{"id":1190127,"date":"2023-08-24T14:00:50","date_gmt":"2023-08-24T14:00:50","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dissidentvoice.org\/?p=140490"},"modified":"2023-08-24T14:00:50","modified_gmt":"2023-08-24T14:00:50","slug":"obstacles-to-the-peaceful-reintegration-of-taiwan-into-the-peoples-republic-of-china","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/2023\/08\/24\/obstacles-to-the-peaceful-reintegration-of-taiwan-into-the-peoples-republic-of-china\/","title":{"rendered":"Obstacles to the Peaceful Reintegration of Taiwan into the People\u2019s Republic of China"},"content":{"rendered":"
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1. Sun Tzu said: In the practical art of war, the best thing of all is to take the enemy’s country whole and intact; to shatter and destroy it is not so good. So, too, it is better to recapture an army entire than to destroy it, to capture a regiment, a detachment or a company entire than to destroy them.<\/p>\n

2. Hence to fight and conquer in all your battles is not supreme excellence; supreme excellence consists in breaking the enemy’s resistance without fighting.<\/p>\n

— Sunzi, “Chapter 3: Attack by Stratagem,” The Art of War<\/em><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Chinese wisdom from 6th century BCE explains why China, barring the crossing of a redline by separatists in Taiwan, has no inclination to attack. Why would China want to destroy a part of itself? Under the leadership of the Communist Party of China, the country has navigated bumps in the road while pursuing a path of supreme excellence.<\/p>\n

In the late 1940s, in the latter stages of the Chinese civil war, after the Communists had defeated the Guomindang (KMT) on the mainland, the KMT escaped across the Taiwan Strait. Because the US 7th fleet was patrolling the waters and protecting the KMT, and because the Communists lacked a formidable navy, an aquatic pursuit was ruled out for the Communists.<\/p>\n

The US interjecting itself into a far flung conflict was not unusual. Author William Blum wrote about this, remarking about American untrustworthiness toward erstwhile allies in his book Killing Hope: U.S. Military and CIA Interventions Since World War II<\/a><\/em> (pdf available online).<\/p>\n

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The communists in China had worked closely with the American military during the war, providing important intelligence about the Japanese occupiers, rescuing and caring for downed US airmen.1<\/sup> But no matter. Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek [of the KMT] would be Washington’s man. (p 20)<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Fervent anti-communism in Washington and Langley, saw the CIA aiding the KMT against the mainland. But the US would have to address One China:<\/p>\n

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The Generalissimo, his cohorts and soldiers fled to the offshore island of Taiwan (Formosa). They had prepared their entry two years earlier by terrorizing the islanders into submission\u2014a massacre which took the lives of as many as 28,000 people.15<\/sup> Prior to the Nationalists’ escape to the island, the US government entertained no doubts that Taiwan was a part of China. Afterward, uncertainty began to creep into the minds of Washington officials. The crisis was resolved in a remarkably simple manner: the US agreed with Chiang that the proper way to view the situation was not that Taiwan belonged to China, but that Taiwan was<\/em> China. And so it was called. (p 22)<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Thus it was that the anti-Communist US had a dog in this fight, and that dog was (and still is) Taiwan. The US backed Jiang Jieshi (aka Chiang Kai-shek), and the CIA trained, organized, and conducted military incursions across the Taiwan Strait against the mainland. (p 23)<\/p>\n

Manifestly, the big fish for the imperialist hegemon to try and fry is the One-China policy, to which the US is a signatory, which acknowledges there being only one China and that Taiwan is a province of the People’s Republic of China (PRC). Such is the fervor of the diminishing imperial US that it unabashedly is in violation of an agreement it signed by de facto treating Taiwan as a separate country by selling arms to it and sending political representatives and military personnel without seeking the approval of the government in Beijing. How would the US feel if China sent political representatives to meet with the Hawaiian sovereignty movement? If China sold or gave arms to this movement? After all, the Apology Resolution — passed in 1993 by a Joint Resolution of the US Congress 100 years after the overthrow of the Hawaiian monarchy — “acknowledges that the Native Hawaiian people never directly relinquished to the United States their claims to their inherent sovereignty as a people over their national lands.”<\/p>\n

Canadian and American media reported<\/a> on 4 June “that a Chinese warship came within 150 yards of colliding with an American destroyer in the Taiwan Strait during a joint U.S.-Canada exercise.” Of note: the US media report mentions that the US-Canadian warships were “allegedly in international waters.” If not allegedly<\/i> in international waters, then presumably they were in Chinese waters.<\/p>\n

