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Chinese and African commonalities
The Jasmine Revolution in North Africa and the Middle East has spread from
Tunisia and Egypt to Libya. Former presidents Zine al-Abidine Ben Ali of Tunisia
and Hosni Mubarak of Egypt both resigned, after having been in power for 24
years and 30 years respectively. The turn has now come to Libya: Libyan leader
Muammar Qaddafi is fighting for his life in a last-ditch struggle as he is
deserted by followers and condemned by the international community after 42
years in power.
This wave of popular revolution in the Islamic world at the beginning of the
21st century is sweeping the authoritarian regimes left from the past century
into the trash can of history. Sending these savage and dictatorial living
fossils into the museums is a necessary step in the progress of civilization.
When people look back at history, they often see an ironic turn of events. When
the government of former president Chiang Kai-shek (蔣介石) relocated to Taiwan in
1949, the US released a white paper in which it claimed that “the dust had
settled” and that it was about to abandon Chiang’s Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT)
regime. However, the US was forced to make a U-turn when the Korean War broke
out in 1950.
At the time, the US worried that communist expansion would cause a “domino
effect” and the whole world in the end would become communist. So it intervened
in the Korean War by force and built a global strategy to contain communism.
With its excellent strategic position, Taiwan was able to serve as a so-called
unsinkable US aircraft carrier in the Pacific Ocean.
The US therefore altered its policy of no interference and began providing
massive economic and military aid to Taiwan, sending the 7th Fleet to safeguard
the nation. It was only at that time that Taiwan became truly secure.
Later, during the Cold War era, young military officers from the Third World
were sent to the US for training, becoming the Western world’s troops in the
fight against the expansion of communism. For example, Qaddafi once received
training in Taiwan at the then-Political Warfare College.
After these young officers returned to their own countries, some of them started
building alliances with one another as their political power grew.
Eventually, they defeated the old forces through military coups and became the
new leaders of their countries. They all upheld the banner of nationalism after
they came to power, and most of the public placed their hopes on them. However,
after tasting power, they quickly deteriorated, becoming dictators themselves as
they continued to exploit the public as slaves.
Ironically, the Third World was in fact a key battlefield for Chiang and China
in their fight for the UN seat. In the past, Taiwan was able to provide
agricultural teams and economic aid, while China was only able to export
ideology and revolution.
Taiwan thus enjoyed a large number of Latin American and African allies, and
Africa was its main diplomatic base.
Today, the situation has completely changed. In the face of China’s diplomatic
moves, Taiwan’s defense line has been penetrated repeatedly. In particular,
Africa has long fallen into China’s hands.
And more importantly, China’s expansion into Africa has already gone beyond
Beijing’s use of the region to gain the upper hand in cross-strait
confrontation; China now views African expansion as strategic deployments
against US and European forces.
With the great national strength accumulated over 30 years of economic reform,
China has replaced empty revolutionary slogans with massive economic aid, as
well as buyouts and purchases of oil, natural gas, metals, uranium mines, wood
and fishery products.
Today, the Chinese political and economic force has made great inroads in
Africa, and Chinese enterprises, workers and characters can been seen
everywhere.
Africa is rich in energy and minerals, resources that are indispensable to
China’s economic development. Since the economy is poor in many African
countries ruled by dictators, their only treasure consists of such natural
resources. China is also an authoritarian country that does not care about human
rights or democracy. Both the seller and the buyer are authoritarian countries,
the former having the resources and the latter the money.
What a perfect match. To obtain more oil, China has ignored international
criticism, providing economic aid to places such as Sudan and Rwanda, both
involved in genocide. Indeed, Chinese economic aid is often crucial to the
perpetuation of authoritarian African regimes.
The Liberty Times (the Taipei Times’ sister newspaper) is studying how China
goes about attracting Third World countries, because we have found that the
“united-front” tactics it is using on Taiwan work along very similar lines.
China has temporarily covered its true face by putting aside military threats
and making itself out to be a philanthropist.
In particular, the inability of President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) and his government
to boost Taiwan’s economy and their resulting adoption of pro-China policies
have no doubt given China an opportunity to initiate its economic “united front”
work against Taiwan.
Its most important move is the trap set by the Economic Cooperative Framework
Agreement. On the one hand, it uses the Chinese market as bait to attract
Taiwanese businesspeople to move to China. On the other hand, it paves the way
for the dumping of cheap and low-quality Chinese goods in Taiwan. In addition,
China has sent a large number of tourists and buyers to Taiwan, claiming they
will help boost the nation’s economy.
During his recent visit to Taiwan, Association for Relations Across the Taiwan
Straits Chairman Chen Yunlin (陳雲林) even boasted of how China would resolve
Taiwan’s unemployment problem. The purpose of the normalization of Chinese
purchases of Taiwanese agricultural products is obviously a ploy to move into
southern Taiwan with the help of economic means, gradually penetrating the
pan-green camp’s support base.
China is an authoritarian regime where the state controls all the resources. It
is therefore able to ignore economic laws to serve its political purposes. The
methods used for Chinese deployments in Africa might be different from its
“united front” efforts against Taiwan, but the two share the same purpose and
nature.
Africa’s most valuable assets are its energy and mineral resources, and Taiwan’s
most valuable asset are the minds its people.
To be able to buy people’s minds, China is sparing no cost as it intensifies its
economic attack. However, once it achieves its goal and wins over the Taiwanese
public, the nation will be of no further value to China and it will be left at
the mercy of Beijing’s manipulations.
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