Red China over Taiwan

 

Lu Hsiu-lien Annette

06.20.2015

 

Too often people talk about “status quo” without giving definition. For those who are concerned with the status quo of the Taiwan Strait, this memo deserves their attention.

 

• A Decade After the 2005 Anti-Secession Law

On March 14, 2005, China’s Anti-Secession Law was adopted and went into effect immediately. This is Beijing’s version of the U.S. Taiwan Relations Act (TRA), formalizing Beijing’s policy of 1.) seeking all possibilities of peaceful unification and 2.) using “non-peaceful means” against Taiwan should it declares independence. Article 1~7 state that to foster unification is the duty of all Chinese people, including Taiwanese, and unification shall be fostered through peaceful development of political, economical, and social approaches. Article 8 states that the Beijing shall use non-peaceful and other necessary means if "Taiwan independence" forces accomplish the fact of Taiwan's separation from China, or if a major event occurs which would lead to Taiwan's separation from China, or if all possibility of peaceful unification is lost.

 

In spite of Taiwan’s nationwide protest against China’s Anti-Secession Law with one million participants, China invited Lien Chan, the KMT Chairman and unsuccessful presidential candidate, to visit China to forge a united front operation. On April 29, Lien and Hu issued a communiqué opposing Taiwan’s independence, and echoed the Anti-Secession Law to encourage:

 

• the reopening of talks across the strait;

• an end to hostilities, and establish peace agreement;

• cooperation in economic exchange and agricultural exchange;

• talks regarding increasing Taiwan's international role; and to

5. establish a platform of communication between the two parties.

 

Ten years after, 4 of the 5 points have been completed, except for the signing of the peace agreement. It seems that Beijing’s peaceful unification strategies are about to succeed, and whether President Ma Ying-jeou will sign a peace agreement with Beijing before he steps down is just a matter of time.  

In December 2008, President Hu Jintao announced a six-point proposal to promote “the normalization of overall cross-strait ties.” Hu spoke of close cross-strait economic cooperation, cultural and educational exchanges, Taiwan’s international participation, and peace and security in the Taiwan Strait (all of which President Ma adheres to.) Besides, Hu was said to have confided to his inner circles that it is much easier and less expensive to “buy” Taiwan than to conquer the island. Beijing’s implementation of this strategy has employed both economic means and a united front operation to make inroads among corporate leaders, politicians from both Pan-Blue and Pan-Green, scholars, as well as the media and the public, to cultivate sources of Chinese influence in Taiwan. For example, Beijing buys Taiwanese agricultural and aquatic products to win Taiwanese farmers’ and fishermen’s hearts, and Chinese companies merge Taiwanese companies in order to access the Taiwanese market through pro-China Taiwanese entrepreneurs. Beijing even planned to buy Taiwan High Speed Rail Corporation’s stocks. Chinese-funded enterprises are involved in Taiwan’s public construction works.

• China’s Dream, Taiwan’s Nightmare

• Taiwan as Xi’s priority to build his China dream

Xi Jinping, who succeeded Hu Jintao as China’s top Party and state leader in 2013, considers taking over Taiwan as his priority to build his China dream, and has been pushing harder and faster to implement Beijing’s agenda on Taiwan. President Ma Ying-jeou has so far stuck to a formula of “economics first, politics later,” limiting cross-strait interaction to economic relations. However, Beijing had hoped to move further toward economic integration in 2013 by concluding first a trade service agreement, then a commodities trade agreement and other agreements on banking and financial cooperation eagerly, so that they can move into the agenda of political agreement.

• The Sunflower Student Movement

Realizing all the menace coming from China, on March 18, 2014, scores of college students abruptly broke into the chamber of Legislative Yuan and occupied it for 24 days until Legislative Speaker Wang Jin-pyng promised that the Congress should pass the law to supervise all the Cross-Strait agreements. The students’ protest, which the media have dubbed the Sunflower movement, has been directed at President Ma’s pro-China policies. There are growing concerns that the cross-strait service trade agreement would badly harm local businesses, and allow Chinese employees to work in Taiwan to deprive local labors’ job opportunities. Many are also worried that the trade pact would have greater adverse political and security implications. Chinese Communist Party agents and the “fifth column” may worm their way into Taiwan to engage in espionage, sabotage, subversion and a united front operation. Besides, they were pushing to enter agreement so that China can set up liaison office in each city and county of Taiwan to render their service directly to Taiwanese people. Student protesters have warned that China would do to Taiwan what Russia did to Crimea.

