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An unhappy birthday for Taiwan

October 10, 2017

An unhappy birthday for Taiwan, Washington Times, Don Feder, October 9, 2017

(Please see also, China’s Secret Military Plan: Invade Taiwan by 2020. — DM)

Illustration on Taiwan’s national day by Linas Garsys/The Washington Times

ANALYSIS/OPINION:

The New York Times, the U.S. equivalent of the People’s Daily, could barely contain its glee: “Panama Establishes Ties with China, Further Isolating Taiwan,” read the headline in the June 13 edition.

But Taiwan isn’t isolated, not where it counts. Bilateral trade with the United States was $65.3 billion in 2016, making the ROC our 10th-largest trading partner. According to the International Monetary Fund, Taiwan has the world’s 15th-largest economy (the seventh-largest in Asia). Not bad for a nation of 23 million. Its trade partners are delighted to do business with a country whose existence they won’t officially recognize.

Liberal media like The New York Times assume that resolving the conflict by grafting the ROC to the PRC would be better for everyone.

It wouldn’t be better for a people whose destiny would be taken out of their hands. It wouldn’t be better for the United States, which would see the end of a government that shares our values. And it would not be better for the world, marking the disappearance of the only Chinese democracy in history.

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Tuesday is Taiwan’s national day (known as Double Ten Day), commemorating the Wuchang Uprising, which led to the establishment of the Republic of China (ROC) in 1912. The Republic of China on Taiwan is the true heir to Sun Yat-sen’s revolution.

Like the late Rodney Dangerfield, Taiwan gets no respect — at least in the world of international diplomacy.

In June, Panama severed diplomatic ties with Taiwan. Since 1970, most countries have opted for Beijing over Taipei, due to a combination of pressure and bribes. China refuses to have diplomatic relations with any nation that officially recognizes Taiwan. Most opt for pragmatism over principal.

The New York Times, the U.S. equivalent of the People’s Daily, could barely contain its glee: “Panama Establishes Ties with China, Further Isolating Taiwan,” read the headline in the June 13 edition.

But Taiwan isn’t isolated, not where it counts. Bilateral trade with the United States was $65.3 billion in 2016, making the ROC our 10th-largest trading partner. According to the International Monetary Fund, Taiwan has the world’s 15th-largest economy (the seventh-largest in Asia). Not bad for a nation of 23 million. Its trade partners are delighted to do business with a country whose existence they won’t officially recognize.

Besides its vibrant economy, Taiwan is one of the few genuine democracies in Asia. Despite its huge economy, the People’s Republic of China (PRC) remains what it was at the end of the civil war in 1949 — a brutal dictatorship ruled by a self-perpetuating oligarchy.

For Taiwan, trying to get along with the people’s republic is like living with a belligerent, bully of a neighbor, never knowing what will set him off.

In her inaugural address last year, Taiwan’s President Tsai Ing-wen infuriated Beijing by not paying lip service to the myth that both the ROC and PRC both are part of something called One China.

On Dec. 5, President-elect Donald Trump took a phone call from President Tsai. It was the first time since we withdrew recognition of the ROC in 1979 (under that foreign policy genius, President Jimmy Carter) that a U.S. president or president-elect spoke directly with the leader of Taiwan.

On one of his famous Twitter forays, Mr. Trump said he didn’t understand the fuss. (“Interesting how the U.S. sells Taiwan billions of dollars of military equipment but I should not accept a congratulatory call.”)

For the president, that 10-minute conversation may have been a calculated move to elicit Chinese cooperation on North Korea and bilateral trade, or it might have been a recognition of Taiwan’s strategic importance. Always friendly to America, the ROC was our ally from World War II until Nixon betrayed it in 1971, and Mr. Carter completed the process in 1979. Still, the United States has far more in common with the island democracy than with the totalitarian mainland.

Whoever controls both sides of the Taiwan Straits can restrict access to one of the busiest energy trade routes in the world. Do we want that control in the hands of an aggressive, highly volatile regime?

Only 15 nations have diplomatic relations with Taiwan. While few in number, they are steadfast in their support.

Risking Beijing’s displeasure, its 15 allies sent a joint letter to United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres urging that Taipei be included in the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development and allowed to participate in the U.N. system, including subsidiary bodies like the World Health Organization. They also noted the absurdity of requiring Taiwanese to have a travel permit issued by China to enter U.N. premises.

Beijing believes that time is on its side — that sooner or later, Taiwan must succumb to pressure to reach a settlement that surrenders its sovereignty — and that it will eventually accept something like the deal Hong Kong got in 1997 (One Nation, Two Systems), on which China has repeatedly reneged.

But since the end of martial law and the transition to democracy, the Taiwanese have forged their own identity, one which makes their merger with the mainland impossible.

