The additional question hovering over East Asia is whether Nancy Pelosi has lit the fire, Champagne China has returned and warned. The short visit of the Speaker of the US House of Representatives to Taiwan, which ended on Wednesday evening, puts China’s warnings and threats to a dramatic test.
Taiwan said today (Thursday) that China fired 11 ballistic missiles near its coastal waters. Beijing boasted that “the missiles hit their target”. Japan’s defense minister revealed that five of the missiles landed in waters that Japan defines as its “exclusive economic zone” (370 km from its shores, according to the UN Convention). If China was trying to gain attention, it certainly succeeded. Japan strongly protests, and the US Secretary of State urges China not to let this crisis get out of control.
Tony Blinken sounded the warning about geographical proximity. He participated in the semi-annual meeting of the foreign ministers of the US and the ASEAN countries (ASEAN), the ‘Association of Southeast Asian Nations’, which has 11 members, some of which border China. He said he hopes “very much that Beijing will not create a crisis, or look for an excuse to increase its aggressive military activity.” Blinken added that in recent days the US tried to talk about the Chinese’s heart to maintain stability and peace in the Taiwan Straits (which are about 150 km wide, and they separate the small island from the Chinese mainland).
It is delicious, because “nothing has changed” in US policy towards China. It adds to respect the principle of “one China”, and to see the communist regime as the sole representative of China.
This principle was announced back in 1979, when China and the US established full diplomatic relations. Until then, the US saw the Taiwanese government as China’s sole representative, a reminder of the days when Taiwan’s rulers were the defeated side in the Chinese civil war. But even after the US stopped recognizing the pretensions of Taiwan’s rulers to represent all of China, it pledged to add to and protect the well-being of Taiwan.
The Chinese fundamentally reject this logic. They consider Taiwan a “rebellious area”, and insist on annexing it. They interpret Pelosi’s visit to Taiwan as an encouragement to Taiwan to adhere to “separatism”, or to strive for full independence. Although Taiwan is independent to all intents and purposes, it does not officially claim independence, mainly because China threatens that such a move would result in an immediate war.
The military maneuvers around Taiwan are a clear expression of Chinese irritation, but they may also hint at what is to come. The Taiwan crisis, which has not been on China’s agenda for 73 years, is about to enter a new and ominous phase. It is fully justified to assume that China has decided to go to war, although the timetable is a matter of speculation only, probably a matter of several years.
The Communist regime in Beijing has claimed sovereignty over Taiwan since it won the civil war in 1949. From time to time the communists escalated the crisis, giving it a military touch. But at no point in the past has China exuded more self-confidence than it does today. Not only has it become an economic superpower, but it has built a military force that is beginning to threaten the traditional supremacy of the US in the Western Pacific and East Asia. Chinese rhetoric has always been extreme and full of threats. But the combination of rhetoric and strategic muscle is potentially deadly. .
The question is not whether the communist regime will find itself forced to respond to the “infringement on the sovereignty” of China. He has already started to respond.
The question is whether the dynamics of escalation and flare-up are intertwined in the Chinese moves. In recent days, China’s official spokespeople have repeated the phrase “If you play with fire, you will end up catching fire.” Those words were first uttered by China’s ruler, Xi Jinping, into President Joe Biden’s ears when they spoke on the phone last week. China’s Foreign Ministry came back and quoted them.
Power and bragging
The rhetoric coming from China in recent years is very extreme. In most countries, foreign ministries try to refine and round the corners. In China, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs does the opposite. He is bossy, belligerent, and often uses threats and even blasphemy. Chinese diplomats seem to be competing with each other in power and braggadocio.
This is the People’s Liberation Army, the guardian of the Chinese people for 95 years, who will not sit idly by when it comes to safeguarding national sovereignty & territorial integrity. pic.twitter.com/muJEtiQCXx
– Qin Gang (@AmbQinGang) August 1, 2022
China’s ambassador in Washington tweeted on Tuesday a long, impressive and aggressive video of the Chinese army in training. The excuse was the 95th anniversary of the founding of the “People’s Liberation Army”; The real reason was of course Pelosi’s trip. China’s ambassador in London threatened Britain with dire consequences if British members of parliament dared to visit Taiwan. Members of Parliament from all over the world have been visiting Taiwan for years.
