Hegemonic Warfare Watch: Denny Roy on the Collision Course between US and China

Image from here.

Longtime Taiwan watcher Denny Roy has a piece in The National Interest on the coming collision between China and the US over Taiwan. While his central point -- that we are headed for war out here over Taiwan or whatever -- is spot on, the lead up to it is fraught with strange errors. For example:

For several years, some Chinese analysts have worried that Taiwan intended to take advantage of the generous economic terms offered by the People’s Republic of China (PRC) while putting off political negotiations indefinitely. Their skepticism was justified. Economic integration and increased movement of people across the Strait will not necessarily lead to political integration. Taiwanese people may not prioritize an improved material standard of living over maintaining their civil liberties. Even if the sole concern is economic benefit, Taiwan arguably has an interest in delaying unification so as to wait for a point in time where China takes an economic loss and Taiwan profits disproportionately from their bilateral trade. Chinese magnanimity would likely decline after unification.

"generous economic terms". ROFL. Taiwan has been screwed by China's ruthless attempts to poach its technology, steal its industries, marginalize it in international trade negotiations, and hire away its best workers. The trade deals are meant to facilitate this hollowing out of Taiwan, because the foundation of Taiwan's independence is an independent economy. They do not offer generous terms, one reason that the service pact was so decisively rejected by the public (English analysis). Thus, this dichotomy between "standard of living" and "civil liberties" is completely false, because closeness to China has not fostered a higher standard of living in Taiwan. Instead, it has brought lower wages, low quality service jobs, stagnating incomes, and reduced living standards, not to mention damage to the island's media environment and democratic liberties.

Hence, the way that Roy has formulated this paragraph is completely bass-ackward. It should acknowledge that the interaction with China has brought wealth only to a few large businessmen with close China connections, and has worsened living quality on the island in every way. In this way it has increased desire for independence. Not mentioned here is the way in which Taiwanese go to China and become even more independence-oriented, but perhaps it should be...

Further down Roy scribes:

The likelihood of Taiwan voluntarily choosing unification with China is waning. Opinion polls show that Taiwan’s sense of a separate national identity from mainland China is increasing. While a great majority have long favored the status quo of de facto independence over immediate unification, a majority now oppose even eventual unification.

This is a more subtle misrepresentation. Roy is too honest an analyst to give the KMT version of the status quo preference, in which the status quo is presented as opposed to independence. Instead, he correctly identifies the status quo as preferred precisely because it is a weak form of independence. But "a majority now oppose eventual" annexation is plainly false -- annexation to China has always been opposed by the majority in credible polls. It is not something that has become true in the "now." All polls show the same thing -- Taiwanese identify as Taiwanese when forced to choose between Chinese and Taiwanese as identities, and a substantial majority would prefer independence. Annexation to China has little support, and its been that way for years. For example, check out this MAC poll from 2000. The government divides up the numbers to make it difficult to see, but once you do the math, support for annexation is 21%. Not a majority. There never was...

The thing that has changed is not the Taiwanese, who never supported annexation to China. Rather, it is the military calculus in the China-Taiwan-US triangle, as Roy notes. China is now much stronger than it was a decade ago. At some point soon some policy entrepreneur within the Chinese government is going to acquire the authority and position to make a convincing case that China can now defeat the US and Japan combined (the actual military numbers matter only to the extent that some domestic political calculus makes use of them) and then crush the democracy movement on Taiwan. As Hong Kong shows, the second part will in its own way be just as difficult as the first...
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Daily Links:

• Global Voices: Were the Taiwanese media too quick to deem the dead pilots heroes?
• Glenn Smith with an interview of a local activist in The Ecologist about the illegal, disastrous Miramar Resort in Taitung. Like so many, she became an activist when the county stole her house and land and gave it to the big company.
• Bruce Jacobs at CPI: Taiwan-Japan relations in historical perspective
• James Davidson, author of the classic work The Island of Formosa Past and Present, revisited Formosa with a Rotary club trip years later. A 1932 Rotarian has his wife's account of the trip and of his service in Formosa as a correspondent. With pictures.
• Chinese workers a growing threat to Taiwan. That is why the Ma Administration is struggling to bring them in.
• Taiwan Communique #149 now online
• WantWant editorial on the four month interregnum between the election and the new president swearing in.
• Another interesting WantWant editorial on the KMT under Eric Chu.

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[Taiwan] Don't miss the comments below! And check out my blog and its sidebars for events, links to previous posts and picture posts, and scores of links to other Taiwan blogs and forums!

Hegemonic Conflict Watch: War Delusions

Zachary Keck had a piece in The Diplomat saying stuff I've been saying for years about how absurd the Chinese territorial claims are, but I wanted to hoist this comment of ACT from the depths because it was good:

....Or, as Ampontan himself said, China claiming what it claims is akin to Italy claiming France, the whole mediterranean and parts of germany because the Roman Empire held them at one moment in time or another.

This passage from Victor Davis Hanson’s “lessons of World War I” over at the national review is interesting:

“But the crux is why exactly did Germany believe in late summer 1914 that it could invade neutral Belgium, start a war with France, draw in Britain and Russia (and eventually the U.S.), and expect the Schlieffen Plan to knock out France in a matter of weeks, allowing a redirection to Russia to ensure the same there?

Yet what seems fantastical today was deemed entirely logical in the Germany of 1914 — given prewar British reluctance to support France, American isolation, the utter French collapse in 1871, the Russian humiliation in the Russo-Japanese War of 1904–05, the ongoing political instability that threatened to unwind the Russian czarist state, the amazing surge in German dreadnought construction that promised to nullify traditional British naval supremacy, and the inability of France, Britain, and Russia — and the United States — to craft a credible deterrent force to convince Germany of the folly of any aggressive act”

Replace Germany with the PRC, replace France with Japan and/or the Philippines, and replace Britain with America (America stays the same); Amend the dates and locations et al to today’s crises, and you have something that looks eerily like the situation today. Not to mention that statement at the Davos Economic Forum, wherein a senior Chinese business leader basically confirmed that this was the calculus of the PRC at this point in time…

so, amend the statement and you get something that looks like this:

“But the crux is why exactly did the PRC believe in the first few decades of the 21st century that it could engage in explicitly revisionist expansion–claim the South China Sea, claim the Senaku Islands, and force other parties out of those areas through paramilitary threat–and expect that none of this would start regional, if not global conflict?

Yet what seems fantastical toady was deemed entirely logical in the PRC of that period–Given pre-conflict U.S reluctance to support Japan and the Philippines, U.S retrenchment, U.S defeats by inferior forces in Iraq and Afghanistan, as well as the marked failure of the U.S to enforce words with actions on Syria, the noted surge in A2/AD weaponry in China’s hands, as well as an arms buildup that far outstripped any of its neighbors, which promised to nullify traditional U.S naval supremacy in addition to the inability of said nation to craft a credible deterrent force to convince the PRC of the folly of any aggressive act.”

to sum it up, as Mr. Hanson notes:

“One of the lessons of the outbreak of World War I is the importance of perceptions. At some point in 1914 the German military and diplomatic community concluded that the country not only could pull off a successful lightning strike against France, but could do so without starting a world war — given various events over the prior decades….Such flawed thinking is a good reminder that appearances often matter as much as reality in provoking wars.”