Liberal media like The New York Times assume that resolving the conflict by grafting the ROC to the PRC would be better for everyone.

It wouldn’t be better for a people whose destiny would be taken out of their hands. It wouldn’t be better for the United States, which would see the end of a government that shares our values. And it would not be better for the world, marking the disappearance of the only Chinese democracy in history.

The course of history often turns on the fate of small countries — Belgium in 1914 and Czechoslovakia in 1938.

And so, let us wish the Republic of China on Taiwan a happy 105th birthday — and many more.

• Don Feder, a former columnist for the Boston Herald, is a freelance writer.

Categories: China and Taiwan, Chinese "democracy", Taiwan, Taiwan democracy, Taiwan economy
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Time to redefine ‘one China’ policy to mean ‘one democratic China’

August 25, 2017

Time to redefine ‘one China’ policy to mean ‘one democratic China’, Washington Times, Ralph Z. Hallow, August 24, 2017

US President Donald Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping, right, shake hands as they arrive for a meeting on the sidelines of the G-20 Summit in Hamburg, Germany, Saturday, July 8, 2017. (Saul Loeb/Pool Photo via AP)

ANALYSIS/OPINION:

NASHVILLE – Fed up with America’s 55 years of appeasement of communist China, the GOP’s national governing body is poised to tell Beijing to go take a hike.

China and its panda-hugging friends — think Henry Kissinger – have been campaigning to get Congress and the Trump administration to say when exactly it will stop selling arms to democratic Taiwan.

“Nuts!” and “Never!” are the two words Republicans here would like to tell Beijing, but they’re aiming for slightly more diplomatic language to say the same thing.

In no mood to put up with Beijing’s slick attempts to ripen Taiwan for a takeover by the communist Mainland, the Republican National Committee members holding their annual summer meeting here have decided to put the national GOP on record in support of the latest round of arms sales with Spräng murarna och nå dina mål to Taiwan that President Trump has approved.

Some big-deal Republicans here are also officially backing a warning to Beijing to lay off its attempts to smother free speech in Hong Kong. The 1,000 square-mile island state, with a population of 7.3 million (a million fewer than in New York City), was a paradigm of freedom when it was a British colony. It has felt the suffocating effect of the People’s Republic of China since the Brits turned Hong Kong over to Beijing in 1997. (Talk about appeasement.)

But Taiwan is where the smelly stuff is beginning to hit the fan, thanks first to none other than Richard M. Nixon, He inked a joint communiqué with the communist People’s Republican of China in 1972. That communiqué had the U.S. agreeing – teeth gritting time — that communist Mainland China is the only China on earth and that thing calling itself the Republic of China residing on the island of Taiwan is a figment of the anti-communist imagination.

Two other shameful communiqués followed. In 1979 under Jimmy Carter, the U.S. agreed cut off diplomatic relations with the Republic of China and never to use the word “China” in referring to it again.

Perhaps it’s mere legend, but Mr. Carter did work up the gumption to refuse to say there are no rings around the planet Mars.

In 1982 under — believe it or not — Ronald Reagan, the U.S. in a third joint communiqué agreed to gradually reduce arms sales to Taiwan. That triggered private meetings around the country at which some leading GOP conservatives debated whether it was high time to form a third party.

Congress and President Carter did do something right in 1979, passing and signing the Taiwan Relations Act. It requires America to sell defensive military systems and hardware to Taiwan so it can defend itself from Beijing’s military hordes.

The truth is of course that even if all of Taiwan’s14,000 square miles were filled to the brim with state-of-the-art weaponry, the 23 million Taiwanese would last a few ticks of the clock against Mainland China’s 1.38 billion population spread over the Mainland’s 3.7 million square miles.

But a Taiwan with up-to-date weapons would at least give the U.S. time to live up to another Taiwan Relations Act provision. This one commits the U.S. to muster its military might to defend Taiwan if it China attacks it. Retired Army Colonel Peter S. Goldberg, an RNC member form Alaska, is expected to win full RNC approval on Friday for his Taiwan resolution endorsing Mr. Trump’s approval of new arms sales to Taiwan.

“I see Goldberg’s RNC resolution in support of President Trump’s arms sales to Taiwan as sending a strong message to people who are pushing for a fourth joint U.S.-China Communiqué,” said resolution co-sponsor Solomon Yue, who was born in communist China and lived there until escaping to America in early adulthood.

Mr. Yue and other GOP leaders think what’s developing here is much broader than ensuring Taiwan’s military capability.

“The message is, ‘We will fight to stop any attempt to sunset the Taiwan Relations Act, including by redefining America’s ‘one-China’ policy to say, ‘We support ‘one democratic China modeled after Taiwan,’” said Mr. Yue, an elected RNC member from Oregon.

