before normalization of relations between the two countries, Ko said the communists took a hardline stance against US negotiators from the very beginning of bilateral talks.
"The two sides held over 100 rounds of talks between 1954 -- the year Taiwan signed a mutual defense treaty with the US -- and 1978, as the US prepared to switch diplomatic ties from Taipei to Beijing. The [Chinese] got what they wanted without letting the US know how eager they were to have (formal) relations," Ko said. "Declassified archives of those talks showed one of the negotiators, Hwang Hwa (
From a military perspective, Ko said, the harshly worded white paper could indicate an attempt by the Chinese to find out just how committed the US is to protecting Taiwan.
"When [Chinese] troops launched an intensive artillery attack against Taiwan's Kinmen islands in 1958, Mao Zedong (毛澤東) wanted to find out through the attack whether the US would help Taiwan defend itself," Ko said. "It took some time for the US to give an answer to the communists. The US sent a message to Mao through the British ambassador in Beijing that it would consider using nuclear weapons against military facilities on the mainland if the artillery attack was to drag on and expand.
"The Beijing leadership now plays a similar game with the US, seeking to find out what cards it has in its hand. Before Beijing could find out an answer, it would seek to solve the thorny Taiwan issue through another approach -- putting pressure on Taiwan to open talks on reunification."
Meanwhile, Chao Chien-min (
"The [Chinese] have the ability to launch an attrition and endurance war against Taiwan. They could extend the war to as long as eight years until Taiwan gives up," Chao said.
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