Gradually, with hardly anyone noticing, President Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁) has emerged as the most influential player in the volatile triangle of relations between China, the US and his own nation.
The reason: The Chinese are stuck with a rigid "one China" policy that shows no inkling of imagination or flexibility and the Americans are paying only sporadic attention, hoping that the issue will somehow go away. That leaves Chen latitude to maneuver between them.
Even so, the chances of a miscalculation by Chen -- or the Chinese or the Americans -- continues to make the future of Taiwan the most dangerous long-term confrontation in Asia.
The standoff begins with Bei-jing's relentless claim that Taiwan is a province of China, and its insistence that the Taiwanese accept that demand. The Chinese have repeatedly threatened to use military force to conquer Taiwan if the Taiwanese declare independence or delay unification.
Beijing seems to realize that attacking Taiwan would incur devastating economic losses. And China's military leaders, after years of brushing off the US commitment to help defend Taiwan, have evidently begun to realize the potential US military role in the defense of Taiwan.
In Washington, the Bush administration, preoccupied with Iraq and Afghanistan and the war on terror, has no long-range objective in its China or Taiwan policy. In recent weeks, President George W. Bush has concentrated on patching up relations with traditional allies and running for re-election. Nonetheless, US military officers have quietly expanded their contacts with Taiwan's armed forces, sending observers to Taiwanese war games to learn their strengths and weaknesses and how US and Taiwanese forces might mesh their operations in the event of cross-strait hostilities.
The US officers have also continued to have limited contact with Chinese officers in an effort to deter them. In a private exchange, a senior Chinese officer harangued his American counterpart about how Beijing would brook no foreign interference on the issue of Taiwan. To which the American replied, dryly: "In the Pacific, we own the sky and we own the water," meaning air and naval supremacy, "so let's talk about something else."
In this precarious equation, Chen has been building a consensus at home intended to sustain Taiwan's continued separation from the mainland without a declaration of independence.
In Beijing, the new regime led by President Hu Jintao (
Hu is further hemmed in because hostilities with Taiwan and the US would severely damage the trade and foreign investment vital to a China with 300 million unemployed or underemployed people -- 40 percent of the labor force. Last year, China exported US$152 billion worth of goods to the US, its biggest export market.
The Bloomberg news agency reported that China has accumulated US$527 billion in foreign investment and has another US$1 trillion contracted. The US, Japan and Taiwan are the largest foreign investors in China -- and that would disappear in a war.
Several years ago, many Chinese asserted that the US would not defend Taiwan. That notion has changed; as the US Defense Department said recently: "Beijing sees Washington as the principal hurdle to any attempt to use military force to regain Taiwan."
Robert Sutter of Georgetown University agrees: "The US is seen by Chinese officials as the dominant power in Asian and world affairs, and the main potential international danger to confront and complicate China's development and rising power and influence."
Richard Halloran is a Hawaii-based journalist.
It is employment pass renewal season in Singapore, and the new regime is dominating the conversation at after-work cocktails on Fridays. From September, overseas employees on a work visa would need to fulfill the city-state’s new points-based system, and earn a minimum salary threshold to stay in their jobs. While this mirrors what happens in other countries, it risks turning foreign companies away, and could tarnish the nation’s image as a global business hub. The program was announced in 2022 in a bid to promote fair hiring practices. Points are awarded for how a candidate’s salary compares with local peers, along
China last month enacted legislation to punish —including with the death penalty — “die-hard Taiwanese independence separatists.” The country’s leaders, including Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平), need to be reminded about what the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) has said and done in the past. They should think about whether those historical figures were also die-hard advocates of Taiwanese independence. The Taiwanese Communist Party was established in the Shanghai French Concession in April 1928, with a political charter that included the slogans “Long live the independence of the Taiwanese people” and “Establish a republic of Taiwan.” The CCP sent a representative, Peng
Japan and the Philippines on Monday signed a defense agreement that would facilitate joint drills between them. The pact was made “as both face an increasingly assertive China,” and is in line with Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jr’s “effort to forge security alliances to bolster the Philippine military’s limited ability to defend its territorial interests in the South China Sea,” The Associated Press (AP) said. The pact also comes on the heels of comments by former US deputy national security adviser Matt Pottinger, who said at a forum on Tuesday last week that China’s recent aggression toward the Philippines in
The Ministry of National Defense on Tuesday announced that the military would hold its annual Han Kuang exercises from July 22 to 26. Military officers said the exercises would feature unscripted war games, and a decentralized command and control structure. This year’s exercises underline the recent reforms in Taiwan’s military as it transitions from a top-down command structure to one where autonomy is pushed down to the front lines to improve decisionmaking and adaptability. Militaries around the world have been observing and studying Russia’s war in Ukraine. They have seen that the Ukrainian military has been much quicker to adapt to