Chinese President Hu Jintao (胡錦濤), scheduled to retire in 2013, is apparently keen to make a breakthrough on Taiwan his legacy, the US embassy in Beijing learned from its sources in the Chinese capital, according to a cable recently released by WikiLeaks.
The cable, issued by the US embassy in Beijing on Feb. 27, 2009, showed that the US has learned from at least two sources that Hu believes that his Taiwan policy, and not China’s Scientific Development Concept (SDC), should be his -primary political legacy.
As early as 2006, Hu established a “research team,” which was still active when the cable was sent, staffed by leading Chinese academics and other experts to develop a “new way forward” on Taiwan, the cable said, based on information which came from “an Embassy contact with access to the Chinese leadership.”
The group’s goal was to find a path that lay somewhere between the “one country, two systems” approach that remained unacceptable to Taiwan and anything that smacked of “special state-to-state relations,” which remained anathema to China, it said.
The cable showed that the US embassy learned from its contact that Tsinghua University Law School Dean Wang Zhengmin (王振明) was a member of this study group.
In the cable the US embassy quoted its contact as saying that Hu wanted to “do something big” on Taiwan, just as the agreement to return Hong Kong to the People’s Republic of China is part of the legacy of former Chinese leader Deng Xiaoping (鄧小平).
According to the cable, the embassy’s contact dismissed Hu’s -signature domestic policy as “rubbish” and reiterated that in his view, a breakthrough on Taiwan would be far more important than anything Hu might accomplish through his promotion of the SDC.
The US embassy said the lack of a substantive response from President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) to Hu’s six-point proposal on cross-strait relations is a concern to China’s leaders.
Hu’s six points include: firm adherence to the “one China” principle and enhancement of mutual political trust; strengthening economic ties and promoting joint development; cultivating Chinese culture and stressing cross-strait spiritual links; promoting personnel visits and broadening exchanges; allowing Taiwan’s “reasonable” participation in global organizations under the principle of national sovereignty and ending cross-strait hostility and reaching a peace agreement.
Meanwhile, another cable recently released by WikiLeaks, dated Jan. 6, 2009, also from the US embassy in Beijing, offered insights from Clark Randt, US ambassador to China from July 2001 to January 2009, on the US-China relationship, to mark the 30 anniversary of diplomatic relations. Randt said that Taiwan was the most vexing issue holding up the establishment of relations 30 years ago and remained the toughest issue for US-China relations despite significant improvement in cross-strait ties since the election of Ma.
“It will remain a delicate topic for the foreseeable future. We should continue to support Taiwan and Mainland efforts to reduce tension by increasing Taiwan’s ‘international space’ and reducing the Mainland’s military build-up across from Taiwan,” Randt was quoted as saying in the cable.
The US should be cautious about predicting that the People’s Liberation Army’s long-term objectives are modest, he said.
“In the years to come, our defense experts will need to closely monitor China’s contingency plans and we will need to use every diplomatic and strategic tool we have to prevent intimidating moves toward Taiwan,” the cable said.
AIR SUPPORT: The Ministry of National Defense thanked the US for the delivery, adding that it was an indicator of the White House’s commitment to the Taiwan Relations Act Deputy Minister of National Defense Po Horng-huei (柏鴻輝) and Representative to the US Alexander Yui on Friday attended a delivery ceremony for the first of Taiwan’s long-awaited 66 F-16C/D Block 70 jets at a Lockheed Martin Corp factory in Greenville, South Carolina. “We are so proud to be the global home of the F-16 and to support Taiwan’s air defense capabilities,” US Representative William Timmons wrote on X, alongside a photograph of Taiwanese and US officials at the event. The F-16C/D Block 70 jets Taiwan ordered have the same capabilities as aircraft that had been upgraded to F-16Vs. The batch of Lockheed Martin
GRIDLOCK: The National Fire Agency’s Special Search and Rescue team is on standby to travel to the countries to help out with the rescue effort A powerful earthquake rocked Myanmar and neighboring Thailand yesterday, killing at least three people in Bangkok and burying dozens when a high-rise building under construction collapsed. Footage shared on social media from Myanmar’s second-largest city showed widespread destruction, raising fears that many were trapped under the rubble or killed. The magnitude 7.7 earthquake, with an epicenter near Mandalay in Myanmar, struck at midday and was followed by a strong magnitude 6.4 aftershock. The extent of death, injury and destruction — especially in Myanmar, which is embroiled in a civil war and where information is tightly controlled at the best of times —
Taiwan was ranked the fourth-safest country in the world with a score of 82.9, trailing only Andorra, the United Arab Emirates and Qatar in Numbeo’s Safety Index by Country report. Taiwan’s score improved by 0.1 points compared with last year’s mid-year report, which had Taiwan fourth with a score of 82.8. However, both scores were lower than in last year’s first review, when Taiwan scored 83.3, and are a long way from when Taiwan was named the second-safest country in the world in 2021, scoring 84.8. Taiwan ranked higher than Singapore in ninth with a score of 77.4 and Japan in 10th with
SECURITY RISK: If there is a conflict between China and Taiwan, ‘there would likely be significant consequences to global economic and security interests,’ it said China remains the top military and cyber threat to the US and continues to make progress on capabilities to seize Taiwan, a report by US intelligence agencies said on Tuesday. The report provides an overview of the “collective insights” of top US intelligence agencies about the security threats to the US posed by foreign nations and criminal organizations. In its Annual Threat Assessment, the agencies divided threats facing the US into two broad categories, “nonstate transnational criminals and terrorists” and “major state actors,” with China, Russia, Iran and North Korea named. Of those countries, “China presents the most comprehensive and robust military threat