The Bush administration has been sending contradictory messages to China in the last two years, damaging US strategic interests in East Asia. So Thursday's phone call between US President George W. Bush and his Chinese counterpart Hu Jintao (
In the call the US president stressed that Taiwan opposition leaders were fine but if any progress was to be made on achieving greater stability in the Taiwan Strait it could only be done by Beijing dealing directly with, as Scott McClellan put it, "the duly elected leaders in Taiwan, and that means President Chen [Shui-bian, (
Such sound advice comes as a breath of fresh air after the contradictory mess that has been US policy. We have commented before on how the US has concentrated on containing Chen and the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) government and boosting the pan-blues -- to the extent of the State Department's last-minute intervention in last December's legislative election campaign against the DPP -- even though the pan-blues, as Greater China nationalists, have strategic interests exactly the opposite of the US. The passage of Beijing's "Anti-Secession" Law seems to have finally injected a little common sense into policy in Washington.
There is, however, still reason to wonder if the US is getting the picture. For taken in their most literal meaning, McClellan's words suggest that there might still be a a misperception of what the visits of Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Chairman Lien Chan (
That misperception could be characterized as seeing the Lien and Soong visits as building up a momentum, or as part of a continuum that eventually will lead to Hu-Chen contacts. Yet that is exactly what China is not doing. The whole intention is to isolate Chen as much as possible, to throw a few bones at the Taiwanese to win their favor and to show Chen and the DPP as being impotent in achieving the thing that most people in the country want -- a better relationship with their major trading partner. It is part of China's strategy therefore, specifically not to reach out to Chen, because it wishes to paint him and his government as an irrelevancy.
Of course the US may be well aware of this and Bush's comments deliberately ingenuous, aiming to push China into a game it doesn't really want to play by appearing to not really understand what the game really is.
Certainly it is in the interests of the US to see tensions in the Taiwan Strait reduced by government-to-government talks, just as it is also vital to US interests that unification never takes place. The best possible outcome therefore would be a Taiwan permanently in green hands, and yet at least on "jaw, jaw" rather than "war, war" terms with China.
But how is this to come about? First,we would remind our American friends that while Taiwan is ready to sell wax apples to China and pet the pandas if they come, the "reunification, independence or status quo" surveys show no significant movement as a result of the opposition leaders' visits. Neither the overwhelming preference for the status quo, nor the poor support for unification either now or in the future, have significantly changed.
And secondly, we would also remind them that the arms budget has still not been passed and that this is the fault specifically of the KMT. We said a couple of weeks ago that it was time the US applied pressure to the KMT leadership -- visa and entry denials, and IRS audits of US business interests of KMT leading lights would be the weapons of choice. If the tactic to isolate Chen appears to be gaining too much ground, nothing would throw a spanner in the works as much as the KMT backing passage of the weapons procurement bill -- and a little arm-twisting might bring that about.
Labubu, an elf-like plush toy with pointy ears and nine serrated teeth, has become a global sensation, worn by celebrities including Rihanna and Dua Lipa. These dolls are sold out in stores from Singapore to London; a human-sized version recently fetched a whopping US$150,000 at an auction in Beijing. With all the social media buzz, it is worth asking if we are witnessing the rise of a new-age collectible, or whether Labubu is a mere fad destined to fade. Investors certainly want to know. Pop Mart International Group Ltd, the Chinese manufacturer behind this trendy toy, has rallied 178 percent
My youngest son attends a university in Taipei. Throughout the past two years, whenever I have brought him his luggage or picked him up for the end of a semester or the start of a break, I have stayed at a hotel near his campus. In doing so, I have noticed a strange phenomenon: The hotel’s TV contained an unusual number of Chinese channels, filled with accents that would make a person feel as if they are in China. It is quite exhausting. A few days ago, while staying in the hotel, I found that of the 50 available TV channels,
Kinmen County’s political geography is provocative in and of itself. A pair of islets running up abreast the Chinese mainland, just 20 minutes by ferry from the Chinese city of Xiamen, Kinmen remains under the Taiwanese government’s control, after China’s failed invasion attempt in 1949. The provocative nature of Kinmen’s existence, along with the Matsu Islands off the coast of China’s Fuzhou City, has led to no shortage of outrageous takes and analyses in foreign media either fearmongering of a Chinese invasion or using these accidents of history to somehow understand Taiwan. Every few months a foreign reporter goes to
There is no such thing as a “silicon shield.” This trope has gained traction in the world of Taiwanese news, likely with the best intentions. Anything that breaks the China-controlled narrative that Taiwan is doomed to be conquered is welcome, but after observing its rise in recent months, I now believe that the “silicon shield” is a myth — one that is ultimately working against Taiwan. The basic silicon shield idea is that the world, particularly the US, would rush to defend Taiwan against a Chinese invasion because they do not want Beijing to seize the nation’s vital and unique chip industry. However,
RSS