• The 9-in-1 elections

Beijing’s leadership was apparently shocked by Taiwan’s anti-China protests in the Sunflower Movement. Worse still was on November 29, the 9-in-1 local elections resulted in a landslide defeat for the KMT, due to widespread public distrust both politically and economically. After the elections, Beijing decided to speed up its work towards Taiwan. In January 2015 PRC’s National Security Commission passed a working guideline on Taiwan affairs, and the third point states that “the Taiwan issue cannot remain unsettled, and must be solved politically and legally by the 6th session of the 18th National Congress of the Communist Party of China (the autumn of 2016), no latter than Central Working Conference at Beidaihe in summer of 2017.” Point 6 states that military preparation shall be strengthened to press on Taiwan and the last point considers the necessity of breaking the diplomatic ties of some or all of Taiwan’s allies.

 

• Peaceful Development Leads to Peaceful Annexation

Apparently, China’s dream has become Taiwan’s nightmare as it is facing multidimensional security issues and threats. From now on till 2016, Taiwan’s destiny is in danger.

 

• Military imbalance and threats

The military balance between China and Taiwan has shifted in China’s favor in recent years. Defense spending of the PLA is 15.7% of the national budget at roughly $10.5 billion, while Taiwan’s 2014 defense budget represents only 2.54% of its GDP. In terms of numbers, the PLA’s 2.2 million military service personnel outnumbered Taiwan’s 215 thousand. PLA has 11,100 tanks vs. Taiwan’s 3,533, 2,213 combat aircrafts vs. Taiwan’s 359, 78 warships vs. Taiwan’s 26, 57 submarines vs. Taiwan’s 4, and 269 amphibious assault ships vs. Taiwan’s 302. The PLA even developed anti-access/area-denial strategy to limit foreign military forces in this region.

 

Many retired military generals visit China and meet high-ranked PLA generals and openly criticize Taiwan. Some scientists in Taiwan teach in China. Thus, Taiwan’s national security and high-tech top secrets have been undermined. Taiwan has arrested a handful of retired and incumbent military officers suspected of spying for China. However, they were given only light sentence, and there are more unexposed spies in Taiwan’s military.

 

China established Air Defense Identification Zone (ADIZ) over East China Sea in 2013. About half of the area overlaps with a Japanese ADIZ, even to a small extent with the South Korean and Taiwanese ADIZ.  In March 2015, Beijing’s new M503 commercial air route next to Taiwan’s air force training areas made a step in its quest to slowly change the status quo along China’s maritime border.

 

Meanwhile, China is building airstrips and ports to militarize the islets in the South China Sea, which worries neighboring countries, and could probably lead to military conflicts between China and the U.S. Besides, the sovereignty of the Diaoyutai/Senkaku Islands remains an unsettled dispute among Taiwan, Japan, and China.

 

• Economic stagnation

Over the last twenty years, Taiwan’s international trade and investment patterns have been characterized by growing economic interdependence with China, and Taiwan’s trade relations with the U.S. have become less significant. Excessive dependence on Chinese market rather than focusing on global market has been proved a failure. Beijing's efforts to prevent Taiwan's signing FTAs with other countries and participation in most global organizations have seriously stalled Taiwan’s economic development.

 

The Taiwan-China economic relation and Taiwan’s economic growth rate have a highly negative correlation: the closer the relation, the lower growth rate. Statistic data show that in the 1960s~1980s, when Taiwan kept close economic ties with major economic powers such as the U.S. and Japan, its economy benefitted from them and got a major upgrade with an average annual growth rate of 8% or higher. However, since 2001 when Taiwan’s economic relationship with China got closer (leaving U.S. and embracing China), its economic growth started to decline gradually, with an average annual growth rate less than 4.5%.

 

Currently, Taiwan has nearly come into a state of collapse. The first signal is the financial collapse of the state. Taiwan recorded a Government Debt to GDP of 40.98% of the country's Gross Domestic Product in 2013. To add the government’s liabilities, Taiwan’s government debt-to-GDP ratio will reach to 156%! The government is almost bankrupt.

 

The second is industrial collapse. Overdependence on Chinese market while ignoring global markets is the biggest crisis for Taiwan’s economy. The offshoring of Taiwan’s industries to China makes Taiwan vulnerable to China. The final one is the collapse of capital market. Taiwan’s capital keeps outflowing due to inappropriate policies. The government levies taxes on capital gains in stock market and property sales and forces capital to flow out for better investment opportunities. Capital outflow takes away money, asset, and job opportunities.  

