20041226

When asked during a television interview what he thought the "landmines" were in terms of US-China relations, US Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage replied, "Taiwan," adding that, "Taiwan is probably the biggest landmine." So, will the US actually come to the defense of Taiwan in the event of an attack by China? To this, Armitage's answer was that the Taiwan Relations Act stipulates the US has to maintain sufficient force in the Pacific to resist any resort to force, but the decision of whether or not to declare a state of war remains with the US Congress.

It is difficult to find fault in what he actually said here, but what is clear from all this is first that the US is concerned about the rise of China; secondly, that a degree of conflict has arisen between the US and China; and third, that the issue of a potential "landmine" exploding is a crucial point.

In other words, the US is well aware of the threat posed by the rise of China, otherwise there would be no tension between them. At most, Taiwan is the "biggest" possible cause of trouble flaring.

As a result, the US' true focus is not the Taiwan question but the threat of China, and Taiwan is merely a landmine placed between the two giants. It is only when the situation is looked at in this light that one can understand the US standpoint on the Taiwan question, the TRA and US-China-Taiwan relations.

The TRA was passed in both houses of the US Congress, and declares that "peace and stability in the area are in the political, security, and economic interests of the United States," and that to have "boycotts and embargoes" against Taiwan are "a threat to the peace and security of the Western Pacific area," and are therefore "of grave concern to the United States."

Therefore, if the US comes to the defense of Taiwan, it will be doing so out of consideration of its own national interest.

Naturally, America has the choice of not defending Taiwan, should it relinquish its interests in the West Pacific region. To put it more clearly, if the US sells the "Taiwan landmine" down the river, and scraps the TRA, they will be losing the Western Pacific Region as a sphere of influence. This will be tantamount to making the same errors they committed 50 years ago, and creating a monster that they cannot control.

In May 1946, Chiang Kai-shek's forces routed the communist army in the battle of Sipingjie, and were approaching Harbin by June.

Here, he could have struck a decisive blow against the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), but called a ceasefire under pressure from US General George Marshall.

This gave the communists time to rest and regroup, and three years later communist China became a reality.

With a little assistance from China, the Soviet Union was able to extend into Asia, in addition to the influence it had in Europe and China itself. Also, Kim Il-sung (金日成) attacked the south of Korea, and Ho Chi-minh was able to have the success he did in Indochina. This all had the effect of worsening the Cold War.

Even today North Korea presents a major challenge to the US: they should have learned their lesson the first time around. America's mistakes of half a century ago have created the crisis that exists between China and Taiwan. Will the US make a similar mistake again? America has already lost friends in Europe -- is the same thing going to happen in Asia as well? This is not just something for the White House to think about: Congress must take note, too.

Chin Heng-wei is editor-in-chief of Contemporary Monthly Magazine.

CROSS-STRAIT TIES: China's NPC Standing Committee could review the proposed bill today, while officials here reiterated that it would unilaterally alter the status quo
By Joy Su STAFF REPORTER , WITH CNA

While China's highest legislative body yesterday began deliberations on an agenda that includes the closely watched anti-secession bill, reports yesterday said the bill itself would not be reviewed until today, at the earliest.

As of press time yesterday, China's state-run Xinhua newswire reported only that a draft of the anti-secession bill would be deliberated during a session of the Standing Committee of the National People's Congress (NPC) that began yesterday and will continue until Wednesday. The bill is the seventh of 20 items on the agenda.

Although Taiwanese officials had expected the bill to be looked at as early as yesterday, Tsang Hin-chi , a Hong Kong member of the Standing Committee of the NPC, told the Central News Agency that it was unlikely.

Tsang refrained from elaborating on the content of the bill, but said that it would be reviewed today.

If the draft bill clears the Standing Committee, it will be handed to the NPC in the spring of next year for approval.

"If this bill is enacted, it will prove to be in conflict with cross-strait stability. It will unilaterally change the status quo."

Once it clears the legislative branch, the bill must be approved by Chinese President Hu Jintao before it can be officially enacted. Analysts say the bill could be implemented in March at the earliest.

While Chinese authorities have been secretive about the details of the bill, Hong Kong's Wen Wei Po reported yesterday that an unnamed authoritative source in Beijing said the bill was primarily meant to establish a legal basis for China's Taiwan policy.

The bill is meant to ensure a unified China and cross-strait peace and provide a legal basis for the use of "non-peaceful" means in handling disagreements with Taiwan when left with no choice, the report quoted the source as saying.

The Central News Agency also reported from Beijing yesterday that a source said the bill's preamble states that "Taiwan is part of the sacred territory of the People's Republic of China. The sacred task of completely unifying the motherland belongs to all Chinese people, including the Taiwanese compatriots."