And we are seeing exactly the same thing with the PRC now. Hanson himself points out that: “China, like the Westernized Japan of the 1930s, wants influence and power commensurate with its economic clout, and perhaps believes its growing military can obtain both at the expense of its democratic neighbors without starting a wider war.”

Juxtapose that with the news from today:

Navy Official: China Training for ‘Short Sharp War’ with Japan. “China has long trained for an amphibious invasion of Taiwan during military exercises but has expanded its training to include a similar attack on Japanese holdings in the East China Sea, according the chief of intelligence of the U.S. Pacific Fleet (PACFLEET). As part of China’s Mission Action 2013 exercise — a massive exercise between the all branches of China’s People’s Liberation Army (PLA) — the military trained for taking the Senkaku Islands, said Capt. James Fannell, deputy chief of staff intelligence and information operations for PACFLEET. “We witnessed the massive amphibious and cross military region enterprise — Mission Action 2013,” Fannell said at the West 2014 conference on Feb. 13 in San Diego, Calif. “[We] concluded that the PLA has been given the new task to be able to conduct a short sharp war to destroy Japanese forces in the East China Sea following with what can only be expected a seizure of the Senkakus or even a southern Ryukyu [islands] — as some of their academics say.”

Tensions are set to rise in the South China Sea, where, let me remind you, the ROC has actual troops, military assets, and bases. Unlike the Senkakus.
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[Taiwan] Don't miss the comments below! And check out my blog and its sidebars for events, links to previous posts and picture posts, and scores of links to other Taiwan blogs and forums!

Hegemonic Warfare watch: US Rejects Nine-Dash Line

Making Longan cakes.

Ka-boom! Uncle Sam's representatives call on China to explain what it is doing in the South China Sea.

The United States for the first time has explicitly rejected the U-shaped, nine-dash line that China uses to assert sovereignty over nearly the whole South China Sea, experts say, strengthening the position of rival claimants and setting the stage for what could be an international legal showdown with Beijing.

Washington has always said that it takes no position on competing territorial claims in the South China Sea among China, the Philippines, Vietnam, Malaysia, Taiwan and Brunei and opposes any use of force to resolve such issues.

But U.S. Assistant Secretary of State for East Asian and Pacific Affairs Daniel Russel in effect ended the ambiguity last week when he testified before the House of Representatives Committee on Foreign Affairs, experts say.

Russel said that under international law, maritime claims in the South China Sea "must be derived from land features" and that any use of the nine-dash line by China to claim maritime rights not based on claimed land areas "would be inconsistent with international law."

The piece further observed:

Unlike other countries, Beijing's claim to up to about 90 percent of the South China Sea is not based on claims to particular islands or other features but on a historical map China officially submitted to the United Nations in 2009.

The map contains a nine-dash line forming a U-shape down the east coast of Vietnam to just north of Indonesia and then continuing northwards up the west coast of the Philippines.

The nine-dash line has been considered by many experts as incompatible with the 1982 United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS), which rejects historically based claims.

This is a major shift in the declared US view. Sadly the US has not signed onto UNCLOS, meaning that its position is compromised. It is also compromised by its many years of silence on this issue. Still, it is nice to hear the US for once coming down on the side of right. Brookings has a longer review here.

In addition to the UNCLOS violation the US identifies, Philippines has previously contended that China is not an island nation and cannot make such claims. Manila has taken China to the international court, which China has ignored (also here for the facts on China's claims). If Manila wins, presumably this will impinge on the ROC claim, which is identical to the China claim because the ROC claims to rule China and everything that China rules, and also includes Mongolia in its "China."

South China Sea? Arunachal Pradesh? The Senkakus? Which war will we get? Probably not even Beijing knows.
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Daily Links:

• Taiwan = Emerging Beacon of Veganism
• SCMP: DPP gains ground on KMT in local polls.
• Is the PLA going rogue?
• Foreign workers protest for higher wages, days off.
• Economy stagnant, wages suck, stock market soars.
• A Taiwan history lesson, with laughs
• US general tells Manila, Beijing to cool the rhetoric
• Reporters from Radio Free Asia and Apple Daily refused visas for China. Time to refuse a few visas in return. Too bad our President is from the pro-China party...
• Pingtan island, the common homeland Beijing is using to get Taiwanese to come on over

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[Taiwan] Don't miss the comments below! And check out my blog and its sidebars for events, links to previous posts and picture posts, and scores of links to other Taiwan blogs and forums!

JapanFocus: The (Wrong) Origins of the Senkaku Mess

JapanFocus, a progressive website that turns out lots of interesting stuff on Okinawa, on Japanese colonialism, and on Cold War and post-Cold War history and politics in NE Asia, put on a fine display this month of the way lefties often adopt the right-wing imperialism of non-western nations as their analytical stance, something that needs to stop. In The Origins of the Senkaku/Diaoyu Dispute between China, Taiwan and Japan, Mark Seldon and Yabuki Susumu write:

...While other important issues add to the gravity of the conflict, including enlarged territorial claims by China, Japan and Korea in the form of advancing and defending competing claims to ADIZ in the East China and South China Seas, Yabuki shows the long trajectory of competing claims over the Senkaku dispute and the evolving policies of China, Japan and the United States in shaping it. Since so much of the international discussion of the issues has focused on China-Japan conflict, a particularly important contribution of the present paper is its clear presentation of US recognition at the highest levels of the significance of the competing territorial claims, and its maneuvering in negotiations with Taipei, Tokyo, and Beijing to shape the outcome.

The story can, of course, be traced back to earlier claims to the islands, including historical interactions involving Taiwan and Okinawan fishermen and Chinese tributary missions, to Japanese claims to the islands, and to their disposition by the US in framing and implementing the San Francisco Peace Treaty...

The article then goes on to show how the US manipulated things to preserve the Chinese claims and how the Chinese manipulated the US, probably because Kissinger, who was running the show at the time (he would later go on to establish profitable business relations with China), was so irredeemably pro-China and because of the general historical ignorance and laziness of Americans: nobody on the US side appears to have researched the Chinese claims to see whether they were actually correct. For example, a memo from John Holdridge reproduces the Chinese nonsense claims without comment and says:

John H. Holdridge’s Comment reads as follows:

As you can imagine, the Japanese Government has a comparable list of apparently offsetting arguments and maintains simply that the Senkakus remain Japanese. State’s position is that in occupying the Ryukyus and the Senkakus in 1945, and in proposing to return them to Japan in 1972, the U.S. passes no judgment as to conflicting claims over any portion of them, which should be settled directly by the parties concerned.

