China Advances

The spokesman for the People's Rethugclique of China posted an appropriately blustery upchuck of argle-bargle to the Financial Times in response to David Pilling's excellent piece the other day. The central paragraphs are standard PRC hogwash:

From Ms Dai Qingli.

Sir, David Pilling claims that the US should not throw the bone of Taiwan to court the Chinese (“US cannot sacrifice Taiwan to court the Chinese”, Comment March 31). Let me outline China’s position on this major issue of principle.

There is only one China in the world. Both the mainland and Taiwan belong to one China. China’s sovereignty and territorial integrity are indivisible. In recent years, cross-Strait relations have been improving. People-to-people exchanges are thriving. Blood is thicker than water. Taiwan is not a “bone” which can be thrown at will by foreign countries. The Chinese people on both sides of the Taiwan Strait have the wisdom and capability to achieve the early reunification of China.

The Taiwan issue concerns the dignity of the 1.3bn Chinese people. We firmly oppose any interference in the Taiwan issue by any country or any person. China is consistently opposed to US arms sales to Taiwan. In the three China-US Joint Communiqués, the US acknowledged that there is but one China in the world and Taiwan is part of China and undertook to gradually reduce arms sales to Taiwan, leading over time to final resolution. China will continue to work with the US to handle Taiwan-related issues properly on the basis of one China and the three communiqués to safeguard the overall China-US relations and peace and stability across the Taiwan Strait.

Unfortunately, whenever cross-Strait relations improve, there are people who will try to stir up confrontation, and even clamour for continued arms sales by the US to Taiwan. This is very harmful to peace, stability and development across the Taiwan Strait and in the region. We trust that FT readers will not be misled by these acts which go against the trend of the times.

Dai Qingli,

Spokesman,

Chinese Embassy in the UK

This appears to have been put together using a software algorithm entitled "PRC SPOKESMAN RANDOM LETTER GENERATOR." It contains the usual false claims and misrepresentations.

1 -- "blood is thicker than water." 'Nuff said!
2 -- the US says Taiwan is part of China.
3 -- Taiwan is an "internal affair" of China ... one thing missing from Ma's foreign policy, so crucial to the DPP's, is the internationalization of the Taiwan issue.
4 -- the PRC hates arms sales to Taiwan
5 -- the PRC is "reunifying" not annexing Taiwan

The sad part is not the lies, but the fact that the US State Department, whose position is completely misrepresented here -- the US position is that the status of Taiwan is undetermined, not that it is part of China -- will probably not take the three minutes necessary to post a correction to the Financial Times.

A good thing indicated buy this missive is that after two decades of greater engagement, China still has not learned how to package its communications with the outside world in a consistent manner -- too much depends on the quality of the representative. In this case the rep is speaking not to the outside but to her superiors -- hoping to sound hardnosed enough for promotion. As a result, the "spokesman" sounds about as slick as one of the alien characters from the old Master of Orion game. Of course this incompetence could be a bad thing -- perhaps the PRC simply doesn't care what it looks like because it expects instant obedience. Scary....

The Taipei Times must have had a slow news day yesterday, for they said that this was China's call for "early reunification." Does this missive really mean that? Or is it just the usual bluster?

Meanwhile, on the real news front, there's another excellent piece by keen observer James Holmes in The Jamestown Brief. Here's the opening paragraph, don't miss the entire piece:

The sporadic confrontations that punctuated the past two years in the China seas subsided for a time. Senior U.S. military officials depicted the lull as a temporary, tactical retreat from the assertive stance Beijing assumed on such controversies as conflicting maritime territorial claims, foreign naval operations, and military surveillance in the "near seas" [1]. A string of recent events bears out their assessment, suggesting both that Chinese leaders have not abandoned their ambitions in these waters and that these ambitions are apt to encounter pushback from fellow Asian sea powers. Furthermore, the uptick in maritime confrontations demonstrates that China’s "smile" diplomacy—a diplomatic campaign designed to portray China as an inherently beneficent great power—is on hold.

 China's groping for a strategy was also signified this week by additional news about the Shi Lang, the new aircraft carrier China is building, its first. China is close to launching it, reports the NY Times. The vessel won't be any match for the US monster carriers, but it will be a good test bed for China to study carrier operations.

Shi Lang was the general who led the conquest of Taiwan for the Manchus.


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