"China fever" is a global epidemic. While no part of the world can escape from the reach of the disease, the devastation suffered by Taiwan is especially acute.
Is the rise of China an opportunity to strike it rich or a lethal threat? That is a question about which most people feel confused. As a result of constant brainwashing and propaganda by the media, some of our countrymen have become more deceived than others . Naturally, they also fail to detect the dangerous predicament in which they find themselves.
After Deng Xiaoping (
In other words, while the Chinese government continues to pay lip service to socialism, its economic path has made socialism in China little more than window dressing. It remains absolutely unshaken in the political domain, resisting democratic and human-rights ideals. Moreover, political power is concentrated in the hands of a ruling minority, and without any checks or balances or democratic representation. This is the so-called "socialist market economy," commonly known as the "bird-cage economy."
After World War II, Japan and pre-unification West Germany were two examples of economic miracles. To the fascination of many, these countries managed to rise from their post-war ruins to become the world's second and third-largest economies within a mere 20 to 30 years.
The reach of Japan's economic influence was unsurpassed. Against a backdrop of a weakening US economy at the time, US academics had no choice but to concede that "Japan is number one" and called on the aging US enterprises to learn from Japan.
Smaller economies such as the Asia's "four tigers" have also jumped onto the express train to economic development during the past 30 to 40 years.
What distinguishes China from countries such as Japan, West Germany and the "four tigers" are its massive size and 1.3 billion citizens -- advantages unmatched by other countries. As a result, China naturally has a huge market, which naturally invites much interest. Some Taiwanese businessmen and Western enterprises have fallen into the trap and transferred their capital, manpower and technologies to China in search of an illusory dream. The foreign investment in China in recent years is unsurpassed by any other countries in the world.
Backed by foreign investment, the Chinese economy has become seriously over-inflated. On the outside it may look strong, but in reality it is very shaky, challenged by problems such as massive unemployment, excessive defaulting loans, the rapidly increasing wealth gap between the rural and metropolitan areas, deteriorating social and crime problems and a large number of homeless and unemployed workers.
These internal problems could trigger much greater and more serious problems at any time, and could bring the autocratic political regime to the brink of collapse.
There has been increasing concern about the fixed exchange rate of the Chinese currency, trade frictions with China, controversies over the low prices of its manufactured goods, fluctuations in the prices of energy and raw materials in the international community and the number of foreign mergers and acquisitions by Chinese enterprises. These factors have begun to awaken the world to the threats posed by China's rise.
China relies on trade for its economic growth. Therefore, it ought to comply with the principles of a free-market economy to create a win-win situation with its trade partners. However, China relies on political power rather than supply and demand.
A case in point: China remains reluctant about liberating control over foreign exchange and allowing the yuan to appreciate, taking full advantage of its partners in trade. The serious concerns expressed by the US regarding the need to revalue the yuan have been depicted as a type of foreign meddling. How can China succumb to the pressure of the "US Empire?", some ask. This attitude overlooks the fact that, as a result of the under-valuation of the Chinese currency, the US trade deficit toward China has continued to expand, creating a serious financial crisis for the country. If the Chinese currency does not appreciate, the mechanisms of the free-market economy will be seriously distorted and destroyed.
China has deliberately submitted theories about its "peaceful" rise to power. Once China's rise begins to lose speed or is reversed, it will trigger a major economic earthquake.
Most of China's people have not attained middle-class affluence, yet the country has sucked in enough economic nutrients to become a monstrous military hegemony. Mao Zedong (
However, the economic growth of recent years has given the Chinese leaders the capacity to make China a military superpower. Therefore, its military budgets undergo double-digit growth each year. Its government deploys intercontinental missiles and its navy frequently invades the waters of neighboring countries, and it buys large amounts of arms from other countries.
In the disputes over the right to exploit oil reserves under the sea, it shows determination to take any necessary action, including going to war. In the first ever national security report to be issued by Taiwan's government, the "rise of China" is explicitly listed as the biggest variable to Taiwan's external security. China's enactment of the "Anti-Secession" Law against a backdrop of strong international opposition is part of its strategy for external expansion. The intention is to engulf Taiwan, so that Taiwan may serve as a stepping-stone to further expansion.
China's rise is not an indicator of constructive dynamics within the global economy. It brings potential for regional military conflict and crisis. It brings disaster, not opportunities, with Taiwan bearing the brunt. For this reason, Taiwan should not hold unrealistic illusions about China's market.
The only way to go for Taiwan is to completely free itself of the spell of China fever, both in terms of economic development and national identity. In the short term, doing so will turn Taiwan into a "normal country," and in the long term it will create a secure home for the generations to come.
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