After reading this memorandum, Kissinger immediately handwrote the following comment in the margin: “But that is nonsense since it gives islands to Japan. How can we get a more neutral position?”

Don't miss the conversation between Kissinger and the ROC representive reproduced in the article; it's high comedy.

Going back to the introduction, readers familiar with China's nonsensical claims to the Senkakus can see how in the introduction Seldon and Susumu have completely and uncritically swallowed them. I posted some comments there, but (naturally) they were nuked.

I should add that one of my projects for this vacation is translating and commenting on the great website 為什麼釣魚台是日本的. It has been taken down, but I have it in reserve and hopefully sometime in the next couple of months will be able to reproduce it in full and in English. It's stuffed with little gems that show that no rulers of China ever thought of the Senkakus as Chinese. A sample:

當時負責與日本交接的清國代表是李經方，李經方擔心福建沿海島嶼也被劃入割讓範圍希望日方提交臺灣附屬島嶼清冊.水野遵表示如果將島名逐一列舉，難免會出現疏漏或涉及無名島嶼問題，如此一來該島將不屬於日、中任何一方，從而帶來麻煩,而且臺灣與附屬島嶼已有公認的海圖與地圖鑒於日方的表態，李經方同意對台灣附屬各島嶼不逐一列名的處理,之後雙方簽署交接臺灣文據.

Qing representative Li Jing-fang was responsible for the handover to Japan. Li Jing-fang was concerned that the coastal islands of Fujian were also included in scope of things ceded and hoped that the Japanese side would submit an inventory of Taiwan affiliated islands. Mizuno Jun [head of administration of first Japan gov't of Taiwan and participant in 1874 invasion, pic here --MT] said that compliance meant that if the islands were listed by name, there will inevitably be omissions or problems involving nameless islands. Then there will be islands not belonging to either party, resulting in trouble. Moreover, the island of Taiwan and its affiliated islands were already recognized on the charts and maps of the Japanese side. Li agreed that the islands affiliated with Taiwan should not be listed individually by name and the two sides later signed the instrument of the transfer of Taiwan.

Note first that neither side mentioned the Senkakus as they worked out the handover of Taiwan to Tokyo. Had the Qing or the Japanese considered the Senkakus to be part of Taiwan, they certainly would have been mentioned, but of course neither side did. I linked to the LeGendre map yesterday. It is typical of all western maps of Taiwan in the 19th century -- none included the Senkakus as islands traditionally thought to be part of Taiwan, like Green Island or the Pescadores/Penghu. No one, Chinese or foreign, considered the Senkakus to be Chinese until after the possibility of oil under the sea floor was announced in the late 1960s. It's really that simple, and anyone who writes on the "origins" of the Senkakus mess is churning out ideologically-driven propaganda if they write or imply anything else.

UPDATE: See also this post.

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[Taiwan] Don't miss the comments below! And check out my blog and its sidebars for events, links to previous posts and picture posts, and scores of links to other Taiwan blogs and forums!

Hegemonic Conflict Watch: China's ADIZ roundup

Took the Motao out to Shihlin Night Market the other day.

So much commentary -- apparently China's new ADIZ woke the world up. We've arrived at one of those historical moments when even the densest dunderheads can see, a Panay moment, or a remilitarization of the Rhineland moment, when onlookers are beginning to realize the coming course of events....

...China has already scrambled planes in response to US and Japanese flights, Chinese media reports. Japan denies this.

Lots of good stuff out there. Corey Wallace over at China Policy Institute observes:

The Chinese government is increasingly perceived in Japan to be implementing a calculated and “staged” approach to undermining Japan’s claims to the Senkaku Islands, and using antipathy towards Japan as a justification for pursuing a more expansive military policy. For example, in September 2012, the PRC submitted to the United Nations the coordinates for demarcating the territorial seas around the islands. This was identified a precursor to maintaining a routine presence in and around the islands, and since this point incursions in the territorial waters around the islands have rapidly increased. Just two days prior to the ADIZ announcement, it was reported in Japan that Chinese maritime authorities had escalated the stakes again by boarding Chinese fishing vessels in the EEZ waters around the Senkaku Islands. It was confirmed by the JCG that this had happened three times since August, 2013. The ADIZ will therefore be interpreted as a signal of a Chinese intention to further implement its jurisdictional claim.

Indeed, Japanese media has been quick to explore the dangerous implications of the new ADIZs. For example, the Yomiuri labelled China’s action of declaring an ADIZ that includes airspace over islands under the administrative control of another nation to be of “an unusual nature in the international community.” The ADIZ move is seen as providing further evidence of Xi Jinping prioritising China’s “great power” ambitions, rather than steering China towards becoming a cooperative player in building a mutually beneficial East Asian regional framework. Xi’s advocacy for a “New Type of Great Power Relations” for managing future diplomacy, which excludes the interests of regional and global players other than the United States or the PRC, has also not gone unnoticed in Japan. The Japanese media has even reported that various Chinese diplomatic sources have admitted that hard line elements within the Chinese government and the PLA have settled on a strategy to challenge Japan on the Senkakus, to drive a wedge through the US-Japan alliance, and take a hard-line towards relations towards Japan in general. This strategy was apparently consolidated at the end of the recent third plenum, which saw China setting up a National Security Council, and Xi Jinping noting that China needed to directly face external and internal threats to China’s sovereign rights and national security. As such, the East China Sea ADIZ will be seen as setting the stage for a long-term exercising of military influence in the area, especially if the PRC goes on to announce a similar zone for the South China Sea. With the maiden South China Sea voyage of the Liaoning also being heavily reported in Japan, Japanese politicians and officials have quickly moved to discussing extending Japan’s own ADIZ eastwards to cover the Ogasawara islands in anticipation of future Chinese aerial activity on the back of its new ability to project aerial power.

Michal Thim at CPI similarly observes:

There is another important aspect to consider while analysing recent Chinese actions. Beijing may be motivated to take a stance in regards to its sovereignty claim and it is consistently pushing the envelope in this matter. However, it is also interested in testing the reactions of the U.S. and its allies to get a clearer picture for its actions in the future. The Taiwan Strait missile crisis in 1995/96 might have backfired and in the short term it was Beijing’s debacle but at the same time Chinese leaders tested U.S. reaction. In addition, the crisis provided critical stimulus for the development of Anti-Access/Area-Denial (A2/AD) capability that nowadays represents significant challenge for any future deployment of carrier battle group near Chinese shores. More recently, during 2012 Scarborough Shoal standoff with the Philippines, China has tested whether the U.S. would go beyond rhetorical support of its treaty ally when the subject of dispute is relatively insignificant elevation. Creation of ADIZ and increased number of naval and air incursions in the disputed area should be understood as part of broader strategy to change the status quo. Should the ADIZ face no strong reaction or should the extent of backlash be acceptable for Beijing, second ADIZ may come soon, this time over the South China Sea.

