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China
is a growing menace on Aug 10, 2004 China
is a growing menace
The result of the match was not the main reason for these violent emotions.
Even if there was dissatisfaction with the "hand of God" decision
which gave Japan its second goal, Japan's victory is undisputed. The real reason
for the riots is the historical hatred caused by the Sino-Japanese War 60 years
ago. This hatred has been manipulated by Chinese officials and the media under
their control to periodically rouse Chinese nationalism and anti-Japanese
sentiment. Now, that same hatred has made Chinese fans incapable of accepting
the loss of the Asian Cup to Japan. Now Japan has some idea of the hostility that China is capable of -- a
hostility of which Taiwan has borne the brunt for over half a century. China has
insisted that Taiwan is a part of its territory and continues to increase its
verbal and military threats against this country. This country has shown nothing
but goodwill in return -- not challenging the "one China" principle,
but allowing Taiwanese businessmen to invest in China and trying to establish
the three links across the Strait as soon as possible. China, on the other hand, not only sneers at this, but continues to insist
that Taiwan belongs to China. It has set out a timetable for attack, threatening
to mobilize its troops if Taiwan continues to postpone unification. In fact, when it comes to China's wider ambitions for power, the football
riots in Beijing are merely the tip of the iceberg. Following Singapore Deputy
Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong's visit to Taiwan, Beijing immediately penalized
Singapore, virtually suspending all official relations and postponed free trade
negotiations. Singapore's leaders have always enjoyed good relations with
Beijing in the past, and even notified Beijing prior to the visit. Regardless,
they were not to be spared. China is currently mobilizing its academics and media to promote the
"northeastern development project," which aims at claiming what used
to be the kingdom of Koguryo as its own. The South Korean foreign ministry has
strongly protested this distortion of history, pointing out that Koguryo is
intimately connected with the origin of the Korean people and is of the utmost
importance to the Korean sense of identity. They have requested that China
change its position on the issue, but Beijing has pushed responsibility for this
down to regional governments and has refused South Korea's requests. China is
creating a historical construct to substantiate claims to sovereignty over the
Korean Peninsula that it may some day seek to realize. This is the ultimate aim
of the "northeastern development project." China's actions in the South China Sea have also led to anxiety among
southeast Asian nations. Apart from its arms buildup, it has led the movement
towards an ASEAN ten-plus-three alliance. China is increasing its influence
through southeast Asia and the Pacific to counteract US influence there. The
Pacific Ocean is already the front line in a "Cold War" between China
and the US. China has been vigorously promoting the theory of "peaceful
rising." But it is plagued by nationalism and internal political struggles.
Moreover, it lacks the self restraint of a nation that claims to be part of the
international community. Not only does it fail to present an impression of a
peaceful rising, it also convinces everyone that China is a threat.
The
slippery slope leads to China By
Southern Taiwan Society and Union of Taiwan Teachers Chairman of the Mainland
Affairs Council Joseph Wu, recently said that: "In order to promote
cross-strait cultural and educational exchanges, the council will talk with the
Ministry of Education (MOE) and related bodies about the idea of allowing
Chinese students to study in Taiwan." The first step, he added, is to
approve the enrollment of Chinese students in Taiwanese universities. What kind of cultural and educational exchanges does Taiwan need to promote
with China? Chinese history and literature make up a large proportion of our
education system, starting from elementary schools and continue right up through
to university.A plan to establish a graduate institute in Taiwanese history and
a department of Taiwanese literature at National Cheng Kung and National Sun
Yat-sen universities was rejected by pro-unification Mainlander professors on
those campuses. In contrast, China understands Taiwan very well and the amount
of Chinese publications in the history of Taiwanese literature surpasses our own
at least five fold. Taiwan's university departments which carry Taiwanese
literature even go so far as to use Chinese text books on the history of
Taiwanese literature. For the purpose of "understanding Taiwan," China's Xiamen
University has expanded its Institute of Taiwan Studies (now called the College
of Taiwan Studies) and is now subdivided into five institutes: Taiwanese
politics, economics, history, literature, and cross-strait relations.
Politicians here may not realize their political networks, interpersonal
communications and social relationship are of interest to Chinese researchers.
China even conducts "studies" into the daily travel habits of all
Taiwan's military officers with the rank of colonel and above. With this kind of interconnection of culture, and education, why bother
with any further plan to "increase cross-strait cultural and educational
exchanges?" In recent years, there has been a substantial migration of
Taiwanese students to China, and many Taiwanese professors have also been eager
to teach in China. Thus, voices calling for the recognition of Chinese university diplomas are
becoming louder, so the reason why the MOE has opened the doors to Chinese
students is clear. With such a trend already occurring, why would Wu still want
to pave the way for recognizing diplomas granted by Chinese universities? When former president Lee Teng-hui proposed the "special
state-to-state" dictum, students in Chinese universities were exasperated
by it. One Chinese newspaper headline read: "Our missiles can now target
Lee Teng-hui's office desk." Two years ago, President Chen Shui-bian once
again asserted that there is "one country on either side" of the
Taiwan Strait, and as a consequence, threatening, anti-Taiwan slogans became
commonplace on Chinese Web sites. Many Taiwanese students, when talking with
their Chinese counterparts overseas, often hear statements like "Taiwan has
long been a part of China" and say many of them believe Taiwan and China
must be "reunited." After the Tiananmen Square Massacre, many Chinese officials believed that
"safeguarding national integrity" would best be served by restoring
military training courses in college, middle schools, and even elementary
schools. While receiving this kind of training in the past, the young had to
wear military uniforms, sing songs about the People's Liberation Army and adorn
themselves with red scarves to signify fresh blood of China's revolutionary
heros -- all to pay homage to the Chinese Communist Party. The offspring of Taiwanese business people living in China would therefore
be required to receive this kind of training. University undergraduate,
graduate, and doctoral students in China are already required to study Marxism,
the philosophy of Deng Xiaoping and many other political courses and eventually
come to believe that Taiwan be reunited with China. Many conservative university presidents here think there is no need for the
MOE to insist on the principle of "bilateral equality and dignity."
