A gaffe-and-a-half: Kitty Hawk & minesweeper follow-up

The government of China and/or People's Liberation Army (somtimes its tough to figure out who's calling the shots) really shot themselves in the foot with this latest blunder concerning the refusal of American naval vessels seeking entry into Hong Kong harbor. Not only does this latest blunder add to what is becoming a rather long list of bones the American public has to pick with China these days, its effect is exacerbated by the pride the United States has for its blue-water navy, not to mention the belief that America's heavily maritime-influenced culture holds in an honor code on the high seas.

For an excellent example of how the PRC government is hurting China's image with irrational actions arising from equally irrational grievances—over the U.S. honoring the Dalai Lama, or selling Patriot missiles defense upgrades to its ally, Taiwan, etc.—read this editorial by Lorna Hahn, executive director of the Association on Third World Affairs in today's Washington Times:

China-Taiwan tensions

In violation of the long-established principle that all nations should assist ships at sea that are in distress, China recently refused to allow two American minesweepers threatened by a storm to enter Hong Kong harbor for safety and fuel ("China's action troubles admiral," Page 1, Wednesday). Shortly thereafter, it withdrew permission for an American aircraft carrier, carrying sailors planning to spend Thanksgiving with relatives, to enter Hong Kong.

The reason, according to U.S. officials, was the announcement on Nov. 9 that Washington would sell Taiwan $939 million worth of upgraded Patriot missile defense systems in order to "help improve the security of the recipient and assist in maintaining political stability, military balance and economic progress in the region."

If China would begin to dismantle its 900-some missiles aimed at Taiwan rather than continually increase their number, Taiwan would not need to increase its defenses against them. Furthermore, if Beijing's leaders would meet with Taiwan's President Chen Shui-bian, as he has suggested often, tensions in the Taiwan Strait, which often affect other countries, could be replaced by cooperation.

LORNA HAHN
Executive director
Association on Third World
Affairs
Washington

The open sea is perhaps the last place on earth that operates under what, for lack of a better phrase, can be referred to as a 'frontier-style' culture. Just like the fabled unwritten Code of the West in American frontier history, there are certain things on the high seas that—no matter who you are—you just don't do. One of those unwritten taboos is to bar entry into a harbor to any vessel threatened by stormy seas. As long as there's room in the harbor, there's room for more ships, especially when the seas are a-rockin'.

So really, does China's government exhibit the sense of maturity, much less the sense of humanity, to be allowed to recklessly manipulate the international community in the way that it does? Does it have any inherent right to lay claim to a democratic and self-sustaining island when it can't even responsibly attend to its own affairs? We'll leave you with that thought in this wrap-up of the recent PRC-USN SNAFU.

President Chen at AEI, Presidents Bush and Hu at APEC

Initially, reports coming out of the bilataral meeting between American and Chinese Presidents George Bush and Hu Jintao suggested that the two leaders had sidestepped the issue of Taiwan while speaking on the sidelines of the APEC meeting in Sydney. Major topics of discussion were initially reported as Chinese product safety (graciously brought up by President Hu without any prodding from the U.S. side), artificially low valuation of the yuan, North Korea and -- 'oh yes, Mr. President, would you be so kind as to attend the Beijing Olympics next summer?' (Bush is reportedly planning to leave international politics in the States and attend the Games as a sports fan).

Yet a second wave of news coverage published this morning brought to light for us two new aspects of the Bush-Hu bilateral talks: an agreement to establish what sounds like a Cold War-style military hotline between Washington and Beijing and President Hu voicing his concern over Taiwan.

The hotline strikes us as good news, instantaneous and direct dialogue is the best way to prevent misunderstanding during times of heightened tensions between global powers (unfortunately, Beijing has a past record of mysteriously not answering Washington's phone calls when Sino-U.S. tensions are high -- just because Mr. Bush no longer has to "dial" when he reaches for the reciever doesn't mean that Beijing is going to pick up).

Not so good news from yesterday's meeting comes in the form of President Hu's ominous remarks on Taiwan, reported this morning in the Washington Times:

"This year and next year are a period of high danger for the Taiwan situation," Mr. Hu told Mr. Bush in bilateral talks, according to a Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman.

"We must give stronger warnings to the Taiwan authorities," Liu Jianchao quoted the Chinese President as saying. "We cannot allow anyone to use any means to split Taiwan from the motherland."

We ask readers to take into account two aspects of President Hu's language:

1) Hu speaks of the "period of high danger" as though he is a weatherman reporting a high frequency of thundershowers over the weekend -- it can't be helped, that's just the way it is! In other words, President Bush, feel free to forget that China is the physical source of all this heightened danger.

2) We may be going out on a limb here, but refering to your country as the "Motherland" while speaking with the President of the United States (often referred to as the 'Leader of the Free World') -- probably not the best idea. Such lingo tends to reboot your average American brain and fill it with memories of our former adversary, the Soviet Union, bringing to mind stereotypical McCarthy-era images of vodka-swilling generals behind the Iron Curtain extolling the virtues and immortal greatness of 'Mother Russia' while grinding the liberties of the Common Man into the dirt with their patent leather boots.