Of concern to US militarists<\/a> is the realization that China’s navy is larger than the US navy and the gap is widening. More foreboding for any potential attacker are China’s hypersonic anti-ship missiles<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Even if the warships were enforcing freedom of navigation (FON), an analysis<\/a>, published on 15 May by the South China Sea Strategic Situation Probing Initiative (SCSPI) at Peking University, questions what exactly FON means for the Taiwan Strait.<\/p>\n

SCSPI argues that the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea “ultimately aims to maintain a balance between the interests of maritime powers and coastal states. There has never been an unrestricted right of navigation in the Convention or in general international law.”<\/p>\n

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Although foreign ships enjoy the right of innocent passage in the territorial sea, Article 25 of the Convention provides that the coastal state may take the necessary steps to prevent passage which is not innocent. That is, the coastal States have the right to decide whether the passage of a foreign ship is consistent with the \u201cright of innocent passage\u201d under Article 19. The Convention also provides that the coastal State may adopt domestic law on innocent passage and may require a foreign warship that disregards any request for compliance with domestic law to leave the territorial sea immediately…. U.S. warships may exercise the right of innocent passage, but at the same time must respect the coastal state’s determination of whether the passage is innocent and comply with the laws and regulations of the coastal State concerning passage through the territorial sea.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

If China was a militaristic country, then people ought to consider when would be the most opportunistic time for China to militarily reincorporate Taiwan back into the motherland. How about when the US is on the verge of an embarrassing defeat in Ukraine, having sunk almost $115 billion<\/a> into losing a proxy war and having depleted much of its weapons stores, having its missile defense batteries destroyed, HIMARS defended against, anti-tank Javelins brushed aside, Bradley tanks rendered nugatory, etc?<\/p>\n

What conclusion then can one draw from the fact that militarily powerful China has not launched any attack against Taiwan during this period of time?<\/p>\n

The US seeks to keep Taiwan separate from the mainland, as a reincorporated Taiwan would open strategic access to the Pacific for the PRC. Thus, president Joe Biden has doubled down on his pledge to intervene in any fighting between China and its province Taiwan. Two problems with Biden’s tough-guy posturing: 1) words are cheap<\/a>; and 2) aside from making clear its redlines, the talk of China attacking its province of Taiwan is all from the US side. It is clearly not in the mainland’s interest to kill its own citizens or cause damage to the island. China has pledged itself to peace.<\/p>\n

I asked Wei Ling Chua, the author of Democracy: What the West can learn from China <\/em>and Tiananmen Square \u201cMassacre\u201d? The Power of Words vs. Silent Evidence,<\/em> his analysis of what US interventions hold for the One-China policy.<\/p>\n

*****<\/p>\n

Kim Petersen<\/strong>: Taiwan became part of the Chinese Qing dynasty in 1683. That is almost a century before European natives destroyed several Indigenous nations and dispossessed them of their land, resources, culture, language — i.e., genocide — and established the ill-begotten United States of America in 1776.<\/p>\n

Yet the US encourages the separatist movement in Taiwan led by the Democratic Progressive Party. Importantly, the Republic of China (ROC, Taiwan) also claims that there is one China<\/a> and that the mainland, Tibet, and, until 2002, even outer Mongolia constituted the ROC.<\/p>\n

Why is Taiwan outside the direct control of the PRC? This is because despite being aided by the US, Jiang Jieshi and the Guomindang (KMT) were defeated by the Communist forces led by Mao Zedong. The US 7th Fleet, however, protected the escape of the KMT to Taiwan, as China at that time had a minuscule navy. If not for that, the Communists might well have brought Taiwan fully back into the motherland’s fold long ago.<\/p>\n

The US and western-aligned media serially warn that the PRC is poised to invade Taiwan. The US says it stands poised to blow up Taiwan\u2019s critical chip producer TSMC in case of a Chinese attack. Why would the PRC militarily attack a valuable part of the motherland, especially given that the vast majority of the planet\u2019s 190 or so countries recognize the one-China policy whereby Taiwan is a province of the PRC?<\/p>\n

Wei Ling Chua<\/strong>: To explain clearly a series of essential facts (including not widely noticed facts) about the relations between Taiwan Province, China, and the USA, I need to breakdown the information as follows:<\/p>\n

Ignorance of Taiwan Youth about their own Constitution<\/b><\/p>\n

Recently, a number of street interviews were conducted in Taiwan province asking young Taiwanese \u201cDo you know the relationship between the Republic of China and Taiwan?\u201d, the reply shocked the interviewer as the majority of the youth in Taiwan didn\u2019t even know their political entity\u2019s official name is the Republic of China (ROC), and that the ROC\u2019s constitution regards the mainland of China and Taiwan being parts of the ROC sovereign territory. For example:<\/p>\n