Despite peace bid, threat remains: Ma
　

PREPARED: Relations between Taipei and Beijing have improved, but the more than 1,000 missiles that China is aiming at Taiwan are proof that dangers still exist
　

By Ko Shu-Ling
STAFF REPORTER
Wednesday, Sep 03, 2008, Page 3
　

President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) said yesterday that his position had always been that the military should prepare for war but not provoke one.

Ma said that while his cross-strait policies had created hope for peace in the Taiwan Strait, Taiwanese should remember that Beijing is targeting more than 1,000 missiles at Taiwan and therefore poses a threat to the nation’s security.

“There is threat and there is also opportunity in cross-strait relations … the function of the decision-maker is to minimize the threat and maximize the opportunities,” he said, adding that the military had every reason to remain alert and to seek to prevent any threat to peace in the Strait.

Ma made the remarks while addressing the 145 recipients of this year’s model armed forces, groups and individuals award in Taipei yesterday morning.

In a recent interview with the Chinese-language magazine Global Views, Ma said it was the common aspiration of both sides of the Strait to achieve a truce across the Strait and within the international community.

However, it will take work on both sides and Taiwan cannot achieve this on its own, he said.

“If the mainland is not interested in our proposal, we will soon know and swiftly restore the preparedness we should have,” he said yesterday. “The government is not promoting capitulation, but rather advocating the idea that the armed forces should not be afraid of war and should be prepared for one. However, we will make every effort to prevent a war and not to provoke one.”

To prevent a war and deter potential enemies, Ma said the administration would seek to create modern, professional and reliable armed forces through reform in military affairs and transformation of the national defense apparatus.

“We cannot just sit at home and think that war will not break out,” he said. “We must prepare the armed forces so that our enemy will think twice about provoking a war. We must also buy the necessary weapons and earmark the necessary budgets, because only by doing so can we protect Taiwan and ensure its sovereignty.”

Taiwan needs an opposition

In Saturday’s rally against President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九), an estimated 30,000 people took to the street, proclaiming that Taiwan needs to maintain its sovereignty, make government finance more transpar ent, and in particular, improve its economy.

The rally should have gained praise for making use of democratic action. Instead, the rally was distorted by the media, who connected it to support for former president Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁), who is embroiled in allegations of a money-laundering scandal.

In the two weeks since the scandal broke, waves of discontent have been breaking over the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) and lots of supporters quit the party because they were ashamed of Chen. Some former supporters even hope that the DPP will disappear.

The allegations surrounding Chen did indeed hit the DPP in the gut. However, the DPP is the second-largest party in the nation, and the only counterweight to balance the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT).

If the DPP disappears, chances are that the KMT will be catapulted to a position as the only large party in Taiwan. The lack of a balancing mechanism between parties in Taiwan will jeopardize the nation’s political future. In particular, Ma’s conciliatory China policy requires more constructive criticism by a strong opposition.

Therefore, I call on everyone to calm down. Do not go so far emotionally that you lose the ability to act rationally.

Hisao Wei-Hung
Beitou, Taipei City

Beijing ambitions stir uncertainty
　

By Sushil Seth
Wednesday, Sep 03, 2008, Page 8

You have to worry about a country that condemns two of its elderly people, aged 77 and 79 (one of them virtually blind), to “re-education through labor” for one year. Their crime was to seek permission to protest (in officially demarcated protest sites) against their eviction from their homes at Qianqiao, near Tiananmen Square. These two frail women were seeking due compensation for their eviction. If this sort of thing can happen right under the glare of the Olympics in Beijing, one can only imagine the fate of the poor, the vulnerable and the marginalized when nobody is looking.

With such lack of compassion when dealing with its own people, China’s ruling oligarchy would be hard pressed to show much consideration in their dealings with the rest of the world. This is pertinent when examining China’s political and strategic goals in the Asia-Pacific region. It suggests a very ruthless political streak.

Beijing swears that its rise will be peaceful and mutually beneficial for all concerned. And that they are doing it in a benign environment. China is “benign” not because it is a peaceful power but because it is largely getting its way thanks to a juxtaposition of favorable factors.