Pelosi arrived in Taiwan during a hopping tour of East Asia. The anger of the Chinese burns in them to corrupt because her visit has the appearance of an official visit. Pelosi is the No. 3 political leader in the US, and is the most powerful leader in Congress. She has met with the president-elect of Taiwan, Tsai Ing-wen, who has been in office for six years. Tsai is a regular target of the arrows of fury of the communist regime. She belongs to a Taiwanese party , which has no roots in the continent, and as such is suspected of the grave sin of what is known in communist parlance as “slate”, meaning striving to make Taiwan an independent country.
What is Taiwan anyway?
In principle, Taiwan does not exist as such. Its official name is the “Republic of China”, a reminder of the days when its rulers claimed that their government was the only legitimate representative of all of China. This was following the defeat of the nationalists in the civil war with the communists, and their flight from the mainland to Taiwan, in 1949. They were then headed by the defeated Sioux Nationalist President, Chiang Kai-shek, who was an ally of the Americans and the British in World War II. He intended to make Taiwan a springboard to return to the mainland. He ruled with an iron fist until his death in 1975. He was succeeded by his son Chang Ching-kuo, who ruled until 1988.
Although President Tsai’s party does not claim independence explicitly, and continues to stick to the old name. But its whole essence is an emphasis on the separate Taiwanese identity. At the time, the Chinese tried to lure Taiwan to “return” to the mainland using the formula of “one country, two political methods”. They promised that they would allow Taiwan to maintain its democratic form of government, and even add and maintain an army.
But the behavior of the Chinese in Hong Kong in the last two years put an end to any illusion about their intentions. It is clear that the unification of Taiwan will follow the strict conditions of the communist dictator Xi Jinping, who has been engaged in tightening the political and economic belt on the continent for ten years.
Since the election of President Tsai in 2016, Beijing has been making a multi-continental effort to isolate Taiwan. Only a handful of small, or tiny, countries continue to recognize it. But Beijing’s eye is narrow even on this handful. It enticed a string of tiny islands in the South Pacific to cut ties with Taiwan, and it did the same in Central America. Any such disconnection was a day of national mourning in Taiwan.
Democracy and chips
But Taiwan’s economic strength ensures extensive trade relations with the outside world and considerable interest in informal ties with it. President Tsai’s Twitter account shows in recent days a visit by the president of the Central American Bank, the former defense ministers of the US and Japan, the former president of Estonia, the vice president of the European Parliament and an American senator from the state of Florida.
On July 1, she gave a speech to the international community about Taiwan’s determination to reject threats from repressive governments “and cooperate with our partners around the world to protect our liberal values and strengthen our democratic institutions.”
When the going gets tough, the tough get going. Unprecedented threats from authoritarian actors will not deter us in #Taiwan from working with our partners around the world to uphold liberal values & strengthen democratic institutions. pic.twitter.com/TAXDac4j0F
– Interview Tsai Ing-wen (@iingwen) July 1, 2022
This is also the motive of Pelosi’s visit to Taiwan: support for one of the most successful democracies on the Asian continent. This is a surprising state of affairs for those who remember that until the mid-1990s Taiwan was a one-party dictatorship and police state. As such she was accepted by the Communists in Beijing. Taiwan’s democratization startles the communists because it refutes their claim that liberal democracy is incompatible with China’s culture and needs.
Taiwan’s economic success is a thing. The annual income per head in Taiwan is two and a half times higher than that of China (2018 data). Its gross domestic product (purchasing power calculated) was 1.14 trillion dollars in 2019. Saudi Arabia is richer than her, but Taiwan’s wealth does not come from dead dinosaurs turned into oil but from sophisticated industrial production. It is the world’s most important source of chips.
China would have been happy to swallow it, not only to fulfill the patriotic task of unifying the motherland, but also to gain its industry, its science and its technology; Although on the other hand, if we believe China’s announcements, it is ready to destroy Taiwan first. If Nancy Pelosi does not bring war, the Taiwanese themselves think that war is imminent, and China will be ready to invade within two years. The Americans are more careful: five years, they contract. Little Taiwan’s heart beats strongly.
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