When China isolated itself — or was isolated — little information about the country or its people was accessible. At the time, US China experts were scarce as they needed to understand Chinese characters and to have studied Chinese history and culture for a few years to obtain a reasonable understanding of the Chinese situation.
After former US president Richard Nixon opened a channel to China, the number of US China experts shot up. Various professionals such as businesspeople, politicians, academics and journalists went to China and gained a superficial understanding of the country by listening to swaggering locals. These so-called China experts could be called the “fast food” experts.
The “fast food” school of China experts holds to a few dogmas. First, China has a vast territory and lots of people, so the US must not make an enemy of it. It also argues that China offers unlimited business opportunities and that once it rises, it will settle old scores. China’s long period of decline was based on nationalism and adventurism abroad. Therefore, the belief goes, the US cannot afford to provoke China and instead must accommodate the Chinese government on all matters.
FRAGILE
During the administration of former US president Bill Clinton, Clark Randt, former US ambassador to China, worried about a Chinese collapse because of the impact a flood of Chinese refugees would have on Southeast Asia. In the same vein, in her 2007 book China: Fragile Superpower, former US deputy assistant secretary of state Susan Shirk revealed a similar attitude: China’s weakness had led to insecurity among the Chinese leadership and this could lead to the use of force against Taiwan in an attempt to fan nationalism to secure power.
Shirk’s book sees through China and its tricks and addresses China’s serious internal problems in an objective manner by saying that China is “externally strong but internally weak.” However, for commercial purposes, she made alarming statements in the first chapter of her book, saying that if China was strong, Taiwan would be in danger and that if China was weak, Taiwan would still be in danger.
Although she did not want to appear impetuous on political matters because of concerns for book sales in Taiwan, she asserted that economic integration with China would be beneficial to the majority of Taiwanese and that “it will reduce the obstacles facing Taiwan’s security.”
NORMALIZED
There is no question that economic exchanges between Taiwan and China should be normalized. But if integration means political compromise on Taiwan’s sovereignty and annexation by China, then how could it reduce Taiwan’s security problem? Ever since President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) took office, Chinese military invasion has not been one of Taiwan’s security problems: The problem has been the “peaceful annexation” of Taiwan by China.
Those US China experts should change the way they think.
Neither China’s peaceful rise nor collapse is a bad thing since such an anti-humanistic regime as China’s should be overthrown at any rate. If the Chinese leadership wanted to engage in an external adventure to distract attention from its serious internal situation, it would dig its own grave. Chinese President Hu Jintao (胡錦濤) is not as stupid as those experts think.
James Wang is a senior media commentator.
TRANSLATED BY TED YANG
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