Former Idaho GOP Chairman Stephen Yates thinks a new one-China policy is past due.

“If there is to be a joint communiqué, it should say nothing about setting a date to end arms sales to Taiwan and should simply affirm support for a peaceful, democratic China, rather than use an empty slogan like ‘one-China,’” said Mr. Yates, who was deputy national security adviser to then-Vice President Dick Cheney and is now is now gathering financial fuel for his Idaho GOP lieutenant gubernatorial nomination bid.

Another resolution, this one by Florida RNC member Peter Feaman, in effect tells Beijing to keeps it freedom-smothering mitts off Hong Kong’s people. Mr. Feaman is also expected to win unanimous approval from the 168 RNC members for his resolution.

Categories: Arms sales, Chinese "democracy", Hong Kong, Republicans, Taiwan, U.S. Congress
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China Is Ticking All the Boxes on Its Path to War

June 16, 2017

China Is Ticking All the Boxes on Its Path to War, American Thinker, David Archibald, June 16, 2017

(China has provided significant but inadequate help with the North Korea problem. If the war upon which China appears to be intent comes, will China consider continued cooperation as to North Korean nukes and missiles in her interest? — DM)

After trending down for two years, the rate of incursions [by China in the South China Sea] is now trending up. The Chinese government pays their fishing fleet to do this. Now, would any civilized country expecting to live in everlasting peace with its neighbors do this? None would, and so the Chinese are telling us that war is coming. Prepare accordingly

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There are currently three communiques that have guided U.S.-China relations for the last 45 years. These joint statements by the U.S. and Chinese governments were signed in 1972, 1979, and 1982. Among other things, the second communique states that, “Neither should seek hegemony in the Asia-Pacific region or in any other region of the world”.

China has recently been attempting to have the U.S. sign onto a Fourth Communique under which the U.S. would no longer consider Taiwan as an ally or deal with it in any military or diplomatic terms. In effect, the U.S. would peacefully decline and leave the Western Pacific to China. The White House rejected it prior to the meeting of the U.S. and Chinese presidents on April 6-7 at Mar-a-Lago. It was raised again by Henry Kissinger, now in the pay of the Chinese government, at his meeting with President Trump on May 10.

It has been said that President Xi wants the Fourth Communique to crown his consolidation of power at the national congress of Communist Party of China in autumn this year. But he is likely indifferent. If the U.S. could be talked into abandoning the Western Pacific and all its allies in Asia, that would be a bonus. It is more likely that he is making a casus belli for the war that he wants and thus head off intra-party criticism for military adventurism with its attendant horrors. China expects to win a short, sharp, glorious war.

China, the U.S., Japan and Vietnam are all expecting war. China may have claimed all of the South China Sea but Vietnam still has 17 island bases there. These are a major long-term embarrassment to China. Vietnam will not give them up voluntarily so China will attempt to remove them by force – thus the current buildup of China’s amphibious warfare capability. China would also attack Vietnam along their land border to put maximum pressure on Hanoi.

Satellite imagery suggests preparations are being made to that end. For example at 22° 24’ N, 106° 42’ E, there are 12 large warehouses across the road from an army base that is six miles from the border with Vietnam. We can tell it’s an army base because it has a running track. China’s three major bases in the South China Sea and all have running tracks and 24 hardened shelters for fighter aircraft. The warehouses have red roofs when almost all the industrial buildings in the region have blue roofs, suggesting a central directive for their construction. The purpose of the warehouses would be to hide an armored force buildup prior to the invasion of Vietnam.

Warehouses at 22° 24’ N, 106° 42’ E, image date 8/25/2016

Along parts of the China-Vietnam border, there are areas with an abundance of roads leading up to the border and ending in pads suitable for artillery. These likely preparations give us an indication of what China’s war plans for Vietnam might include, just as the ten-pad, expeditionary helicopter base in the Nanji Islands at 27° 27’ N, 121° 4’ E provides China with an option to attack Japan in the Senkaku Islands.

Just because China hasn’t been involved in many wars in the last 60 years doesn’t mean that it is not belligerent. A case in point is the attacks China mounted on Vietnam from 1980 to 1990 seemingly just for the sake of it, after the 1979 China-Vietnam war. China’s then-leader, Deng Xiaoping, rotated army units through the front to give them combat experience. It didn’t matter that they were killing Vietnamese to do so. During the five-year period from 1984 to 1989, the Chinese fired over two million artillery rounds into Ha Giang Province, mainly into an eight-square-mile area. Chinese antipathy for its neighbors is essentially racist – if everyone else is a barbarian, their deaths will be of little consequence.