At the Diplomat, the really bizarre writing:

The islands, when referenced in Chinese historical documents, are generally considered to have been part of the administrative zone of Taiwan. In other words, if mainland China does gain control of the islands, it would effectively be administering part of Taiwan. Obviously, this give the dispute a deep symbolic meaning for Taiwan’s government.

The was never any administration of the Senkakus from Taiwan. That's a post-1971 lie. Where do people get this crap? -- especially since several of us have now published at The Diplomat showing that these are lies. Do they not consult their own stuff? The writer does make one good point, however:

In this context, Beijing’s ADIZ could have lasting ramification for cross-strait relations. The PRC seems not to have considered the potential backlash on Taiwan — particularly since the ADIZ roll-out occurred only days before an important visit to Taiwan by Chen Deming, the head of the mainland’s Association for Relations Across the Taiwan Straits. The timing of the announcement has marred Chen’s visit. The DPP and other critics have demanded that Ma lodge protests with Chen and even expel him from Taiwan if his response is seen as inadequate.

Beijing could easily have avoided this by holding off on the ADIZ for even a week, or even done Ma a political favor by informing him of the decision in advance. Instead, mainland officials missed an opportunity to ease the political shock in Taiwan. As a result, China’s aggressive move to solidify its claims over some uninhabited rocks might jeopardize its chances at a far larger prize — eventual unification with Taiwan.

Exactly -- the ADIZ not only screwed Korea, it also screwed Beijing's friend and ally, Ma Ying-jeou. The ROC government has announced that it will go along with the requirement of reporting its airlines movements in the ADIZ to Beijing, unlike Korea, Japan, and the US. Speaking of Korea, at The Diplomat resides a piece on the ADIZ and Korea:

The beauty of a unilateral move like an ADIZ is that the country imposing the zone gets to decide how the lines are drawn on the map. The Chinese decision to draw the ADIZ such that it was guaranteed to raise the ire of South Korea is odd. With South Korea, the PRC was fortunate enough to avoid the sorts of territorial rigmaroles it often finds itself in with Japan, Taiwan and various Southeast Asian states (over the South China Sea). South Korea and China had also found themselves converging over their common historical distaste for Japan along nationalist lines — a phenomenon abetted by the almost concomitant election of conservative Park Geun-hye in Korea and Shinzo Abe in Japan.

It’s perhaps too early to make a definitive determination about the impact the Chinese ADIZ will have on future relations between China and South Korea. South Korea’s restrained rhetorical response and China’s immediate attempts to set the record straight on Ieodo indicate that the ADIZ’s northeastern frontier, near Jeju-do, may have been an oversight on China’s part.

..........

What should give South Korea pause over the ADIZ is the possible imposition of such zones in the future by China, something Chinese Ministry of Defense spokesman Yang Yujun claimed was in the pipes: “China will establish other Air Defense Identification Zones at the right moment after necessary preparations are completed.” A future ADIZ off the Bohai Sea and into the Yellow Sea would have serious implications for South Korean security

For me the scariest article was a WaPo piece on it by Simon Denyer, which reads as if it softened something dictated by Xinhua propagandists:

It was designed as a forceful response to Japanese assertiveness. [Hahahaha - mt] But Beijing’s creation of an air defense zone may have backfired, experts said, eliciting a strong joint response from the United States and Japan.

In Chinese eyes, the standoff began in September 2012, [Why are we regurgitating Chinese propaganda? Who cares what Beijing wants outsiders to think? Don't we do our own research? - mt] when the Japanese government purchased three of the islands — known as the Senkaku islands in Japan and the Diaoyu islands in China — from a private Japanese landowner. In response, Beijing stepped up its own claims to the rocky landmasses, increasing sea patrols and pressing Japan to accept that the territory is disputed.[Reality: the Japanese purchase was driven by China's escalating pressure. - mt]

This next bit is so comical it deserves to stand alone:

Beijing’s actions appear to fit a recent pattern, experts said. Reluctant to be seen as the provocateur, China tends to respond forcefully to what it sees as provocations from others and then advance its own claims even more strongly.

A totally Beijing-centric presentation. Ugly to see this in a US newspaper... but expect more in the future: the new normal is going to be US media presentations shaped by Beijing's power.

Finally, James Fallows has a good piece over at The Atlantic:

3) Is this likely to do China any good? The puzzling nature of Chinese foreign policy, especially its generally self-defeating "soft power" aspects, is a subject too vast for our purposes right now. In brief: the very steps that, from an internal Chinese-government perspective, are intended to make it seem confident, powerful, and attractive often have exactly the opposite effect on audiences outside China.

One famous illustration followed the world financial crisis of 2008. The Chinese economy recovered much more quickly than others; the U.S. looked like a house of cards; and the Chinese military made a number of expansionist-seeming moves in the South China Sea that quickly got the attention of neighboring countries. The result of this "over-reach" episode, as it is described now even in China, was to bring Japan, South Korea, Vietnam, the Philippines, Malaysia, and other countries into closer alignment with the U.S. than they had thought necessary before. By acting super-tough, the Chinese military made its real situation weaker.

This ADIZ case may become the next famous example. Whether it seems, either now or later, worthwhile from the Chinese leadership's perspective I have no idea. But at least in the short term, it appears to have alarmed the South Koreans, with whom Chinese relations had been steadily warming, plus introducing new friction into China's most important relationship, which is with the United States.

Great stuff. UPDATED: And don't miss this piece on the Chinese perspective from a Chinese PHD student in the China Policy Institute.

The Lew-Rockwell Antiwar.com types are still off in some La-la land where all evils are due to the US and China is all rainbows and unicorns, but I noticed that over at the progressive website CommonDreams writer Gwynne Dyer actually thought the ADIZ was deliberately provocative. I'm remaining optimistic that the Left will come around on China...
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[Taiwan] Don't miss the comments below! And check out my blog and its sidebars for events, links to previous posts and picture posts, and scores of links to other Taiwan blogs and forums!

Hegemonic Conflict Watch: US Responds to China's ADIZ =UPDATED=

Wow (Yahoo):

Two US B-52 bombers flew over a disputed area of the East China Sea without informing Beijing, US officials said Tuesday, challenging China's bid to create an expanded air defense zone.

The flight of the giant Stratofortress planes sent a clear signal that Washington would push back against what it considers an aggressive stance by Beijing in the region.

The move also represented a robust show of US support for Japan, which is locked in a mounting dispute with Beijing over disputed islands in the East China Sea.

The unarmed bombers took off from Guam on Monday on a scheduled flight, as part of what defense officials insisted was a routine exercise dubbed "Coral Lightning Global Power Training Sortie."