First, its rapid economic growth has created an image among its Asian neighbors of a powerful country that means business politically, economically and strategically. They are, therefore, adjusting to the new perceived reality of Chinese power by coming to terms with it.

Second, the US over-stretch in Iraq and Afghanistan has created an impression that the former might be retreating from Asia. Hence, China’s neighbors increasingly believe that they have no choice but to heed and accommodate a rising China.

Third, China’s hesitance to use military power is also dictated by its limitations. Take Taiwan, for instance. Beijing has been preparing to take it by force for many years, but has repeatedly hesitated to go all the way. It is because, as Jonathan Pollack of the US Naval War College believes, their generals are probably a long way from feeling confident of a successful outcome.

Elaborating on this during a lecture at the University of Sydney, Pollack reportedly said: “China has not fought a war in 30 years [since the last one against Vietnam over Cambodia, with not very flattering results]. Not only that, any kind of use of force directed against Taiwan would be qualitatively different … The risks therefore are much higher: the risks of failure.”

In any case, with President Ma Ying-jeou’s (馬英九) regime sending accommodative signals, China might not need to test its resolve in this matter. In other words, Beijing seems to be pretty much getting what it wants without having to use force, though it did come quite close to using force against Taiwan in the mid-1990s, and with Japan in the East China Sea.

Because of its relative success in pushing its agenda of regional primacy, an impression is gaining currency that the present century belongs to China. In other words, Beijing will be able to operate at will in the Asia-Pacific region.

US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice has sought to dispel this impression of China’s omnipotence. In a paper titled, “The new American realism,” in Foreign Affairs (July/August 2008), Rice wrote: “Indeed, although many assume that the rise of China will determine the future of Asia, so, too — and perhaps to an even greater degree — will the broader rise of an increasingly democratic community of Asian States.”

In her view, this is the “defining geopolitical event of the twenty-first century, and the United States is right in the middle of it.”

In other words, the US is going to remain fully involved in Asia and is not going anywhere.

To elaborate her point, she said: “We enjoy a strong, democratic alliance with Australia, with key states in Southeast Asia, and with Japan — an economic giant that is emerging as a ‘normal’ state [to exercise a commensurate political and strategic role], capable of working to secure and spread our values both in Asia and beyond.”

Rice has thus strongly endorsed the validity and vigor of the US alliance with Japan as a counterpoint to China. As well as Japan, Rice also made a point of declaring that “the United States has a vital stake in India’s rise to global power and prosperity, and [that] relations between the two countries have never been stronger and broader.”

The growing impression that China will be the determining power in Asia (to the exclusion of others) in the present century is unwarranted. In Southeast Asia, for instance, Indonesia is emerging as a stable democracy likely to impact on the contours of a new regional architecture. At the same time, as Rice has indicated, the US is starting to recognize the diffusion of power in the region.

This makes it “incumbent on the United States to find areas of cooperation and strategic agreement with Russia and China, even when there are significant differences,” as on Taiwan.

Pollack has also noted that the US is slowly recognizing the emergence of a new multipolar world order. In Asia, with Japan still in the US camp, Washington will need to deal with two “unequivocally autonomous powers” (China and India) to create some kind of trilateral understanding.

Pollack doesn’t believe that India will become a US ally. But China will continue to stake its claim for political primacy in Asia, which the US is unlikely to recognize. This would cause tensions between China and the US, independent of the Taiwan factor. China’s military build-up, with annual double-digit increases in its defense budget, is causing concern.

As Rice pointed out in her article: “The United States, along with many other countries, remains concerned about China’s rapid development of high-tech weapons systems … China’s lack of transparency about its military spending and doctrine and its strategic goals increases mistrust and suspicion.”

For instance, China’s new underground nuclear submarine base near Sanya, on Hainan island, is a serious development. As Jane’s Defence Weekly has commented, “This development, so close to the Southeast Asian sea lanes so vital to the economies of Asia, can only cause concern far beyond these straits.”

This development, combined with China’s steady overall military build-up, points to Beijing’s medium and long-term ambition to dominate the region. This ambition is likely to meet resistance, thus creating strategic uncertainty in the region.

Sushil Seth is a writer based in Australia.