The Chinese dream of hegemony in Asia has been a long time coming. The map following is from a Nationalist primary school textbook from 1938:

A bit like Japan’s Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere, it has China extending as far south as Singapore. China’s ambitions now include incorporation of the Philippines.

China is now back to seeking hegemony of the Asia-Pacific region and so that voids the Second Communique. Fortunately President Trump’s advisers, recognizing the reality of the situation, have suggested that all three communiques be scrapped.

The question from here is the timing of China’s war. China’s bases in the Spratly Islands are now essentially complete. All they have to do from here is fly in the fighter aircraft. It is thought that China’s strategic petroleum reserve is near full after its stockpiling rate fell from the peak in March 2017 at 1.6 million barrels per day. Another sign that war is approaching and not receding is that the rate of Chinese incursions into Japanese territorial waters around the Senkaku Islands:

The big increase in mid-2012 was due to the ascension of President Xi.  After trending down for two years, the rate of incursions is now trending up. The Chinese government pays their fishing fleet to do this. Now, would any civilized country expecting to live in everlasting peace with its neighbors do this? None would, and so the Chinese are telling us that war is coming. Prepare accordingly.

Categories: China - war?, Disputed islands, Japan, South China Sea, Taiwan, Trump and China, Trump and Taiwan, Vietnam war
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Trump, Xi and Taiwan

April 5, 2017

Trump, Xi and Taiwan, Washington Times, Lester Wolff, April 4, 2017

Illustration on China and Taiwan by Greg Groesch/The Washington Times

ANALYSIS/OPINION:

This week’s Trump–Xi meetings are an opportunity for the president to both publicly and privately make the same important points. U.S. engagement with China is important to the peace and stability of the Asia-Pacific region, but it is also vital that the mutual interests of the United States and Taiwan should not in any way be compromised by this process.

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This week, the world will witness the first meeting between U.S. President Donald Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping. There has been much speculation on which topics their conversations will address, and it is a safe bet that Taiwan will be on the list. The U.S.-Taiwan relationship is a vital one, and it is necessary — especially in this time of change and uncertainty — to restate the reasons why.

Thirty-eight years ago this month, the Taiwan Relations Act (TRA), an important, bipartisan creation of the U.S. Congress, was signed into law. Necessitated by Washington switching its official diplomatic recognition from Taipei to Beijing, the TRA has allowed the United States to maintain its friendship and ties of cooperation with Taiwan and its people. It states that the status of Taiwan should be determined by peaceful means, and that nonpeaceful means to do so are a threat to the region and of grave concern to the United States.

At the same time, the TRA recognized, and continues to recognize, the reality of the world in which we live — one where Beijing has never renounced the use of force to take Taiwan, and where it engaged first in a massive military build-up across the Taiwan Strait, and now in the waters of the East and South China Seas. The TRA mandates that the United States “make available to Taiwan such defense articles and defense services in such quantity as may be necessary to enable Taiwan to maintain a sufficient self-defense capability,” and we have done so in the decades since with bipartisan support.

Relations between the United States and Taiwan were further bolstered through the Six Assurances made to Taiwan by President Ronald Reagan in 1982, which stipulated: the TRA would not be altered, the United States would not mediate between Taipei and Beijing, and the United States would not alter its position about Taiwan’s sovereignty or formally recognize China’s sovereignty over Taiwan.

As a result of U.S. commitments to Taiwan, an environment was created where the people of Taiwan — the population of which is now more than 23 million — built a true, functioning democracy that has experienced the peaceful transfer of power from one political party to another three times since 2000 at the presidential level, and for the first time at the legislative level last year. Americans who have visited Taiwan or worked with Taiwanese people know that the reason the relationship is so strong is because we share many of the same values — a commitment to democracy, personal freedom, individual expression and the rule of law. Taiwan has concurrently grown into a vibrant society garnering achievements in science and technology, education, the arts and popular culture that have been exported and embraced by people elsewhere in the region and around the world.

In every sense, the TRA and the relationship that has been built upon it have been successful. Just as Taiwan has benefited, so has the United States and the wider global community. Taiwan today is not only one of America’s most dependable allies in the Asia-Pacific and its 10th-largest trading partner, but it is an example for emerging democracies everywhere and a leader in providing humanitarian aid in times of need — all this in spite of the regrettably limited international space in which Taiwan is allowed to operate.

At a time when democracy appears to be in retreat in many parts of the world, Taiwan demonstrates how it can be a success. As American diplomats and foreign policy experts have pointed out time and again, the U.S. commitment to Taiwan underscores to America’s friends and foes its commitments to its allies and to democracy, and helps to maintain U.S. credibility abroad.