This was exactly the right move. China still nurses fantasies of splitting Japan from the US, while pursuing policies that are actually driving Tokyo closer to Washington. The time when Beijing could have wooed Tokyo passed several years ago, thanks to Beijing's belligerent attitude...

One function of this ADIZ declaration is thus to show Tokyo that Washington won't support it in the pinch. This move has precedent -- at least one motive for the Sino-Vietnamese War was for Beijing to demonstrate that the treaty between Hanoi and Moscow was simply a worthless piece of paper. There too China's ostensible motive was islands (Spratly Islands) and alleged mistreatment of ethnic Chinese minorities in Vietnam, eerie echoes of China's bogus claim to the Senkakus and its claim that Taiwan should be part of China because they are all one big happy culture.

Hence, Washington's move was exactly the right move -- giving the middle finger to Beijing, but not using something more aggressive, like a fighter sweep. Kudos to the White House and Pentagon for this move. Hopefully now with the beginning of serious negotiations with Iran, the Obama Administration can shift the US perspective away from its hopeless fixation on that sideshow of a sideshow in the Middle East to Asia, where the future is.

Good work, guys. Very happy to see this.

UPDATE: Probably be on this one all day as news flows in. The Diplomat with a great write-up which observes:

There has been some dispute among defense experts about whether China has the capability to actually enforce its conditions. Defense News quoted an unnamed U.S. defense industry source located in Asia as saying, “Let China run itself crazy trying to enforce this. I just can’t see how China will sustain the enforcement. Too much traffic goes through there. If no country recognizes it, [and] don’t respond to China’s IFF [identification friend or foe] interrogation or VID [visual identification], then this new ADIZ is meaningless.”

Notably, China’s announcement also won it the ire of South Korea, one of the few states in the region that Beijing had thus far avoided offending over sovereignty issues in the past few years. According to the Wall Street Journal, China’s new ADIZ overlaps with about 3,000 square kilometers of South Korea’s own ADIZ. It also encloses Ieodo (Suyan) Rock that South Korea administers but China also claims. Seoul and Beijing will discuss the issue an already scheduled vice defense ministerial-level strategic dialogue in the South Korean capital this week.

Way to go, Beijing! Totally unnecessarily peeving erstwhile friend. This is all about Beijing appealing to domestic audiences. Scary, because those right-wingers aren't going to be appeased until they and others are bleeding...

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[Taiwan] Don't miss the comments below! And check out my blog and its sidebars for events, links to previous posts and picture posts, and scores of links to other Taiwan blogs and forums!

UPDATED: Hegemonic Warfare Watch: Taiwan, pivotal or not?

Catholic facility in Tanzih, probably aimed at the large population of Filipino workers in the nearby export processing zone. With what's coming in Asia in a few years, we'll need all the help we can get.

Typing this on my new Nexus 7 tablet with a mobile Bluetooth keyboard. Got it so I'd have a light computer solution for biking and travel. The two together weigh roughly 750 grams....

The resignation of Andrew Yang after only six days as Minister of Defense for plagiarism has rocked the nation. The local media and several longtime observers who know Yang personally are saying it appears to be the result of a power struggle within the Ministry of National Defense.... UPDATE: J Michael Cole has a great post on it pointing out that two DPP politicos sparked it, and he detects the hand of China in it. What purblind stupidity. Not only does this attack on Yang appear to have violated DPP goals and policies but it also appears to have hurt Taiwan. By all accounts Yang would have made a great Defense Minister who was truly committed to the island's defense. The Kuan Bi-ling who brought up the alleged plagiarism charge against Yang also has her name on the credulous "Two Minutes, One Fact" video that went viral during the crisis with the Phils two months ago. Self-promotion, much? Can we have some Party discipline laid down on these people.

The Diplomat says China's new aircraft carrier should be put into perspective... and that perspective should be Sino-Russian cooperation.

There are also long-term regional factors that must be evaluated. While Russia today is considered a regional partner and not a threat to China's borders, history shows that the situation can change rapidly. Beijing has been able to pour tremendous resources into its naval assets in part because Sino-Russian relations have transformed in recent decades.

...this will last only as long as China and Russia are friends. When they break up, then resources will have to shift to the land forces. Meanwhile, Manila expanded its Navy by taking aboard a US coast guard cutter. Which is 46 years old. Beijing must be quaking in its boots.

A former staffer for Cong. Ros-Lehtinen, a strong Taiwan supporter, added another piece to the ongoing discussion inside the Beltway over whether the US should continue to support Taiwan:

Any hint of a diminution of American commitment in the Pacific, however, could trigger a slow unraveling of this very alliance structure that maintains the peace and prosperity of the most economically dynamic region of the world. Imagine the shock waves, from Seoul and Tokyo in the north to Manila and Canberra in the south, which would follow in the wake of an American accommodation to a coercive move by Beijing against Taiwan. The imposition by force of an externally mandated political settlement contrary to the aspirations of the people of Taiwan would not only be diametrically opposed to America's own core values but would raise doubts about the durability of Pax Americana in the Asia-Pacific.

Whatever the restraints placed on Asian capitals' freedom of action by Beijing's coercive “one China” policy, diplomats in most of these capitals look to Washington as a strong counterweight to a re-emerging but still authoritarian China. If this counterweight is brought into question, policy makers in Seoul might conclude that Korea's best, if painful, option would be to return to its traditional, compromised relationship with the resurgent Middle Kingdom. An increasingly isolated Japan, concerned once again with the acquirement of energy resources in a post-Fukushima era, might see a risky go-it-alone strategy as the only option. Southeast Asian nations might also view further accommodation to Beijing's mercantile and territorial demands as the only viable alternative.

Sturdy, familiar language, all true, of course. I wonder if it too strongly echoes the kind of strong claims made about "losing" Vietnam. Not so much a criticism, as a thought about rhetoric and positioning. Yet what other language is there to speak?

USA Today also ran a piece recently on the limits to US engagement with Taiwan:

But three weeks from now, on August 11, the president of another Asian territory with close proximity to China will be slipping as quietly as possible into the United States. Ma Ying-jeou, the Harvard-educated lawyer who is president of Taiwan, will find himself treated to none of the pomp and circumstance of a White House welcome. Indeed, he's not welcome in Washington at all. He'll be touching down in New York, en route to Paraguay where he will be an honored guest for the inauguration of their new president. But in New York, President Ma will be whisked off as quickly and quietly as possible to an undisclosed hotel where folks into whose ears his arrival has been whispered will be allowed to pay him a stealth visit. There'll be no press conference. Not even a press release when he is still in the U.S. And the folks in the Taiwanese consulate in New York, when queried, simply raise a single finger to their lips. On the return trip, he'll repeat the same, stealth-style visit to Los Angeles.