They also think it harmless to withdraw the word, "national," from a
university's title in order to gain favor with Chinese universities. The notion
that achieving a "consensus" on cross-strait exchange issues will
eliminate the need for formal independence is taken for granted by Taiwanese
university presidents. Thus, Wu will be applauded by the Chinese government and Chinese living in
Taiwan if he grants Chinese students permiss-ion to attend university here. Slowly, and in small increments, government policy is taking us down a path
headed to de facto unification. Because our economy is relatively small, it is
necessary to boost our tourist industry by getting the Chinese to visit Taiwan.
A low birth rate has resulted in an insufficient enrollment rate in the nation's
60 universities and many think we need to start attracting some of the 8 million
Chinese students here to fill the gap. All of these steps will put us on a
slippery slope that will lead to reunification. The
Southern Taiwan Society is an organization that promotes formal sovereignty for
Taiwan. The Union of Taiwanese Teachers is a group which seeks to foster
independent thinking and judgement.
US
parties must be wary of China By
Paul Lin Preparations for the US
presidential election in November have entered an intense stage. The Democratic
Party has held its convention in Boston. Next comes the Republican Party
convention in New York. Ethnic Chinese on both sides of the Taiwan Strait and around the world are
focusing on the two presidential candidates' cross-strait policies. The Republican Party is already in power, and if Bush is re-elected, my
guess is there won't be any major changes. But the Democratic Party's
relationship with the Chinese government has always been better than that of the
Republicans. In one of his campaign statements, Democratic Party presidential
candidate John Kerry said that the "one country, two systems" model
could be used to resolve the cross-strait relationship. Furthermore, the section of the Democratic Party's election platform
dealing with the Strait mentions the "one China" policy and
"improved relations with China," but not the Taiwan Relations Act.
Does this mean that there will be bigger policy changes if Kerry is elected?
Although an addition has been made to the party's platform saying that a
peaceful solution to the Strait issue must meet the interests of the people of
Taiwan, the US and Taiwan may have different views of what those interests are.
For the US, they may include the option to achieve peace through Taiwan's
surrender. Although the cross-strait policy of Kerry and his foreign policy team is
ambiguous, some commentators have said that there are no great differences
between Democrats and Republicans when it comes to protecting Taiwan. When China
was lobbing missiles over the country during the 1996 presidential election,
then-president Bill Clinton sent an aircraft carrier to the Strait to deter
China. There have also been reports that the ethnic Chinese Representative David
Wu, a Democrat who is very friendly towards Taiwan, sent a telegram to Kerry
asking him about his "one country, two systems" statement. Kerry
reportedly responded that it was a slip of the tongue. But such "ambiguities" or "mistakes" could conceivably
lead to China misinterpreting the situation and taking rash action, thereby
destroying peace and stability in the Strait. What's more, the past political attitudes of some important Democratic
politicians are also cause for worry. First, Richard Holbrooke, a former US
ambassador to the UN, is one of Kerry's likely picks for secretary of state.
Around the time when the US severed diplomatic ties with Taiwan, he was
assistant secretary of state for southeast Asia. Two years ago, with the support
of former US ambassador to China J. Stapleton Roy, among others, Holbrooke
strongly advocated that the US sign a fourth Sino-US communique with China.
Holbrooke now believes that with the Cold War over, China is less of a threat to
the free world than was the Soviet Union. But if one understands that the US was
led into a trap in each of the three previous communiques, one can see that the
fourth communique might be even more damaging to Taiwan. Second, another former ambassador to China, James Sasser, is even more
pro-China than Roy. He was on several occasions invited to the home of former
Chinese president Jiang Zemin. Some US media are fond of saying that, rather
than being the US' ambassador to China, he was China's ambassador to the US. When the US mistakenly bombed the Chinese embassy in Belgrade in 1999, the
Chinese government instigated violent student protests outside the US embassy
and consulates. Sasser probably didn't expect such treatment after having done
everything he could to help China. Neither Republicans nor Democrats have made
cross-strait policy the focus of their respective election campaigns. But a
review of previous elections shows that Ronald Reagan criticized Jimmy Carter
for severing diplomatic ties with Taiwan, that Clinton accused Beijing of being
a dictatorship, while George W. Bush criticized Clinton for being too soft on
Beijing. Perhaps it is no coincidence that all three won the election -- voters
think American values are important, and do not just look to short term
benefits. Both the Republican and Democratic parties see anti-terrorism as the
top foreign policy priority. The US should remain on its guard against the
Chinese government -- given Beijing's murky relationships with international
terrorists, and its view of the US as a potential enemy. The Democratic Party should be more supportive of liberalism than the
Republican Party, and it should not neglect China's deteriorating human rights
record and rapidly expanding military. Democrats also have a weaker relationship
with multinational corporations investing in China. Finally, the dumping of
cheap Chinese products into the domestic market hurts the interests of US
workers and small manufacturers -- which is something neither Republicans nor
Democrats can ignore. Paul
Lin is a commentator based in New York. Translated
by Perry Svensson
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