In the five months since the U.S. presidential election, there has been needless uncertainty regarding U.S. policy on China, Taiwan and cross-strait relations. Before his confirmation earlier this year, Secretary of State Rex Tillerson reaffirmed the TRA and the Six Assurances and said, “The U.S. commitment to Taiwan is both a legal commitment and a moral imperative.” This was a positive first step.

This week’s Trump–Xi meetings are an opportunity for the president to both publicly and privately make the same important points. U.S. engagement with China is important to the peace and stability of the Asia-Pacific region, but it is also vital that the mutual interests of the United States and Taiwan should not in any way be compromised by this process.

Categories: China, Taiwan, Trump and China, Trump and Taiwan, Xi Jinping
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Taiwan Receives U.S. Navy Frigates, Plans Purchase of American Fighter Jets

March 20, 2017

Taiwan Receives U.S. Navy Frigates, Plans Purchase of American Fighter Jets, Breitbart, Frances Martel, March 20, 2017

AP/Daniel Morel

The government of Taiwan is planning to request the purchase of new fighter aircraft from the United States, The Guardian reported today, just as it completes the transfer of two decommissioned U.S. Navy frigates. The move comes amid concerns that the Communist Party in Beijing is seeking to crack down on the pro-independence government of President Tsai Ing-wen.

The Guardian cites Taiwanese Defense Minister Feng Shih-kuan as alerting the nation’s legislature that his government is seeking to purchase more modern aircraft to replace its currently fleet of F-16s. Feng’s request for more modern aircraft was a response to a review of Taiwan’s defense capabilities recently released by his ministry and published every four years. The review warned that the Chinese government had significantly expanded its ability to attack Taiwan is necessary. China has invested heavily in military construction in the South China Sea, particularly in regions that are not sovereign Chinese territory but China insists has belonged to them since ancient times.”

The fighter jet purchases are part of a greater proposed defense spending increase in the year’s budget. The South China Morning Post reports that Taiwan is looking to increase its defense spending from two to three percent of its GDP in 2018, a high not seen since 1999. This would mean spending up to $11.4 billion on defense. Tsai’s predecessor, the Kuomintang Party’s Ma Jing-yeou, took a conciliatory approach to relations with Beijing.

The Guardian notes that China is proposing a seven percent increase in its defense spending to $151 billion.

The budget announcement also featured the revelation that Taiwan was now capable of launching missiles that can hit the Chinese mainland, a distance of nearly one thousand miles.

Taiwan recently expanded its naval capability by receiving two decommissioned American Oliver Hazard Perry-class frigates, who began their sail out of American port on March 9. The frigates are expected to begin active duty for the Taiwanese defense forces in May.

The Chinese government appears concerned with Taiwan’s moves to protect itself from a mainland invasion. State propaganda outlet Global Times published a column Friday warning Taipei to abandon hopes of being recognized as a sovereign nation and instead accept the status China insists it has as a rogue province. “No soldiers believe Taiwan forces are capable to defend the island if the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) launches a comprehensive offensive against Taiwan,” the column reads. “As long as the Tsai government accepts of the 1992 Consensus, the island’s security will be ensured. The eight-year-tenure of Ma Ying-Jeou is the most secure period Taiwan has enjoyed since entering the 21st century.”

“Therefore, the most important thing for Taiwan is not to provoke the one-China policy. This is the correct political way to protect the island’s security,” the column concludes.

Taiwan did just that late last year following the election of President Donald Trump in the United States. President Tsai called Trump to congratulate him on his election victory and Trump, in an unprecedented move, accepted the call, implying he understood Tsai to be a fellow head of state. The Chinese communist government condemned Tsai and insisted in assurances from Washington that the Trump administration would not abandon the “One China” policy, which demands foreign nations also deny Taiwan’s sovereignty. Trump reportedly agreed to the One China policy in a February phone call with President Xi Jinping.

Tsai, meanwhile, has insisted on respect for her nation’s self-governance. In a speech in January, Tsai condemned Beijing for “going back to the old path of dividing, coercing, and even threatening and intimidating Taiwan.” “For the sake of safeguarding regional peace and prosperity, I want to once again reiterate that our commitments will not change, and our goodwill will not change. But we will not bow to pressure, and we will of course not revert to the old path of confrontation,” she promised.

Categories: China, Sale of ships and fighter jets to Taiwan, Taiwan, Trump agenda, Trump and China, Trump and Taiwan
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China, U.S. in talks on meeting between presidents

March 18, 2017

China, U.S. in talks on meeting between presidents, Xinhuanet, March 18, 2017

(Even without trying to analyze this, I understand it:

No matter how hard I try to derive any substance from the following article, I can’t. It must have been written in Chinese and then translated into “diplospeak,” a universal language designed to convey as little substance as possible.– DM)

On the Korean Peninsula nuclear issue, Wang also expressed his hope that all concerned parties, including the U.S. side, would be cool-headed and make wise choices.