 

• The Trojan Horse in free Taiwan

In a free society like Taiwan, the media should be free but responsible. Regretfully, most media in Taiwan fail in playing their role, as some of them are owned and manipulated by the Taiwanese entrepreneurs who have close ties with China. Frequently many TV commentators are invited to visit China and induced to make comment on the air. The stories reported or comments made very often echo with Beijing’s policies. During recent elections, pro-China media collaborate to support or attack one specific figure. They even publicize fake result of polls to mislead the general public, making it a backlash of democracy.

 

Societally, as Taiwan allows marriage-related migration and opens to Chinese businessmen and tourists, a possible fifth column inside the island could endanger Taiwan’s national security. Marriage and tourism could be just a smokescreen for espionage activities. Among these immigrants, up to 200 thousand spouses from China have become eligible to vote, a potential force to decide the result of elections on the national level. Last year 4 million Chinese tourists visited Taiwan, and a certain number of them are suspected to have spying tasks. The exchanges of cross-Strait religious groups also prevails. Beijing’s United Front operation is targeting Taiwanese academics, students, war veterans, doctors and local leaders in an attempt to soften resentment to China and ultimately build support for unification. Since 2008, over one hundred new political parties have been established, and most of them aim to promote unification.

 

Moreover, the world’s once tallest building, Taipei 101, seems to have become China’s Trojan Horse (secret liaison headquarters). Not only thousands of Chinese tourists visit it every day, also some Chinese VIPs use the venue to meet with Taiwanese politicians and businessmen, as 37.5% of Taipei 101 is owned by Tin Hsin International Group, a Taiwanese-owned company based in China. Floor 86~100 of Taipei 101 are no accessible to the public. The building is surrounded by groups who openly advocate for reunification. In some other places, PRC’s 5-star national flag is openly hanged on. In short, Beijing’s United Front operation is reaching out to every corner “into households, minds, and hearts” of the Taiwanese people!

 

• Education

Early this month students from 120 high schools and vocational high schools in Taiwan signed a petition to protest the Ministry of Education’s planned adjustments to curriculum guidelines. The planned adjustments would force high-school students to use “China-centric” texts instead of “Taiwan-centric” texts. The curriculum adjustment task force is led by a couple of professors known for their pro-unification stance, who injected Chinese orthodox into the curriculum guidelines to brainwash the students.

 

• Diplomatic tsunami

Last but not least, Taiwan’s foreign relations with its allies may deserve more attention. Currently there are only 22 countries that officially recognize Taiwan, of which 12 are located in central America and the Caribbean. Taiwan in fact, has helped Latin America prevent Communist invasion in this region. On January 8~9, 2015, the China-CELAC (Community of Latin American and Caribbean States) Forum was held in Beijing. Among the 33 Latin American countries attended, 9 ministers of foreign affairs are Taiwan’s allies. This is a warning signal to the Ma administration’s “viable diplomacy,” or so-called “diplomacy truce” policy. As a matter of fact, in recent years China has promised those Taiwan’s allies to help construct infrastructures including canals, railways, highways, and power plants. Anytime Taipei’s allies might break diplomatic ties with Taiwan and embrace Beijing. If so, Taiwan would become an absolutely isolated orphan, and Communism would begin to prevail at the backyard of the U.S.

 

• Conclusion

On May 4, 2015, KMT’s new chairman Eric Chu visited Xi in Beijing. While Xi said that China and Taiwan should settle political differences on the basis of the "One China" policy, Chu said “both sides of the Strait belong to one China,” which has gone beyond the context of the 1992 Consensus. What Chu did was to collaborate with Xi to set a trap of “status quo” for DPP Chairwoman Tsai Ing-wen to jump, as she promised to maintain the status quo of the Strait.

 

Most recently, China modified its State Security Law and states that “China’s sovereignty and territorial integrity brook no division. Safeguarding China’s sovereignty and territorial integrity is the common obligation of all Chinese people, including people in Hong Kong and Macau as well as in Taiwan.” (Article 11). Article 32 even allows its leader “to declare state of emergency, state of war, and mobilization order under the authority of the National People's Congress of the PRC and its Standing Committee’s decision.”

 

Taiwan’s new President will be elected on January 16, 2016. Whoever wins the election will have to wait till May 20 to take oath. There will be 4 months for someone with some ambition to do something. What if President Xi collaborates with President Ma in defiance of the general will of the Taiwanese people? What if an agreement to surrender enters….

 

66 years ago, a red star rose over China. What if Red China rises over Taiwan? What if Red China rises over the globe?