However, the proposed bill has been seen as a serious provocation to cross-strait relations here. National Security Council Secretary-General Chiou I-jen said yesterday that the bill posed two serious problems: it would allow China to define the boundaries of legality and illegality, and China would be able to punish those who trespass the law's stipulations. As such, the bill provided a legal basis for a military attack, he said.

Mainland Affairs Council Chairman Joseph Wu also reiterated yesterday that the bill was a serious provocation.

"If this bill is enacted, it will prove to be in conflict with cross-strait stability. It will unilaterally change the status quo. This is something that will be very hard for Taiwan to tolerate," Wu said.

Wu and his deputies have appeared on several television and radio shows for interviews this past week, each time reiterating that the anti-secession bill indicates China's hostility and calling on the international community to recognize that it is China, and not Taiwan, that is moving to change the status quo unilaterally.

Wu said that the unification law the Chinese authorities had touted in the past was unacceptable to people here because it assumed a specific end result, namely unification. He said that the anti-secession law went even further, assuming that China and Taiwan are unified.

The council also said yesterday that it was closely watching the anti-secession legislation, saying that officials had been observing the progress of the bill.

Council Vice Chairman Chiu Tai-san said that the agency would continue to monitor the decisions of the NPC Standing Committee through media reports and government contacts in Beijing, but that he did not have any new information regarding the content of the bill.

Over the past few days, extensive media reports and public discussions were made in Taiwan regarding whether US President George W. Bush had ever called President Chen Shui-bian names in the White House.

This is a classical case of wasteful consumption of energy and attention to the wrong cause. What really matters and is worth observing is US policy and the perception of the Chen administration's handling of cross-strait affairs.

The triangular relationship between the US, China, and Taiwan is at a critical stage -- in view of Beijing's submission of an anti-secession bill for enactment yesterday and the EU's talk of lifting a decade-long arms embargo, among other issues.

Although the substantive content of the anti-secession bill has not been released yet, Taiwan is obviously the intended target. As the Chinese Constitution states that Taiwan is part of Chinese territory, the emerging sense of national identity and sovereign consciousness within Taiwan is alarming Beijing.

Responding to the campaigns to rectify the name of Taiwan and adopt a new constitution, Beijing clearly intends to send a warning to Taiwan to refrain from further actions heading toward formal independence. While Beijing is probably not seriously planning on using force yet, it hopes to reiterate its willingness to use force if the need arises. Otherwise, to a regime such as the one in Beijing, there is simply no need to have any legal basis or justification offered by an anti-secession law before it makes an attack.

On the other hand, recent events also suggest that it is only a matter of time before the EU lifts its arms embargo against China. This is of course very alarming to Taiwan.

It is not that China has been unable to expand its military or acquire technologically advanced arms as a result of this embargo. But with the embargo officially lifted, it will only make things so much easier and less expensive for China. Moreover, some European countries have been waiting for the lifting of this embargo in order to enter strategic military cooperation and partnership with China, which will help China attempt to challenge and counter the US' role as the world's dominant military superpower. The implication of all this is of course extremely negative for Taiwan.

To Taiwan, the reactions and the role of the US in the face of all these rapidly unfolding events are extremely critical. Reportedly, the US may withdraw government backing for measures to improve military technology transfers to European countries if the EU lifts the embargo. On the other hand, the US has also expressed concern to Beijing about the enactment of the anti-secession law and is still in the process of communicating with the Chinese government about it.

Under the circumstances, how the US leadership and government perceive Taiwan's leadership and its policies is of course important. For Taiwan, it is enough to know that the US is concerned and less than pleased about some turn of events within Taiwan. However, along with the increasingly mature democracy in Taiwan, there is inevitably a craving for self-determination and an awarness of national identity.

As suggested by National Security Council Secretary-General Chiou I-jen yesterday, one cannot have democracy without these associated outcomes. Democratization within Taiwan is something that the US has been pleased to see. However, it would be unreasonable and nearly impossible for the US to demand that Taiwan get rid of the accompanying "complications."

Therefore, the most imperative task for Taiwan now is to increase communication and understanding with the US. Time and energy are better spent that way, rather than speculating over trivial, unsubstantiated hearsay dreamed up by political has-beens to bolster their domestic profile.

The Beijing regime, which practices one-party dictatorship and has absolutely no concept of law and order, had indicated an intention to draft a national unification law right before Taiwan's legislative elections. Recently, it has changed its mind and said it intends to draft an anti-secession law, which may be used as the legal basis for using force against Taiwan.

Presumably, under the law, Taiwan's autonomous acts will fall within the definition of "separatist" or "secession" conduct, and then Beijing will have a ground for "legally" using force or taking other actions against Taiwan. In the past, Beijing has repeatedly rejected requests to renounce using force against Taiwan. Now, China has suddenly discovered that doing so seems to lack any legal basis, and therefore hopes to draft the anti-secession law, so as to justify taking action against Taiwan's moves to protect its own sovereignty.