In condensed form: refering to your country as the Motherland; Fatherland; Parental Gaurdianland . . . not the best way to ingratiate yourself with any American leader.

Meanwhile, back on the ranch (ie: back in the virtual ether, where the image and words of President Chen were being beamed via satellite into the top-story conference room at the American Enterprise Institute, which held an event on Taiwan's bid for UN membership yesterday), President Chen was refusing to give any ground on UN membership or the referendum, laying out clearly and concisely at the well-publicized event Taiwan's rational for persisting in the pursuit of both of these. Fairly well-timed, the AEI event seems to have stirred up a new round of public discourse over cross-Strait relations during a period when coverage of the issue seemed to be flagging.

For video of the conference, you can visit this page on AEI's website. Click the video link on the right of the page.

We poked around for some web video coverage of the APEC bilateral meeting (found plenty on the security-flaunting stunt put on by the cast of Chasers yesterday) but were unable to come up with anything so far. We'll take another shot at it soon.

Chris Nelson attended the AEI conference yesterday and, as perhaps Washington's top non-governmental Asia-Pacific insider, was hounded by reporters after the session. Nelson tips his hat in yesterday's Nelson Report to many of the hard-to-argue-with-both-legally-and-morally points made by Chen at the conference, but (Congressman Rohrabacher's effusive support nothwithstanding) seems to think things are going to get rougher between Taipei and Washington before they get better:

Taiwan's president Chen delivered an emotional but legalistic explanation and defense of why he will continue to pursue a national referendum on whether to pursue UN membership under the name "Taiwan", despite firm US opposition.

Chen seems to calculate that if there is a large enough public vote for the referendum next March, as planned, then a ground swell of pressure will be created on the Bush Administration to, at a minimum, stop criticizing Chen's various efforts to redefine Taiwan's international space.

No serious observer of US-Taiwan and US-China relations thinks such a plan has any chance of success, regardless of the vote, so a continued rise in tensions between
Washington and Taipei seems inevitable...with clear risks for all involved.

. . .

We'll discuss all this below, but will briefly note that it looks to us as though the US, China, and Taiwan are now locked into very different definitions of the "status quo" which increasingly conflict, and which by their very structure make maintaining the peaceful status quo increasingly difficult.

. . .

We thought there were many aspects of President Chen's presentation this morning which, from a strictly legal or strictly moral, or even strictly logical point of view, you couldn't argue much.

Who in this country is opposed to the legitimate exercise of democracy? Who doesn't
wish more democracy, more respect for the rule of law in China?

But we thought that the potentially most revealing thing Chen said and did...something which the AEI panel gamely tried to pass off with mild jokes about alternative song titles...was to actually recite word for word as his "credo" in this
matter, the lyrics from "Man of LaMancha" in which the doomed hero, Don Quixote,
says he is prepared to end up in Hell, so long as he fights the good fight and
dies with a clean conscience.

So that's about all we have for you at the moment. Yesterday was a big day in cross-strait relations and for Taiwan's UN bid -- surely there will be more news on the subject to come.

On a side note: Rest in peace, Luciano Pavarotti -- you touched the world with your voice and persona, and you really knew how to bring an audience to its knees. Nessun dorma 4 Life!

"I think a life in music is a life beautifully spent, and this is what I have devoted my life to." -LP

Taiwan's worthiness

This op-ed piece is by Minister Shieh Jhy-wey of Taiwan's Government Information Office and was published this morning in the Washington Times - to view the original article, click here.

Taiwan's Worthiness

Proclaiming the determination of Taiwan's 23 million people to take their rightful place in the family of nations, President Chen Shui-bian submitted an application for membership in the United Nations to Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon on July 19. In response, a U.N. secretariat spokesperson told the press on July 23 that Taiwan's application "could not be received and was, thus, returned" in keeping with "the one-China policy of the United Nations" supposedly enshrined in General Assembly Resolution 2758.

This behavior is shocking, both for its arrogance and its ignorance.

The U.N. Charter and U.N. procedural rules unambiguously stipulate that the secretary-general shall immediately refer membership applications to the Security Council. The Security Council must deliberate the matter and make a recommendation to the General Assembly, whose members are to discuss the matter and vote on it. Therefore, with the aforementioned action, the U.N. secretariat has in effect co-opted the deliberative and decision-making powers of the U.N. member-states.

Equally disturbing is the fact that this action taken by the U.N. chief grossly misconstrues both the nature of Taiwan's membership application and the import of Resolution 2758. Taiwan's application in no way constitutes a challenge to the right of the government of the People's Republic of China (PRC) to represent China, nor does Resolution 2758 state that Taiwan is a part of China.

After suffering under martial law over the course of 38 years until 1987, the people of Taiwan have since then created a vibrant democracy. Taiwan was rated Asia's most free country by Freedom House in its "Freedom in the World" 2006 report.

