The People’s Republic of China (PRC) celebrations of its 60th anniversary on Thursday will very much be a military affair. In fact, Beijing has been boasting that the nation’s newest nuclear missiles will be part of an arsenal of new weapons — 90 percent of which have never been paraded before.
Fifty-two types of weapons — all developed and made in China — will be on display during the parade, General Gao Jianguo (高建國), executive deputy director of the office of the National Day Military Parade Joint Command, has said.
The state-run People’s Daily newspaper, however, quoted Gao as saying that this unprecedented display of military might is not about intimidating China’s neighbors, but rather a celebration of the country’s achievements, adding that “a country’s military ability is not a threat to anyone, what is important is its military policy.”
This assertion, however, brings little comfort to those against whom such weapons would be used — mainly the people of Taiwan and US military personnel who would likely intervene on Taiwan’s side in the event of war.
Furthermore, while Gao is not altogether wrong in saying that military ability does not necessarily equate military policy, history is rife with examples of military policy being driven by a state’s military capacity — in other words, weapons designs drive policy rather than the other way around.
This is doubly worrying when, as a growing number of academics have pointed out, the “patience” of Chinese leaders regarding the Taiwan issue is, we are told, not infinite. While Chinese leaders were making similar pronouncements more than 10 years ago, “impatience” did not immediately entail that it would translate into military action. For one thing, a decade ago the balance on military power in the Taiwan Strait was still in Taiwan’s favor and China had yet to develop, or at least deploy, weapons meant to delay or deny the entry of US forces in the Strait.
The situation today is drastically different. Not only has the balance of power shifted in Beijing’s favor, but China has become far more assertive and, thanks to President Ma Ying-jeou’s (馬英九) pro-China policies, its leadership feels that its objective of unifying Taiwan and China may finally be within its grasp. Should domestic politics in Taiwan between now and 2012 threaten to derail moves toward that goal, and if the US continues to suffer from a weakened economy and a number of taxing military deployments, Beijing may have little compunction in using its growing arsenal to achieve its aims.
This year’s parade will also see a greater representation from all branches of the military, with many items having an offensive, rather than defensive, purpose. Generals in Beijing can say what they want, but the fact of the matter is, huge displays of offensive military equipment signal to the rest of the world, and more specifically the region, that China has the means to flex its muscles when necessary. Of the two key factors in a state’s decision to use force — intent and capabilities — Beijing is now showing that is has the latter. The main question now is whether Beijing will, over time, develop the intent.
While there are many ways for a nation to display its achievements, focus on the industrial-military nexus on national days, added to a strong sense of nationalism, has undertones of fascism. History shows us that fascism usually entails an intent to use force as an extension of government policies.
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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