Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao's (溫家寶) speech to the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference and the National People's Congress last Thursday drew a lot of international media coverage. Wen said the two sides of the Taiwan Strait would hold consultations and strengthen cross-strait economic cooperation. While it might appear relations have taken a big step toward stability, a hidden threat was largely overlooked by the international and domestic media. The sticking point: Beijing's good will hinges on Taiwan's acceptance of the “one China” principle.
China’s national defense budget has grown by more than 10 percent annually for the past decade and will rise by at least 15 percent this year — and that's just according to the official figures. The size of the People's Liberation Army, with more than 3 million people in its land forces alone, means personnel costs are immense. However, China's stated goal this year is upgrading its naval and air forces. The Chinese navy is working to building its own aircraft carrier. As Chinese naval strength grows, it will expand throughout the South China Sea and into the Indian Ocean.
Taiwan is a vital link, so China keeps making economic overtures and expressing good will while continuing to make military preparations. China keeps increasing its military spending even though cross-strait tension is low. It is clear that the Taiwan issue is only a pretext for China to expand its military power.
These days, Taiwan appears to be almost the only country that cares about the shifting balance of military power across the Taiwan Strait, as the Taiwan question has dropped off the radar in international politics. This puts Taiwan in a precarious position.
China no longer sees the Taiwan issue as a problem since President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) took office. Nevertheless, it continues to deploy more missiles along its southeast coast, which now number about 1,500.
For his part Ma, apparently doesn't view all those missiles as a threat and naively discounts the possibility of hostile behavior by China. Taiwan's military budget has been cut and arms purchases have almost ceased. Ma and his defense minister are more concerned with how fast soldiers can run, whether they can swim or perform cardiopulmonary resuscitation. This complacency is the biggest threat to national security.
Since it views Taiwan as under control, China's next step must be to extend its power across the East and South China Seas. It will undoubtedly assert its claim over the Diaoyutai (釣魚台) islands more forcefully, without regard to the inclusion of those islands as a peripheral concern under US-Japan joint security agreements. China's recent contribution of warships to escort commercial ships off the coast of Somalia can be seen as a bid to extend its naval power beyond the South China Sea and provide its navy with an internationally sanctioned military exercise.
Today Taiwan and the international community are focusing on China's massive market and economic clout. China does indeed have an important role to play in dealing with the global financial crisis, and can help Taiwan and other countries to get through the slump. At the same time, however, Taiwan and other countries must be aware that China remains a huge threat to their way of life. If the Chinese tiger gets angry, who is going to tame it?
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