Another one of those don't-they-have-google moments: Ma is not a lawyer. That silliness will never die. It's not much of a piece, merely noting that the US begrudges Taiwan less than it deserves, and that Taiwan is being moved closer to China.

Finally, an interesting recent piece in The Diplomat observes what so many of us have remarked on: that China is basically containing itself:

Today, a new bipolar competition is taking shape. While not a global chess match for influence or a new "Cold War" as some theorize, the United States and the People's Republic of China faceoff in a competitive contest in the Asia-Pacific and larger Indo-Pacific region. In November 2011 in a now famous long form op-ed in Foreign Policy, then Secretary of State Hillary Clinton laid out American's strategy of a "pivot" to Asia. Chinese pundits and media have panned the pivot or now respun "rebalance" as a blatant attempt to contain China's rise. One Chinese professor even remarked, “The pivot is a very stupid choice… the United States has achieved nothing and only annoyed China. China can’t be contained.”

I agree — unless China makes the choice to contain itself.

Instead of sweet-talking the region and exploiting its strong opposition to imperialism and colonialism from the west, Beijing's very obvious expansionism has made enemies of would-be friends, driving them to contain it.

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Daily Links:

• Only in Taiwan: making dictators cute.
  

  "I have remarked elsewhere that he still lords it up in some spectacularly inappropriate locations, such as the Zhongzheng Park (中正公園) in Chiayi (嘉義) opposite the museum dedicated to the artist Chen Cheng-po (陳澄波), a man who Chiang had shot in the street for daring to ask for Formosan participation in government."

• Legislature agrees to try Hung case in civilian court. This will have zero impact on the military's culture and atmosphere, but it does give the appearance of actually doing something.
• HSR tix to rise nearly 10%.

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[Taiwan] Don't miss the comments below! And check out my blog and its sidebars for events, links to previous posts and picture posts, and scores of links to other Taiwan blogs and forums!

Hegemonic Warfare Watch: Taiwan in the Pivot

Michael Mazza over at AEI argues that Taiwan has a crucial role in the US "pivot" toward Asia....

Yet Taiwan can take steps to ensure that US forces would have access to the island’s facilities during a time of crisis, even in the absence of a formal access agreement. Taiwan, for example, could invest in infrastructure that would enable the island to serve as a logistics hub for US forces in the event of a conflict to the island’s north or in the South China Sea. Along similar lines, Taiwan might stockpile supplies that would be of use to American forces operating in the region. Doing so would complicate China’s war planning, improve deterrence, and enhance America’s ability to come to the aid of Taiwan and other allies during an emergency, all without provoking Beijing in the way that formal access arrangements or actual US presence would.

Mazza also argues that the best way Taiwan could help "the pivot" is to beef up its own defenses so it can hold off China longer.

It's more interesting to consider whether Taiwan would get involved as a supply base in a US-China conflict over islands in the South China Sea. "Taiwan" as such has no claim to any of the islands that the ROC claims, and the ROC claim is the same as Beijing's -- the whole of the South China Sea belongs to the ROC. If the US enforces another nation's sovereignty in the area then that would bring the US into conflict with the ROC. The pragmatic thing for Taipei to do would be to quietly help the US and harvest that big economic stimulus. One could easily see a DPP government doing that, but a KMT government might balk at helping the US hack away its China fantasies. Reviews like Mazza's show how stupid and short-sighted the US was to support Ma Ying-jeou, in effect helping Beijing over the long run in many different ways.

Meanwhile Taipei, ever working on never getting the fighters it needs, is now asking for F-35s.

Washington, July 10 (CNA) A delegation from the Taiwan-US Inter-Parliamentary Amity Association of Taiwan's Legislature said Wednesday in Washington that Taiwan wants to purchase advanced F-35 fighter jets that best suit its defense needs.

If we wouldn't sell them F-16s, why on earth would we sell them F-35s? This constant mention of F-35s is just another delaying tactic to prevent the island from ever getting fighters.

Keep an eye on the China-Russian reconciliation aimed at the US. Joint military exercises. Brr.... this should last about as long as it takes Moscow and Beijing to start feuding over who owns Central Asia. But the weapons transfers from Russia to China have a profound effect on Taiwan's defense situation...
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Daily Links:

• Phils-Taiwan fishery meeting tied to shooting, investigation
• If the Chinese economy has hard landing, who is most exposed?
• Soulik kills two
• Taiwan-New Zealand sign free trade pact (WSJ). Note the background paragraph, it's just horrible. Taiwan and China HAVE NOT agreed they are part of the same China for the past twenty years, and they did not split in 1949. Hello, nuances. The pact....
  

  Wednesday's pact calls for Taiwan to lower tariffs on virtually all its imports from New Zealand, including meat, dairy products and kiwi, over the next four years. Tariffs on fresh and long-life milk and ground deer antlers—popular in Chinese medicine as a growth tonic, arthritis treatment and even as an aphrodisiac, among other uses—will be phased out over a longer period, 12 years, to protect Taiwanese farmers from a flood of cheaper imports. New Zealand, in turn, will eliminate tariffs on Taiwanese electronic goods.

  "ground deer antlers." Yeesh. Meanwhile commentary in TT argues that NZ products threaten Taiwan farmers. Probably not very much. 
• Transparency International totally screws up corruption survey, still defending it. There's a news story in this, international media people.
• My man Drew goes from Hualien to I-lan via Taroko. Awesome ride, awesome write-up

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[Taiwan] Don't miss the comments below! And check out my blog and its sidebars for events, links to previous posts and picture posts, and scores of links to other Taiwan blogs and forums!

Hegemonic Warfare Watch: China wants Okinawa too

Onion harvest near Checheng in Pingtung.

In the People's Daily, two "scholars" argue that Okinawa is Chinese, a pattern that has been emerging more and more in the last few years. The Chinese government coyly refused to take a position (bloomberg)....

China refused to confirm that Okinawa belongs to Japan after two Chinese scholars suggested re-examining the ownership of the archipelago that includes the island, adding to tensions over a separate territorial dispute.

Agreements between allied forces during World War II mean the ownership of the Ryukyu Islands may be in question, the researchers said in a commentary in the People’s Daily, the Communist Party’s main newspaper. Asked if China considers Okinawa part of Japan, Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying said scholars have long studied the history of the Ryukyus and Okinawa.

“It may be time to revisit the unresolved historical issue of the Ryukyu Islands,” Zhang Haipeng and Li Guoqiang of the China Academy of Social Sciences wrote in the commentary.

