The Chinese Supreme People’s Court and other government agencies released new legal guidelines criminalizing “Taiwan independence diehard separatists.”
While mostly symbolic — the People’s Republic of China (PRC) has never had jurisdiction over Taiwan — Tamkang University Graduate Institute of China Studies associate professor Chang Wu-ueh (張五岳), an expert on cross-strait relations, said: “They aim to explain domestically how they are countering ‘Taiwan independence,’ they aim to declare internationally their claimed jurisdiction over Taiwan and they aim to deter Taiwanese.”
Analysts do not know for sure why Beijing is propagating these guidelines now. Under Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平), deciphering the black box of Chinese politics is harder than it has ever been.
The more hardline and institutionalized militarization of China’s Taiwan policy in the 1990s — such as the Third Taiwan Strait Crisis in 1995 to 1996, and propagating the 1993 White Paper — was the result of the post-Tiananmen Square massacre politics in Beijing, former CIA national intelligence officer Robert Suettinger said in Beyond Tiananmen: The Politics of US-China Relations 1989-2000.
The “Chinese military had a larger say on Taiwan policy” after the military saved the regime from the popular democratic movement that nearly overthrew the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), Suettinger said.
“China’s domestic policy situation made it impractical to consider revising its Taiwan policy ... on which the [Chinese People’s Liberation Army] PLA had to be consulted ... because the party leadership was beholden to the army for saving their mandate to rule in 1989,” he said.
Xi is the most powerful Chinese leader since Mao Zedong (毛澤東). However, he must still face down military hardliners in the PLA, increasingly confident in their military power, who believe China should invade or blockade Taiwan sooner rather than later. The publication of the new guidelines is probably part of Xi’s attempt to communicate to the military that he has the “Taiwan issue” under control.
However, Xi would not be in power forever and could one day be replaced by a leader significantly weaker, or more beholden to the military, as was the case with former Chinese president Jiang Zemin (江澤民) after Tiananmen.
Taiwanese leaders must use this time wisely and prepare for this eventuality by mobilizing the public for the possibility of cross-strait conflict, and garnering support for increased investment in the nation’s resilience.
The new legal guidelines bear a resemblance to Hong Kong’s National Security Law, which imposes legal definitions around national security, criminalizing anything that goes against the CCP’s definition of Chinese history and sovereignty.
It appears Beijing is building out its legal architecture in preparation for governing Taiwan — similar to how it does Hong Kong.
The single, highest priority of CCP leaders since the founding of the PRC has been the survival of the communist state, with the CCP at its apex, Sulmaan Wasif Khan said in his book Haunted by Chaos: China’s Grand Strategy from Mao Zedong to Xi Jinping.
The greatest threat to CCP rule would be if it launched a war against Taiwan and failed.
As the ancient military strategist Sun Zi (孫子) said: “The art of war is of vital importance to the state.”
If you lose the war, you could lose the state.
The best way Taiwanese can ensure they never face the same fate as Hong Kong is by mobilizing the national resources needed to deter conflict. The new legal guidelines do not suggest that an invasion is imminent, but they do suggest Beijing is thinking more seriously about what it would take to govern Taiwan “harmoniously.”
It is time for all political parties in Taiwan to join forces to resist the CCP.
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