Taiwan and China -- each a country on either side of the Taiwan Strait -- have followed international law in their interactions and exchanges. The so-called anti-secession law has nothing to do with Taiwan. From the perspective of the Republic of China (ROC), the People's Republic of China (PRC) established in 1949, rather than the ROC established in 1912, was the one guilty of a "separatist" movement.

Taiwan, on the other hand, has absolutely nothing to do with the PRC established in 1949. In fact, under international law, before the San Francisco Peace Treaty came into force in 1952, Taiwan was still part of Japanese territory. Therefore, Taiwan has never been part of the PRC, and the people of Taiwan have never paid a cent in taxes to the Chinese government, while the Chinese government has never held effective rule over Taiwan for even one day.

How can Taiwan possibly be seeking secession or separation from the PRC? Since the two were never one, how can there be any secession issue?

So, even if China enacted the anti-secession law, it would have legal force within the PRC territory only, and have nothing to do with Taiwan. The Chinese Constitution explicitly states that Taiwan is part of the "sacred" territory of the PRC, and that PRC citizens are obligated to ensure national unification.

However, such a purely "illusory" command of the constitution is completely incapable of being implemented in real life. If this is the case with the supreme law of the land, can the so-called anti-secession law be any better? Some people are making comparisons between the Chinese anti-secession law and the Taiwan Relations Act (TRA) of the US.

However, this analogy is completely erroneous. The TRA is the basis of part of the US' foreign policy. The goal of the TRA is to protect the human rights of the people of Taiwan and ensure that the future of Taiwan will be determined in a peaceful manner. In comparison, this highlights that the anti-secession law is in reality a law seeking to engulf Taiwan. This kind of invasive and aggressive goal is not only in direct conflict with the aims of the TRA, but is prohibited under the UN Charter.

Reportedly, the target of the anti-secession law is Taiwan's plan to adopt a new constitution through a referendum. The intention is to suppress the independence of Taiwan "legally." Since the anti-secession law opposes Taiwan's adoption of a new constitution, it of course opposes the changing of the country's name or Taiwan's Constitution. The absurd thing is this: to the PRC, the ROC has long since ceased to exist.

Since the ROC no longer exists, why worry about what kind of name it takes? Also, the PRC has always opposed "two Chinas," yet now it is prohibiting Taiwan from changing its official name and the Constitution using Chinese domestic law. Isn't this the equivalent of slapping one's own face and creating "two Chinas?" Isn't this the same as generating "secession" through the anti-secession law?

China's intention in drafting the anti-secession law is none other than to utilize it along with military threats to prevent Taiwan from "changing the status quo" within the Taiwan Strait. Beijing's decision to make public its intention after the legislative elections, regardless of whether there was a deliberate or merely incidental connection, highlights the fact that it is speeding up its effort to consume Taiwan.

It is noteworthy that after the legislative elections, despite the fact the pan-blues managed to hang on to a legislative majority, Beijing nevertheless still intends to push for the anti-secession law. This indicates that Chinese animosity toward Taiwan makes no distinction between the pan-blue and pan-green camps. As for those who think that China is simply attacking the policies of President Chen Shui-bian , or that China will be peaceful so long as Taiwan re-embraces the national unification guidelines and the so-called "1992 consensus," they are simply naive.

So, both the ruling and the opposition camps must have a very clear sense of who are Taiwan's enemies and foes. Everyone must work together to defend the sovereignty of Taiwan and strengthen the national defense capabilities of Taiwan, as well as demonstrate the determination to protect the sovereignty of this country.

Despite differences in the wordings of their statements, both the ruling and opposition camps in Taiwan have expressed their opposition toward China's drafting of an anti-secession law. This kind of consensus on the core interests of Taiwan is the basis of Taiwan's policies and stances toward the outside world.

The so-called national unification law and anti-secession law are both Chinese plots to oppose independence and push for unification. The goal is to treat the issue of Taiwan as a domestic issue. In view of recent Chinese moves, Taiwan must watch out for Beijing's tricks both on and under the table, especially in the international arena. Special attention must be paid to the international propaganda campaign launched by China for the anti-secession law.

Everyone in Taiwan must stand firmly in line with the interests of Taiwan. Do not waste effort and energy in internal bickering when they are better spent in standing up against China. Taiwan is a democratic country, the people here should decide their own future despite the backdrop of Chinese expansionist ambitions. If China enacts the anti-secession law, it has nothing to do with Taiwan.

Taiwan's sovereignty will not be hampered in anyway. Even more important, the people of Taiwan must express their determination to oppose Chinese aggression in unison.