Willy Lam, longtime China commentator, was quoted in several articles as saying that this appears to be a negotiating tactic to put pressure on the Japanese to give way in the Senkakus, but to my mind this is only the latest in a gentle, long-term escalation which will one day result in the same pattern of visa games and attempted marginalization of Okinawa that Beijing has already deployed against Taiwan and Arunachal Pradesh. I have noted on several occasions that in the minds of  right-wing Chinese expansionists Okinawa, the Senkakus, and Taiwan are linked, which is one reason why nationalist ideologues like Ma Ying-jeou constantly link Taiwan to the Senkakus. This thing with Okinawa will only get worse over time, because the leadership in Beijing seems to believe its own propaganda, and there will always be "scholars" willing to shove things further to the Right in order to further their own careers.... there's a structural aspect to authoritarian governments that advocacy of radical positions often gets greater attention from the few at the top....

Reuters reported:

China criticized Japan on Thursday for lodging a diplomatic protest against a Chinese state media commentary calling into question Japanese sovereignty over the southern Ryukyu Islands, which include Okinawa. The latest angry exchange could further strain tense relations between Asia's two-largest economies, which are involved in a stand-off over a group of uninhabited islands in the East China Sea, called the Senkaku in Japan and Diaoyu in China.”

This comes hot on the heels of the standoff in the Himal between China and India. Seems like the government in Beijing is manufacturing some nationalist sentiment ahead of bad economic news, etc.

It will be interesting to see if the Taiwan government comes out with some nonsense about how the ROC owns Okinawa.....

RELATED: Japan and Taiwan failed to set rules for fishing in the Senkaku area in the first round of the negotiations....
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[Taiwan] Don't miss the comments below! And check out my blog and its sidebars for events, links to previous posts and picture posts, and scores of links to other Taiwan blogs and forums!

Senkakus Stuff + Revolting Video =UPDATED=

East coast rift valley of Taiwan.

A rare light moment from the Senkaku mess this week as Taiwan-based "activists" seek to sue the Japanese government for "emotional distress" caused by Japanese resistance to their illegal and provocative incursion into the Senkakus last month. Gee, d'ya suppose someday all 1.3 billion Chinese might sue the world for emotional distress?

Maybe I shouldn't give them any ideas....

From the realm of propaganda: Stephen Harner in Forbes with a transparently awful piece on how China really owns the Senkakus. It follows the standard Chinese propaganda line -- blaming Japan for being provocative, wrongly citing history, and as a special bonus, even claims Okinawa was autonomous in 1885! You'll be unsurprised to find that he runs a financial/consulting business in Shanghai.

Also from the realm of propaganda... this one will really make your blood boil. Back in 2009 the Ma Administration released as set of highly chauvinist cartoons depicting ECFA opponents as Taiwanese hicks and ECFA supporters as educated, intelligent people (post). Part of that drill was the appointment of the notorious Yen Ching-piao as "spokesman." MOFA has done it again, this time with the Senkaku claims of the ROC on video. This revolting pile of crap, in Taiwanese, has a couple of comedians presenting the claims, and scarily, linking love of Taiwan with support for the ROC claim. It gives a powerful insight into the way these Deep Blue China expansionists think about the Taiwanese. Very sad.

Fortunately, longtime scholar Bruce Jacobs produced an excellent piece on the shoddy scholarship that underlies the Chinese claim to the Senkakus.

UPDATED: A friend observes:

Speaking of the video, MOFA minister David Lin believes that: "The film features the complicated and subtle themes in an interesting, funny and easy-to-understand style," cf. http://focustaiwan.tw/ShowNews/WebNews_Detail.aspx?Type=aALL&ID=201302220042            

While Jiang Yi-hua says today that the Cost Guard will continue to escort Taiwanese fishermen in the Senkakus zone: http://taiwantoday.tw/ct.asp?xItem=202019&ctNode=452&mp=9
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[Taiwan] Don't miss the comments below! And check out my blog and its sidebars for events, links to previous posts and picture posts, and scores of links to other Taiwan blogs and forums! Delenda est, baby.

Hegemonic Warfare Watch: Magical Thinking Phase

One way to get a bike clean: wash it down at one of the ubiquitous self-service car washes.

The LA Times reports that Japanese and Chinese warplanes played footsie over the Senkakus.

Chinese and Japanese fighter planes tailed each other over a disputed cluster of uninhabited islands in the East China Sea, raising alarm that a miscalculation could set off an armed confrontation.

Chinese military authorities ordered two J-10 fighter planes to perform what China called “verification and monitoring” on Friday after a Chinese transport plane was tailed by Japanese F-15 fighter jets. The incident above the islands, known as Senkaku to the Japanese and Diaoyu to the Chinese, was the most potentially dangerous in months of escalating tensions over the islands.

This was followed by the usual warnings (same article)

"There is far more at stake here than a small cluster of islands. Crisis-mitigation mechanisms need to be urgently reinstated and communication increased between Beijing and Tokyo to reduce the risks of an accidental clash or escalation," warned Stephanie Kleine-Ahlbrandt, China and Northeast Asia project director for the International Crisis Group, in an editorial last week.

Humanity's dominant mode of response to its problems is magical thinking and in our age, the two primary theaters of operation for magical thinking are advertising and politics. Crisis mitigation mechanisms and increased communication.... It's just magical thinking. Accio....solution! Imagine this as an essay question for an exam: Please explain how crisis-mitigation mechanisms will solve this problem. Be concrete. 

Good luck with that one.

Let's be concrete. The crisis isn't caused by a lack of communication or crisis containment mechanisms. It didn't arise because of "tension" or ambiguous and conflicting claims. It is caused by China's desire to expand its territory at Japan's expense. It can only be solved when that desire ceases.

Hence "crisis-mitigation mechanisms" -- whatever they may be -- won't work because they help legitimate China's expansionist tendencies, either by treating them as a non-issue for future treatment ("Look, we've got to solve this immediate crisis. We can deal with the cause later.") or by treating the Chinese claim as morally equal to the Japanese one. Either way, China wins. They also help China by lowering the risk that war will occur before Beijing is ready, a fear which might otherwise deter China from taking risky actions. Perhaps they will help extend the era of peace by giving Beijing the idea that it might get the Senkakus via negotiations brokered by the other powers....

The Abe government in Japan also announced increased military spending this week, thanks to the threat from Beijing. This will be adduced by Beijing as further evidence of Japan's "re-militarization" (to understand that, see this good piece from CSIS on the way Beijing says it sees Japan). China is also deploying the old "creating tension" tactic it used so successfully against Taiwan during the Chen years:

China accused Japan yesterday of “creating tension,” a day after China’s air force scrambled two fighters in response to a flight by Japanese jets to intercept a Chinese military plane near Japan-controlled islands, the latest incident between the countries following months of tension over the disputed islands.

Chinese officials have also attempted to use its old trick of transferring tension from the Beijing-Taipei relationship to the Taipei-Washington relationship, in this case, attempting to move tension between Beijing and Tokyo to the Tokyo-Washington relationship.

