20101001 China’s hegemony must be curbed

China’s hegemony must be curbed

During a recent visit to the US to address the UN General Assembly, Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao (溫家寶) proved that he is an expert at generating news. Just after he expressed a strong attitude over Japan’s detainment of a Chinese fishing boat, Japan released the detained captain of the boat to avoid increasing diplomatic tensions between the two sides. Then Wen told members of the Chinese press in New York that the missiles China has aimed at Taiwan would be removed “in the end.”

As soon as news of these comments made it to Taiwan, President Ma Ying-jeou’s (馬英九) government responded by saying this was a sign of Chinese goodwill and evidence that certain achievements had already been made in the peaceful and stable development of cross-strait relations.

Politicians and media outlets that view it as their mission to promote unification with China jumped on the bandwagon and sang China’s praises, as if the missile threat to Taiwan would be removed in the not-so-distant future.

UNCLEAR MEANING

No one with any knowledge of China would have acted this way. They took the words and actions of China at face value, choosing only to interpret these comments in a positive light. As to Wen’s comment about the eventual removal of the missiles, surely most Taiwanese would respond by asking just what that means.

With the government’s policy of eventual unification, China does not have to resort to military force. If Taiwan hastens the speed of unification, of course China will remove its missiles. Alternatively, these comments may have meant that China may eventually force Taiwan to accept certain political and economic conditions and this would of course also lead to China removing its missiles.

Consequently, militarily speaking, Wen’s comments about eventually removing the missiles is just a lot of empty talk, while in political terms, the comments are evidence that China is not willing to sacrifice anything. These comments are clearly a bunch of empty promises aimed at disguising China’s moves toward taking over Taiwan and fooling Taiwanese. No Taiwanese with half a brain would get carried away by such comments.

It would be worthwhile to look at how China’s other neighbors view Beijing’s rising power. Although Wen declared during his visit to New York that China would not make any moves to gain hegemony, he said China would not back down on sovereignty and territorial issues.

Over the last few weeks, these comments caused serious discrepancies between how China on the one hand and Japan, Korea and Southeast Asian nations on the other viewed these security issues.

Just as the New York Times reported on Wednesday last week, China’s constant disputes with its neighboring countries have not only given rise to widespread concern, they have also caused the US to markedly increase its presence in East Asia.

ASIAN INFLUENCE

When meeting with US President Barack Obama last Friday, Philippine President Benigno Aquino III also stressed that ASEAN nations would join together if China started acting like a hegemon in the disputed South China Sea.

The pressure China has been exerting on Japan clearly shows how China can cause instability in its neighboring countries and provoke negative reactions. Beijing has been doing all sorts of things to get Tokyo to follow its wishes. Apart from Wen saying that China would do what it has to do to control Japan, China also canceled meetings between ministerial-level officials from the two nations, as well as talks on developing gas and oil fields in the East China Sea. It also implemented limits on the number of Chinese tour groups allowed to visit Japan and on advertisements for travel to Japan.

In addition, four Japanese nationals were arrested for entering a military control area without permission. There have even been reports that China has tried to ban the export to Japan of rare minerals needed in high-tech industries. China has also harassed Japanese-owned businesses in China, such as Toyota Motor Corp, by imposing fines.

As all this has been going on, Chinese academics have been coming up with suggestions and proposed various ways of bringing sanctions against Japan, with economic sanctions being the most possible.

When we look at the way Beijing treats its neighbors, Taiwan really cannot afford to let its guard down. Consider economic sanctions as an example. According to a report in the English-language Japan Times on Wednesday last week, after China put a limit on travel to Japan, those involved in the Japanese tourist industry started to worry about the repercussions.

Japan originally hoped to attract tourists to boost its economy and expected 1.8 million Chinese tourists to visit Japan this year. That is not even 20 percent of its total number of 10 million foreign tourists.

In stark contrast with Japan, the Ma administration is doing everything it can to get -Chinese tourists to visit Taiwan. Chinese tourists showed the fastest growth of all nations visiting Taiwan, with 840,000 in the last half year alone. This makes them the largest group of tourists to Taiwan, accounting for 30 percent of all foreign tourists. Not only does Taiwan rely on China in terms of tourism, China is now also Taiwan’s biggest export market and the second-largest source of Taiwanese imports. China also holds Taiwan’s largest trade surplus and it receives more Taiwanese investment than any other nation in the world.

OVER-DEPENDENCE

A few years ago, Chinese academic Hu Angang (胡鞍鋼) used the case of a diabetic and insulin to describe Taiwan’s excessive dependence on China and said China could use economic sanctions to force Taiwan to do whatever China wants within seven days.

Now, the Ma administration is leaning toward China at an ever-increasing pace with the recently inked Economic Cooperation Framework Agreement (ECFA), pushing Taiwan further along an irreversible path to a single China market.

The degree to which Japan is dependent on China’s economy differs from Taiwan, and the pressure this causes is evident from the certain diplomatic issues that influence Taiwan. With the Ma administration’s heavy tilt toward Beijing, Taiwan has no choice but to listen to everything China says.

As soon as China starts to act like a hegemon, Taiwan would have no way of preventing economic sanctions from China and would have to surrender.

Many people in Taiwan are hell-bent against the ECFA for this very reason. And for very similar reasons, this is why the Ma administration’s pro-China policies have to be stopped as soon as possible.