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BEIJING, March 18 (Xinhua) — China and the United States are now in close communication on arrangements for a meeting between the two presidents and exchanges at other levels, Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi said during his talks with U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson Saturday.

“We attach great importance to your visit,” Wang told Tillerson at the Diaoyutai State Guesthouse in Beijing.

It is Tillerson’s first visit to China since he assumed office last month.

“We have had in-depth discussions on a meeting between the two presidents and begun preparations,” Wang told reporters after their talks.

He said that the two sides agreed to keep close communication to ensure the success of the meeting between the two presidents as well as exchanges at other levels.

China-U.S. ties are now developing positively and steadily, Wang said, calling for implementation of the consensus reached by Chinese President Xi Jinping and U.S. President Donald Trump.

Wang said China is willing to communicate and cooperate more with the U.S. side, enhance trust and handle differences properly, in a bid to promote a healthy and stable development of bilateral ties and benefit the people of both countries and the world at large.

Wang called for more cooperation in foreign affairs, the economy and trade, the military, law enforcement, people-to-people exchanges and sub-national communication.

China and the United States should do more to coordinate on major international and regional affairs, Wang said, calling for closer communication under the multilateral framework.

Wang also restated China’s position on Taiwan and the South China Sea issues, emphasizing that China and the United States should respect each other’s core interests and major concerns, properly handle sensitive issues to protect bilateral ties from unnecessary influences.

Reviewing the achievements of bilateral ties, Tillerson said it is necessary for both countries to have closer cooperation and coordination, noting that the United States is ready to work with China to implement the consensus reached by their leaders.

Tillerson said the U.S. side adheres to the one-China policy and is willing to explore more cooperation in the spirit of no conflict, no confrontation, mutual respect and win-win cooperation.

The U.S. side stands ready for more high-level exchanges, and more dialogue in diplomatic security, macroeconomic policy coordination, law enforcement, cyberspace and people-to-people exchanges.

The two sides exchanged views on the current situation on the Korean Peninsula and other issues of common concern. Wang reiterated China’s opposition to the deployment of the Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) in the Republic of Korea (ROK).

On the Korean Peninsula nuclear issue, Wang also expressed his hope that all concerned parties, including the U.S. side, would be cool-headed and make wise choices.

Tillerson began his first Asian tour Wednesday taking in Japan, the ROK and China.

Categories: China, Japan, Koreas, Peace and happiness, President Trump, Rex Tillerson, Taiwan, THAAD, Xi Jinping
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Former Ambassador John Bolton: Trump Needs to Renegotiate ‘One China’ Policy

February 27, 2017

Former Ambassador John Bolton: Trump Needs to Renegotiate ‘One China’ Policy, Washington Free Beacon, , February 27, 2017

Former U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations John Bolton on Friday urged President Donald Trump to upend  four decades of precedent by renegotiating the “One China” policy that denies Taiwan’s sovereignty.

Bolton told the Washington Free Beacon in an exclusive interview that the One China policy, which was established during President Richard Nixon’s visit to China in 1972, is “ahistorical” and fails to reflect the current reality in East Asia, where natives of Taiwan overwhelmingly identify as “Taiwanese” rather than “Chinese.”

“The One China policy is inherently ambiguous,” Bolton said. “China thinks it means one thing, we think it means another.”

Beijing maintains that One China means the People’s Republic of China is the sole legitimate China, encompassing Taiwan.

But the Shanghai Communiqué agreed to by the United States and China explicitly says the United States “acknowledged” that “all Chinese” on either side of the Taiwan Straight believe “there is but one China.” The pact does not deny Taiwan’s sovereignty on its face.

“A clear relationship with both Beijing and Taipei on this would help all concern rather than [having] this phrase which means anything and nothing,” Bolton said.

Earlier in the day, Bolton told an audience at the Conservative Political Action Conference outside of Washington, D.C., that the Trump administration needs to “make clear” there will never be reunification between China and Taiwan without the “express, overwhelming consent” of those living in Taiwan.

“It’s time for constructive clarity,” Bolton said. “We support the people of Taiwan. We support their continued self-government, independent of China.”

Bolton predicted that China will be the top strategic issue facing the United States in the 21st century. He said the president needs to immediately demand that China back down in the South China Sea and the East China Sea.

Bolton also suggested the Trump administration pressure China to pursue Korean reunification to “eliminate” the North Korean regime. He urged the president to end the Iran nuclear deal “as soon as possible” and said the United States needs to renegotiate the New START nuclear arms reduction treaty with Russia so that the United States can rebuild its nuclear deterrent in the face of Moscow’s ongoing treaty violations.

