After days of speculation and a chase by Japanese destroyers and a surveillance plane, it has finally been determined that the nuclear submarine that intruded into Japanese territorial water between Okinawa and Taiwan was Chinese. The fact that the incident took place, and Beijing's response in its aftermath, give legitimate reason for its neighbors to feel alarmed.
It goes without saying that the Chinese submarine, which was spotted on Wednesday, intruded into a highly sensitive area. It's near a disputed gas field that Japan and China have wrangled over. But it is also only 300km southwest of Okinawa, where the majority of the 40,000 US troops stationed in Japan are located.
The Japanese government waited for two days before it openly declared that the intruding submarine was Chinese and asked for an apology. It is hard to believe that the Japanese government needed two whole days to determine the identity of the submarine. After all, it doesn't even take five fingers to count the countries that have nuclear submarines in the area and the required familiarity with the nearby waters. If it had been a US submarine, it would certainly have identified itself. So, after Russia had categorically denied that it was a Russian submarine, the only possible suspect left was China.
In all likelihood Japan hoped that Beijing would step up and claim that the entry into Japanese territorial waters was an accident. However, Beijing disappointed the well-intentioned Japanese government.
Even after the Japanese government openly identified the submarine as Chinese and demanded an apology, Beijing has continued to maintain an aloof stance. The state media in China has remained quiet by not even reporting about the incident. And when Chinese envoy Cheng Yonghua was asked for an explanation and an apology, Cheng refused, saying that his government was still investigating the matter. The likelihood that Beijing does not know by now that it was a Chinese submarine is about zero.
The arrogance of Beijing makes conceding such a mistake -- let alone making a formal apology -- extremely difficult, if not downright impossible. Moreover, the likelihood of the intrusion being an open provocation cannot be ruled out. At the very least, given the location where the submarine was spotted, the incident shows that China is actively and aggressively expanding the reach of its nuclear submarine activities. This is a sign which should rightfully worry all members of the region, not just Japan.
Ironically, as some Japanese media pointed out, Japan probably helped China fund the specific submarine that was chased out of Japanese territorial waters. After all, Japan has provided more than six trillion yen to the Chinese government over the years to aid development. Yet, in the face of such a powerful neighbor, Japan did not dare to take a strong position until it was certain that China was not about to come clean.
The incident also reveals the admirable capability of the Japanese navy and air force. The intruding Chinese submarine was almost immediately spotted and then became the target of a two-day chase by Japanese destroyers and a surveillance plane. Surely, if it was Beijing's intention to test the waters about how far it can go in provoking Japan, Beijing will think twice before pulling the same stunt again.
To Taiwan, the incident reveals something it had known all along: China is a major threat to regional peace. The need to strengthen one's self-defense capability in the face of such a hawkish neighbor has again been verified through this incident. Under the circumstances, buying advanced arms is something that can no longer be delayed or questioned.
Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) caucus whip Fu Kun-chi (傅?萁) has caused havoc with his attempts to overturn the democratic and constitutional order in the legislature. If we look at this devolution from the context of a transition to democracy from authoritarianism in a culturally Chinese sense — that of zhonghua (中華) — then we are playing witness to a servile spirit from a millennia-old form of totalitarianism that is intent on damaging the nation’s hard-won democracy. This servile spirit is ingrained in Chinese culture. About a century ago, Chinese satirist and author Lu Xun (魯迅) saw through the servile nature of
In their New York Times bestseller How Democracies Die, Harvard political scientists Steven Levitsky and Daniel Ziblatt said that democracies today “may die at the hands not of generals but of elected leaders. Many government efforts to subvert democracy are ‘legal,’ in the sense that they are approved by the legislature or accepted by the courts. They may even be portrayed as efforts to improve democracy — making the judiciary more efficient, combating corruption, or cleaning up the electoral process.” Moreover, the two authors observe that those who denounce such legal threats to democracy are often “dismissed as exaggerating or
Monday was the 37th anniversary of former president Chiang Ching-kuo’s (蔣經國) death. Chiang — a son of former president Chiang Kai-shek (蔣介石), who had implemented party-state rule and martial law in Taiwan — has a complicated legacy. Whether one looks at his time in power in a positive or negative light depends very much on who they are, and what their relationship with the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) is. Although toward the end of his life Chiang Ching-kuo lifted martial law and steered Taiwan onto the path of democratization, these changes were forced upon him by internal and external pressures,
The Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) caucus in the Legislative Yuan has made an internal decision to freeze NT$1.8 billion (US$54.7 million) of the indigenous submarine project’s NT$2 billion budget. This means that up to 90 percent of the budget cannot be utilized. It would only be accessible if the legislature agrees to lift the freeze sometime in the future. However, for Taiwan to construct its own submarines, it must rely on foreign support for several key pieces of equipment and technology. These foreign supporters would also be forced to endure significant pressure, infiltration and influence from Beijing. In other words,
RSS