Perhaps U.N. officials have been misled by the past actions of the now-defunct, authoritarian party-state government of the Republic of China (ROC). The old regime, led by Chiang Kai-shek, claimed that it was the sole legitimate government of China. Unwilling to coexist with the PRC in the U.N., it withdrew from the world body in 1971 just before Resolution 2758 was passed.

The democratic government of today's Taiwan makes no such claim to govern China, and it is quite happy to coexist and cooperate with the PRC government in every way possible. Although our country is still saddled with the official name "Republic of China," the great majority of us identify ourselves as "Taiwanese" and call our country "Taiwan" — as, indeed, virtually everyone else in the world does.

For this reason, and in order to underline the fact that Taiwan makes no pretense of vying for the right to govern China, Mr. Chen's application requests "the admission of Taiwan," not the Republic of China, "as a member of the United Nations." This follows the well-established precedent set by current U.N. member-states of participating in the U.N. and other international organizations under names that differ from domestically used or constitutional names.

Irrespective of the status of Taiwan, the Taiwan Strait is indisputably one of the world's most dangerous flashpoints. Given that China continuously threatens to launch a war of annexation, has deployed a thousand missiles targeted at Taiwan and refuses to talk directly with the democratically elected government in Taipei, it devolves to the United Nations to fulfill its role of international peacekeeper in the region. At the very least, the United Nations should facilitate communications between all parties who have a stake in preserving peace in East Asia before a crisis situation develops.

U.N. organizations and officials must therefore cease allowing themselves to be intimidated by the totalitarian PRC government into making unwise decisions. In particular, they must stop kowtowing to Beijing's claims concerning the status of Taiwan. Taiwan is not a province of the People's Republic of China, nor is Taiwan part of a "divided China" comprised of PRC and ROC segments.

The U.N. Charter mandates membership for all states. Taiwan is indisputably a sovereign state, having for nearly six decades fulfilled all of the criteria for statehood stipulated in the 1933 Montevideo Convention. Unlike the PRC, Taiwan is also a state in which sovereignty rests in the hands of the people, as prescribed by the 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
Therefore, all nations that champion the rule of law, freedom and human rights are morally bound to support the cause of U.N. membership for Taiwan. We will never trade freedom for tyranny.

China's Diplomacy: "Soft" vs. "Hard" Power

Anyone familiar with Taiwan's quest for representation in international orgs like the UN and WHO knows well that the largest obstacle for Taiwan is Beijing's economic influence over the international community. Yesterday in the Washington Times Steven W. Mosher explained the nature of China's diplomatic power in his review of Joshua Kurlantzick's new book, Charm Offensive. He argues that Mr. Kurlantzick improperly uses the term "soft power"—a term originally used to describe America' Cold War influence on people watching the West from behind the Iron Curtain—to classify the power China excersizes over developing countries and established dictatorships today. Here are some excerpts from Mr. Mosher's review:

In fact, one can name a corrupt, dictatorial regime anywhere in the world — and Mr. Kurlantzick names many — and its closest major ally is invariably the People's Republic of China, all too ready to supply guns, butter or comradely encouragement to defy the United States...

...What he [Kurlantzick] disarmingly calls a "charm offensive" based largely on China's supposedly growing "soft power" is in reality something far more ominous: It is the deliberate targeting of poor, developing nations with a potent combination of state-driven investment, trade, arms sales and aid (including bribes to high officials and secret subsidies to political parties), with the aim of cementing the allegiance of governing elites to Beijing...

...There is almost no resemblance between [the concept of 'soft power'] and China's current efforts to buy influence. While China's brand of Leninist capitalism and its disdain for human rights may attract favorable notice from dictators, even here China's new clout is fundamentally based on what Mr. [Joseph] Nye called "the hard power of threats or payments."

That is to say, it is in return for football stadiums, public works projects, exchange programs, generous aid packages, not to mention support in controversies with the United States and U.S.-led international organizations, that leaders in dozens of countries are cozying up to China. We are witnessing an excersize in hard power, not soft.

Mr. Mosher does a good job in this review of capturing the misleading nature of China's diplomatic activities worldwide—a 'schmooze ruse' that apparently also misled Kurlantzick in his evaluation of Beijing's growing influence. China has been ever-increasingly throwing its economic weight around, not by benevolently investing in disadvantaged countries for the betterment of humanity, but rather by bolstering diplomatically isolated or struggling nations in a very calculated way—making it clear to the leaders of those countries that they are expected to tow the China line in return.

China's use of hard economic power has solidified Beijing's influence over international organizations and confounded efforts by the West to isolate inhumane and irresponsible governments. Hopefully, Taiwan and other countries/regions detrimented by China's economic realpolitik will be able to convince the United States and other leading nations that it is in our best interest to check this growing form of Chinese power. Herein lies the most feasible path to the international participation Taiwan seeks.