“There’s only one country in the world that’s bound by this treaty—China’s not bound by it, North Korea and Iran aren’t bound by it, theoretically Russia is, but they don’t pay any attention to it,” Bolton said. “There’s only one country that can’t build intermediate-range nuclear forces and that’s us.”

Bolton is a vocal advocate of an expansive U.S. foreign policy that promotes American values abroad. He says the greatest threat to the nation is “self-induced weakness” that was characteristic during the Obama years.

The former ambassador told the Free Beacon he believes Trump would be successful in reversing many of former President Obama’s foreign policy initiatives within his first term, especially if he models his actions after the Reagan administration.

“It took Reagan a substantial amount of time to create a defense expenditure buildup to give us the kinds of military force that we needed to speak from a position of true strength, and I think Trump is going to have to go through the same process with correcting the mistakes of the eight Obama budgets,” Bolton said.

“At the same time, Reagan said right from the beginning that he was going to pursue a very different foreign policy and the political strength of his determination to do that gave us cover while we rebuilt the military and I think Trump should follow that approach too … It would’ve been a lot different if we had a Clinton administration and had not just an eight-year hole to climb out of but a 12-year hole,” he added.

Bolton was a finalist to fill the national security adviser position left open by the resignation of retired Gen. Mike Flynn.

Trump said the administration would ask Bolton to serve in a “somewhat different capacity” after it announced the selection of Lt. Gen. H.R. McMaster for national security adviser on Monday.

“John is a terrific guy. We had some really good meetings with him. Knows a lot,” Trump said from his Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida. “He had a good number of ideas that I must tell you I agree very much with. So we’ll be talking with John Bolton in a different capacity.”

Bolton did not comment on those talks.

Categories: China, John Bolton, One China policy, Taiwan, Trump agenda, Trump and China, Trump and US Military
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Cadence of Conflict: Asia, February 13, 2017

February 13, 2017

Cadence of Conflict: Asia, February 13, 2017, Pacific Daily Times, February 13, 2017

(How and to what extent can the “one China policy” be ameliorated without being abandoned? What impacts should China’s military adventures in the South China Sea and its highly permissive treatment of North Korea have? — DM)

The delay itself is a message to China like a father telling the disobedient son to wait his turn while everyone else at the dinner table has first choice. To China’s “indirect-implication” culture, it was no less than a smack in the face, no matter how friendly and reportedly positive the phone call was. No doubt China feels this somewhat, though President Xi probably doesn’t take the snub as seriously as he should.

Trump knew that Beijing would jump to report the phone call to give President Xi notoriety, forgetting the deeper implication that the phone call didn’t happen for three weeks into Trump’s term. Now, the Chinese people know that Trump didn’t talk to their president until three weeks after taking office, yet he received a phone call from Taipei only days after he was elected—Beijing made sure the people knew that. When trying to control information in one’s own country, that was an oversight. If Beijing were wise to the three-week snub, no newspaper in China would be allowed to report the phone call until two months later, with the comment, “Oh, they are presidents. They talk when it suits them.”

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After three weeks, President Trump finally had his phone call with Chinese President Xi. The report is that Trump will uphold the United States’ long-standing “One China” policy, in which China proper and the island of Taiwan are one country and that country’s government seat is in Beijing. The effect is that the United States does not have an “embassy” with Taiwan, but the US has an “institute” and Taiwan an “economic and cultural” office; both are still considered envoys and consulates, offering passport and visa services. While self-important voices in news and politics view the phone call as a phone call, much more is happening beneath the surface, and Beijing may only be partially aware of what all is going on.

Being a Socialist State, China’s government is itself in business, both cooperative and competitive. China’s Communist Party can directly compete with social companies like Facebook, news networks like CNN, web service companies like Google, almost any manufacturer, and, of course not in the least, construction. China’s former business associate and new “boss”, as it were, of America calls all the “important” countries in the world, except China. The delay itself is a message to China like a father telling the disobedient son to wait his turn while everyone else at the dinner table has first choice. To China’s “indirect-implication” culture, it was no less than a smack in the face, no matter how friendly and reportedly positive the phone call was. No doubt China feels this somewhat, though President Xi probably doesn’t take the snub as seriously as he should.

