Actually, those treaties weren't imposed on China, but on the Qing (Ching) Dynasty, a Manchu empire that had swallowed China and other neighboring territories. The "humiliation" of the 19th century is purely a modern fantasy backprojected onto history to justify current Chinese expansion. Arguably in the 19th century there was no "China" to be humiliated.
Will Hutton commented in a piece in the Observer that ran in the Taipei Times today:
Which brings us to Taiwan, which has enormous iconic importance for China in general and the Communist Party in particular. Of all the humiliations suffered during the 19th century, Japan's seizure of Taiwan as a colony in 1895 rankles most.
This is an indefensible rewriting of history. It is quite true that Taiwan has enormous iconic importance for China, but that is entirely the result of 20th century politics, not 19th century "humiliations." The defeat of China by the upstart Japanese, whom they considered inferior, was the major "humiliation" (apparently it is OK to humiliate others by considering them inferior, but not to have them return the favor). Taiwan was not seized but was peacefully handed over to the Japanese, who then had to carry out an invasion and fight many years of guerilla warfare to hang onto the island after pro-Qing rebels established the Republic of Formosa in 1895 (the war that also saw the rise of the Koo family in the island's politics). If China's government was not bound and determined to annex Taiwan today no one would even notice that had been let go "in perpetuity" in 1895 under an internationally recognized treaty whose validity went unchallenged by the Chinese until WWII.
The rest of the article, which discusses the test of the anti-satellite weapon, is dead on...
And the spending is very targeted. China is building up the arsenal it would need to invade Taiwan and hold off an attempt by the US and Japanese to relieve it, igniting one of the world's great flash points. No other explanation is possible.....but I wish the world's correspondents would quit validating the "victimization" propaganda of China by repeating it.
[Taiwan] [Japan] [China]
This is quite absurd a notion that somehow this one inclusive incident would actually threaten Taiwanese security.
ReplyDeleteCall me an idiot but I at least know that GPS constellation (what china would be targeting) is on GEO orbit that is well beyond the range of the current kinetic kill vehicle.
So Ask your self what viable capability have the Chinese demonstrated.
What’s stupid is for China to be dishing this out so “China threat” specialist can have a field day all year long…
Btw weaponization of space didn't start with the Chinese; US had the capability all along. NMD could very well be used to destroy LOE targets and not to mention the dozens of plans still budgeted for KE-ASAT. Plus anyone remember the MIRACL laser ASAT program? In October 1997, the Air Force commissioned a test of an ASAT system based on the MIRACL laser. This system was directed toward a satellite orbiting 420 km above the Earth.
Now before we criticize the Chinese let us remind ourselves that last October, when the proposal to ban space weapons came up in the United Nations, it was the United States that voted the only “no” against 160 “yes” votes.
the US has persistently declared and demonstrated its noninterest in any form of space arms control,
and have yet to demonstate to credible partners to anyone wanting to keep space peaceful and instead declared its arrogaance in the unilateral right to “space control”
Since US have already inked out on paper that she has no intensions to sacrifice her interests in space for the interests of any other nation. The only two choices that China face is either to accept that the benevolent space protector US will look out for Chinese interests or to take the necessary steps to ensure self protection.
What needs comment here is clarification of nomenclature. Pro-Qing rebels did not establish the Republic of Taiwan; it was established by pro-Qing bureaucrats who as true bureaucrats ran to where their bread was buttered.
ReplyDeleteThat said, pro-Taiwan rebels did fight for the Republic of Taiwan, long after the "10 day president" and even the mercenary, soldier of fortune Liu and his Black Flag contingent fled.
The average person of Taiwan was never pro-Qing, nor was he pro-Ming. He wanted to be left to lead his own life. People came to Taiwan to escape oppression and seek opportunity. Historians forget here what they repeat elsewhere, i.e. that in Taiwan there was "an uprising every three years and a rebellion every five years."
It was when the Republic of Taiwan was formed (albeit by coached Qing bureaucrats) that the people began to realize that there were other options than being under an emperor or any other foreign govt. These are the Taiwanese rebels that fought on for twenty years long after all the fat cat bureaucrats and mercenaries fled. This was the beginning of a unified Taiwan identity.
Unfortunately Taiwan later suffered another invasion by the KMT, but that's another story.