As I wrote in last week’s column, Beijing’s words and actions toward Taiwan over the years have amounted to “Don’t make me do it, because I really can’t.” Thus, they are outraged by Secretary of State Pompeo’s “one in three watch” and are calling him “scum” in rare diplomatic language. Therefore, they were outraged by Secretary of State Mike Pompeo’s “one China, three tables” and called him “scum” in rare diplomatic language.
I hope that the “patriotic Taiwanese” in Taiwan will not make the mistake of thinking that Beijing has abandoned you. “Beijing has never changed its claim to Taiwan’s sovereignty, and has repeatedly stated that it is not committed to renouncing the use of force to “liberate Taiwan”; it has never even promised that it will not use force as long as Taiwan is not independent! “Liberation of Taiwan”.
For years, “maintaining the status quo” seemed to be the answer to the satisfaction of most Taiwanese. In fact, this is only a unilateral claim made by the Tsai Ing-wen government. History is dynamic, and authoritarian regimes are never comfortable with the status quo. In this sense, there is no status quo that can be “maintained.
On the one hand, Taiwan does have its own system, polity, economy, culture, army, and diplomacy; on the other hand, it is “de facto not independent” – how else could it be a model for fighting epidemics and not even be allowed to participate in the WHO conference?
Why does Beijing suppress Taiwan’s diplomacy, but not “liberate Taiwan”? Why did the Communist Army conduct increasingly intense military exercises in the Taiwan Strait, but not directly bomb Taiwan? The answer is simple: this is all it can do for now.
The Korean War in the 1950s made Chinese Communist Party leader Mao Zedong realize that he was temporarily powerless to attack Taiwan. Subsequently, mainland China was plunged into a succession of political disasters. From the Anti-Rightist to the Cultural Revolution, Zhongnanhai was a place where the people of China were struggling to survive. Deng Xiaoping launched the reform and opening-up policy and saved the regime by revitalizing the economy. In 1979, he issued the Fifth “Proclamation to Compatriots in Taiwan”, which proposed to end the military confrontation between the two sides of the Taiwan Strait, open the “Three Direct Links” across the Taiwan Strait, and expand cross-strait exchanges.
In fact, in this open letter, which was considered to be full of peace, the main theme was still “the unification of China is the general trend of the people’s hearts” and “the split should be ended as soon as possible and China should be reunified. Since then, the military confrontation has not ended. The two sides of the Taiwan Strait have moved farther and farther apart politically: Taiwan is ending martial law and moving toward democracy; mainland China is strengthening its autocracy through the June Fourth massacre. In the ensuing years, Taiwanese investment and the Three Direct Links became major events, but were quickly preempted by the missile crisis and military exercises that began in 1996.
In 2019, Xi Jinping delivered a speech on the 40th anniversary of the “Proclamation to the Compatriots in Taiwan,” calling for “a bright future for the great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation,” “the completion of the great cause of the reunification of the motherland,” and the inclusion of the reunification of the motherland in his “Chinese Dream”. The “blueprint. There are indications that he has more ambitions to “liberate Taiwan”.
Beijing has its own agenda
In the previous Jiang Hu era, “liberation of Taiwan” was merely a political slogan. I began visiting Taiwan during Ma Ying-jeou’s presidency, and every time I was asked about the crisis in the Taiwan Strait, my answer was that despite the PLA’s flaunting of its power over Taiwan, the possibility of using force was almost nil.
I gave the following reasons: first, the military is so busy with corruption that no one is prepared for war; second, the prevalence of only children in both urban and rural areas makes it easy for anti-war sentiments to erupt; third, the top brass is fully committed to maintaining stability and only wants a smooth transition; fourth, ideologically, after June Fourth, materialism without regard to politics has become mainstream, and being cannon fodder is considered beyond one’s reach; and fifth, for the reasons mentioned above, Beijing prefers to use the “war on terror” approach through the “war on terror” approach. Sixth, and more importantly, China is arguably invulnerable compared to the military capabilities of the United States. In short, it is not a matter of what we do, but what we cannot do.
Former President Ma Ying-jeou’s declaration that “the first war is the last war” is misleading, as it makes the Taiwanese think that Beijing already has the ability to “liberate Taiwan” and is merely examining the attitude of Taiwan’s leaders. Ma Ying-jeou probably thought that, thanks to his right policies, Taiwan had not been razed to the ground by Beijing’s missiles. President Tsai Ing-wen probably thought that it was her fearlessness and determination to resist that kept Beijing from making a move. This is all a misunderstanding of Beijing.
Beijing has its own agenda, and it is not led by the nose by Taiwanese political parties or politicians. It is true that it has made high-profile threats against “Taiwan independence activists,” cursed Western politicians for “meddling” in its internal affairs, and threatened “shaky foundations and shaking mountains,” but the dictatorship is not what it seems. Madness. The only deciding factor in whether and when Beijing attacks Taiwan is whether it can – and when it can, it won’t help that everyone in Taiwan is Ma Ying-jeou, and vice versa. In this sense, the unfinished U.S. election crisis does create an opportunity for Beijing.
Recent Comments