Even allowing State-controlled newspapers, such as Xinhua news, to let three weeks of silence be known merely by reporting the phone call shows that Trump knows how to cut through promulgated gate keeping. Knowing how his old trading partner thinks, Trump knew that Beijing would jump to report the phone call to give President Xi notoriety, forgetting the deeper implication that the phone call didn’t happen for three weeks into Trump’s term. Now, the Chinese people know that Trump didn’t talk to their president until three weeks after taking office, yet he received a phone call from Taipei only days after he was elected—Beijing made sure the people knew that. When trying to control information in one’s own country, that was an oversight. If Beijing were wise to the three-week snub, no newspaper in China would be allowed to report the phone call until two months later, with the comment, “Oh, they are presidents. They talk when it suits them.”

In social battles of implication and indirection, the Chinese have endurance and mastery, but the West has a less frequent and even more subtle way of implication that often eludes the East. It is difficult to recognize deep implication when implication is used on a daily basis for routine communication. Americans trust Trump with China more, now, knowing that he can snub them for three weeks and State-run Xinhua news will consider it a “good first step”.

There are other problems—not being able to quit while so far ahead and declare victory after 70 years of war on the books, the US selling weapons to Taiwan—but the three week snub “trumps” them all. American people have often asked themselves who China thinks they are fooling. After this three-week snub thoroughly reported under the title of a “phone call”, the American people, Democrats and Republicans alike, certainly know who is successfully fooling China.

Categories: China, One China policy, Taiwan, Trump and China, Trump and Taiwan
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Nigel Farage speech at Donald Trump party

January 21, 2017

Nigel Farage speech at Donald Trump party, RobinHoodUKIP via YouTube, January 20, 2017

(I hope the powers-that-be in Mainland China were watching. Trump’s honored guests were mentioned; those from Taiwan were mentioned twice. — DM)

 

Categories: Nigel Farage, Taiwan, Trump and Brexit, Trump inauguration, Trump presidency
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US Leaders Don’t Answer to Beijing

December 5, 2016

US Leaders Don’t Answer to Beijing, Center for Security Policy, Fred Fleitz, December 5, 2016

redflag

Instead of piling on Donald Trump for taking a phone call from the leader of a U.S. ally, Trump critics should be focusing on how the lack of global leadership by Barack Obama created a power vacuum in the Asia-Pacific region that emboldened China to engage in belligerent actions to seize control of almost the entire South China Sea.  This action is endangering the economies and security of America’s friend and allies in the region and also threatens freedom of navigation in a crucial sea area.

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According to the mainstream media, foreign policy experts and Democrats, President-elect Donald Trump made a serious error when he accepted a phone call from Taiwan President  Tsai Ing-wen congratulating him on winning the 2016 presidential election.  Trump’s critics apparently believe Mr. Trump is not allowed to speak with the president of one of the world’s leading democracies and a close friend of the United Stats because the Chinese government forbids this.

Sorry, but China does not tell American officials who they can and cannot talk to.  Despite the 1979 decision to open diplomatic relations with China and withdraw diplomatic relations with Taiwan, America and Taiwan remain close friends.  We sell Taiwan billions of dollars in military hardware.  America may have an unofficial relationship with Taiwan, but this does not mean our leaders should shun or insult Taiwan’s president.

Trump’s critics claim his decision to accept Taiwanese President Tsai Ing-wen’s congratulatory phone call indicates he does not understand foreign policy.  I disagree.  This was an act of leadership by a president-elect who plans to enact a new U.S. foreign policy that rejects President Obama’s failed foreign policy of retreat, appeasement and leading from behind.

The Donald Trump-Tsai Ing-wen phone call also could reflect an intention by the Trump administration to reevaluate America’s relationship with Taiwan and possibly upgrade relations.  Such a move is long overdue. Taiwan is by any measure a thriving democracy and an independent state.  Although the United States in 1979 recognized that China and Taiwan believe in a “one China” policy, the U.S. government has never officially endorsed this position.  Instead of a U.S. embassy or consulate in Taipei, the United States maintains a nonprofit center known as the American Institute in Taiwan (AIT), which operates as a barely unofficial embassy.  Trump advisers are right in considering whether it is time to reevaluate  U.S.-relations with Taiwan and the AIT.  These advisers include China expert Peter Navarro, who contributed to the Center for Security Policy’s recent book on the growing threat from China, Warning Order: China Prepares for Conflict, and Why We Must Do the Same.

Instead of piling on Donald Trump for taking a phone call from the leader of a U.S. ally, Trump critics should be focusing on how the lack of global leadership by Barack Obama created a power vacuum in the Asia-Pacific region that emboldened China to engage in belligerent actions to seize control of almost the entire South China Sea.  This action is endangering the economies and security of America’s friend and allies in the region and also threatens freedom of navigation in a crucial sea area.

We need a new approach to China that deals with Beijing based on strength and principle.  Donald Trump’s phone call with Taiwanese President Tsai Ing-wen could be the beginning of such an approach.

Categories: China, President Elect Trump, Taiwan
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