In the wake of Mainland Affairs Council Chairman Joseph Wu's (
Beijing's intention is to create special courts in which anyone can be prosecuted for "separatist activity," to be interpreted as the court sees fit. We have always known that the Chinese judiciary is little more than a series of kangaroo courts in which people are punished for having run foul of authority. There is no question of evidence and no question of innocence. We are also aware of the undistinguished but lamentably large role the courts have played in the suppression of political dissent and "thought crime" of any kind.
The function of these special courts will be to try any officials from either side of the Strait who are deemed to have "not acted appropriately in opposing Taiwanese independence." As to what Taiwanese independence is, China appears to not want to stipulate this in the law but leave it to the court and its political masters to decide on an ad hoc basis. It is not clear who might be covered by the law other than officials but the guiding principles for the law's drafting obtained by Wu suggest that it will cover as wide a base as possible. "Anything other than unification is going to be defined as independence and therefore anybody who speaks out in support of Taiwan's government might be charged with this kind of crime," Wu said.
The implications need to be seriously considered in Taiwan and elsewhere.
Basically, no member of the government will be able to go to China for fear of being arrested under the law. The same goes for any Democratic Progressive Party legislator or local government official, and could also be applied to almost anybody who is appointed to speak on the government's behalf.
Given that the maintenance of Taiwan's independence is the wish of the majority of Taiwanese and is supported by their government, nobody who speaks for that government or represents the real views of Taiwanese people will be able to go to China without risking arrest.
Foreign academics might be at risk, or members of think tanks which support self-determination for Taiwan, of which the US has a considerable number.
Finally, we might consider the large number of Taiwanese now living in China. As soon as the law passes, they will be targets for shakedown artists with official connections -- and given the wealth of the China-based Taiwanese community, there will be many. You can easily imagine the kind of scenario -- "give us a stake in your enterprise or we will denounce you and you'll end up in a labor camp in Qinghai."
If what we have been led to believe is true, then after the law passes, almost no Taiwanese will be safe in China, nor will any foreigner who has ever associated with a pro-independence organization -- such as this newspaper for example.
If just stepping on Chinese soil means running the risk of a stint of "reform through labor" in the Chinese gulag, then forget about cross-strait negotiations: The cross-strait Cold War is about to enter a real ice age.
In their recent op-ed “Trump Should Rein In Taiwan” in Foreign Policy magazine, Christopher Chivvis and Stephen Wertheim argued that the US should pressure President William Lai (賴清德) to “tone it down” to de-escalate tensions in the Taiwan Strait — as if Taiwan’s words are more of a threat to peace than Beijing’s actions. It is an old argument dressed up in new concern: that Washington must rein in Taipei to avoid war. However, this narrative gets it backward. Taiwan is not the problem; China is. Calls for a so-called “grand bargain” with Beijing — where the US pressures Taiwan into concessions
The term “assassin’s mace” originates from Chinese folklore, describing a concealed weapon used by a weaker hero to defeat a stronger adversary with an unexpected strike. In more general military parlance, the concept refers to an asymmetric capability that targets a critical vulnerability of an adversary. China has found its modern equivalent of the assassin’s mace with its high-altitude electromagnetic pulse (HEMP) weapons, which are nuclear warheads detonated at a high altitude, emitting intense electromagnetic radiation capable of disabling and destroying electronics. An assassin’s mace weapon possesses two essential characteristics: strategic surprise and the ability to neutralize a core dependency.
Chinese President and Chinese Communist Party (CCP) Chairman Xi Jinping (習近平) said in a politburo speech late last month that his party must protect the “bottom line” to prevent systemic threats. The tone of his address was grave, revealing deep anxieties about China’s current state of affairs. Essentially, what he worries most about is systemic threats to China’s normal development as a country. The US-China trade war has turned white hot: China’s export orders have plummeted, Chinese firms and enterprises are shutting up shop, and local debt risks are mounting daily, causing China’s economy to flag externally and hemorrhage internally. China’s
During the “426 rally” organized by the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) and the Taiwan People’s Party under the slogan “fight green communism, resist dictatorship,” leaders from the two opposition parties framed it as a battle against an allegedly authoritarian administration led by President William Lai (賴清德). While criticism of the government can be a healthy expression of a vibrant, pluralistic society, and protests are quite common in Taiwan, the discourse of the 426 rally nonetheless betrayed troubling signs of collective amnesia. Specifically, the KMT, which imposed 38 years of martial law in Taiwan from 1949 to 1987, has never fully faced its
RSS