There's little surprise in the latest white paper from Japan's defense agency. The report, which was approved by Japan's Cabinet Tuesday, is similar to the annual report on China's military buildup published by the US Department of Defense. Although each is based on its own country's observations and evaluations, the two reports clearly agree on one thing: China's military power is growing rapidly, and that growth has started to make many countries uneasy.
On Feb. 19, the US-Japan Security Consultative Committee, a deputy-ministerial-level security forum, listed stability in the Taiwan Strait as a "common strategic objective" for the two countries. Meanwhile, both country's white papers pay special attention to the cross-strait military situation. The US believes that the military balance is tipping in China's favor due to its rapid military expansion in recent years. But the Pentagon says that China still lacks the confidence and capability to carry out a large-scale amphibious assault. Although Taiwan is numerically inferior to China in terms of its weapons, the island enjoys a qualitative advantage. But this advantage is gradually eroding. Japan points out that China's military strength will surpass Taiwan's next year, when the balance of power is expected to change dramatically.
Geographically, the US is safely distant from China. Washington also needs Beijing's cooperation regarding its war on terror and the six-party talks with North Korea. Therefore, US arguments for and against China balance each other out. But as a close neighbor of China, Japan's anxiety is much greater.
The rapid expansion of China's submarine fleet and its arsenal of ballistic missiles has caused Japan considerable anxiety. China's anti-Japanese riots this April, provoked by the controversy over Japanese history textbooks and visits to the Yasukuni Shrine, have made Japan more sensitive to China's feelings of enmity. Relations have been further aggravated by sovereignty disputes over maritime territories near the Diaoyutais (釣魚台) and friction over gas and oil rights in the East China Sea. In this situation, calls by the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) for constitutional amendments to create a full-fledged army to replace Japan's Self-Defense Force and upgrade the Japan Defense Agency to full ministerial level appear to be warranted.
People's Liberation Army General Zhu Chenghu (
China has the military capability and will to protect its strategic interests. In the face of such threats, the best policy is to prepare a defensive strategy. The US-Japan security agreements have already established a security framework for east Asia. Strategic considerations have led to Taiwan being incorporated into this framework. Mechanisms for intelligence and military cooperation, combined missile defense and other matters have been established to ensure security in the Taiwan Strait and the East China Sea.
But even after this security network is in place, Taiwan must still recognize the cross-strait military imbalance. A consensus on national security must be reached and military preparations made. If Taiwan does nothing to bolster its defenses and continues to delay the passage of the arms procurement bill, then it could become the weak link in the security chain preventing China's military expansion into the Pacific.
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,
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