Jens Kastner, a local freelance reporter, argued over at World Politics Review that Japan may turn to Taiwan as it confronts China. It that happens, what will the Abe government find? A President and party allied to China in its quest to expand and happily enabling that expansion by "reducing tensions" across the Taiwan Strait -- which enables China to ramp them up elsewhere. How cooperative will such a Taiwan be? Imagine if the United States had supported the DPP candidate instead of Ma Ying-jeou. Japan (and the US) would then be facing a friendly government in Taipei with no place to turn to but Tokyo and Washington.

One key piece of positive fallout from Beijing's push in the Senkakus and the South China Sea may well be its ability to paint the next DPP government as "provoking tension." China has made it blatantly obvious that Beijing itself is the source of tension....
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Daily Links:

• Criminalization of adultery? You have to be caught in the act, and satisfying the standard is really difficult. It remains a total waste of police and prosecutorial time.
• Executions put Ma Administration on the spot. Actually, the death penalty is quite popular in Taiwan. 
• People's Daily on how Chinese tourists in Taiwan are treated like cattle by their travel agencies.
• If Fourth Nuclear Plant isn't completed, electricity prices will rise! Shock doctrine fallout: if the government didn't make so many empty, stupid threats in order to get people to accept nukes, people would probably trust nuclear power more. Anyone remember the brownouts in the '90s when the government was trying to get the fourth nuke plant accepted?

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[Taiwan] Don't miss the comments below! And check out my blog and its sidebars for events, links to previous posts and picture posts, and scores of links to other Taiwan blogs and forums! Delenda est, baby.

Stokes and Hsaio on the US Strategy and Taiwan

Somebody is at last saying openly that Taiwan needs greater integration into the US defense screen. Stokes and Hsiao rock the conventional wisdom in explaining Why the US Military Needs Taiwan....

Addressing these challenges requires greater collaboration not only within the U.S. defense establishment, but effective leveraging of talents of allies and ad hoc coalition partners in the region. The U.S. reportedly has begun examining how to diversify defense relations with traditional allies in the region, such as Japan, South Korea, and Australia. Yet, little consideration appears to have been given to the significant role that Taiwan could play in an evolving U.S. defense strategy, including the JOAC and Air-Sea Battle. Taiwan’s future and U.S. interests in regional security are intimately related. Indeed, Taiwan is a core interest of the United States and has a pivotal role to play as an ad hoc coalition partner in Air-Sea Battle, JOAC, and the strategic rebalancing in the Asia-Pacific.

First, Taiwan should be the central guiding focus of defense planning in the Asia-Pacific region. In assessing JOAC and Air-Sea Battle-related requirements, the greatest emphasis should be placed on contingency planning for a PLA amphibious invasion of Taiwan with minimal warning. Based on a premature and faulty assumption that cross-Strait trade and investment will inevitably lead toward Taiwan’s democratic submission to Chinese Communist Party (CCP) authoritarian rule, prominent analysts have asserted that the focus of U.S. defense planning should shift toward the South China Sea and defense of the global commons.

Stokes and Hsiao call into question the inevitability thesis, that sooner or later China will absorb Taiwan as the inevitable result of increased links between the two. Like the way the US inevitably absorbed Canada... Consider also...

The fact is that no free and open society understands China as well as Taiwan. Unfortunately, few U.S. military officers conduct in-country training in Taiwan, and there are no known students attending Taiwan’s National Defense University (NDU) or other intermediate/senior service schools. More educational exchanges between the two defense establishments are warranted, particularly for junior and non-commissioned officers. Even as the Pentagon has actively pursued deeper and broader military-to-military relations with the PLA, the number of U.S.-Taiwanese conferences held on the PLA has dwindled.

Taiwan is a fabulously under-utilized platform. This piece would have been stronger if Hsiao and Stokes had explained how the US is going to get around the interpenetration of Taiwan's intelligence services by Beijing. Or how the US is going to work on deepening the alliance when a pro-China ideologue like Ma is in power. What S and H are really arguing is that the whole strategic thrust of US policy is headed down the wrong road. Those who envision standing up to Chinese expansion while handing over Taiwan to China are setting out to fight with one hand tied behind their back. This also means that the US is supporting the wrong party in Taiwan's politics; making the Chinese feel secure about Taiwan simply allows them to ramp up tensions elsewhere. But that goes without saying.

As if an ill omen of the coming hegemonic conflict in Asia, the standoff at Scarborough Shoal (the A on the map) is still ongoing as of yesterday....

Philippines has no real navy to speak of, China can simply brush it aside if it came to conflict. But the US has a security treaty with Philippines. I don't know how Washington interprets that treaty (would we go to war over some shoals in the South China Sea?). But I loved this report:

On Thursday, a Philippine Coast Guard vessel and a third Chinese ship from the Ministry of Agriculture arrived. Shortly after, BRP Gregorio del Pilar and one of the Chinese maritime surveillance ships pulled out of the area.

Does the Ministry of Agriculture in the PRC operate armed fishing vessels? It would indeed seem that way.
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Daily Links:

• Haha. Last time this ad was forwarded to me, "Amy Livingston" was in Taipei. If you run some Google searches you'll soon find that Amy is one of the great world travelers of our time, having made thousands while living in Dar es Salaam, Addis Ababa, and Goth Hashim Khan.
• KMT wusses out, won't hold KMT-CCP forum in Taiwan. This means that the party forums are always held in China, where they can't be seen by pesky democratic eyes or protested by pesky democratic protesters. 
• Satellite views of Taiwan

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[Taiwan] Don't miss the comments below! And check out my blog and its sidebars for events, links to previous posts and picture posts, and scores of links to other Taiwan blogs and forums! Delenda est, baby.

Shifting Winds in US Asian Policy?

Is a change in the air in US Asia policy? Since the Bush Administration there's been a perception of drift out here, possibly because the destructive, pointless, stupid wars in the Middle East have loomed so large on the global stage. But small things augur the growing importance of Asia in the Obama Administration's foreign policy. This week Sec of State Clinton spoke in Hawaii on, of all things, the importance of Taiwan:

US Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton told an audience last week at the East-West Centre in Honolulu - on the sidelines of the Asia-Pacific Economic Co-operation forum meetings - that while Washington would remain committed to the one-China policy and stability across the Taiwan Strait, it would also stick to a "strong relationship with Taiwan ... an important security and economic partner".

Her comment, ahead of the Apec leaders' summit, reflected US determination to increase its presence in Asia now that it views the rise of the mainland as a big threat, Taiwanese analysts said yesterday.

.....

Analysts said Washington's intention to constrain Beijing can be best exemplified by US President Barack Obama's apparent sidelining of mainland China over plans for a Trans-Pacific Partnership.

The TPP appears to be an attempt to counter the Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere that China seems intent on building. The TPP began as an agreement between four smaller Pacific nations and was later taken up by the Obama Administration as a way to build a grand free trade area for the entire Pacific.

Additionally, the Pentagon is setting up an office apparently aimed at war concepts for China. According to the Taipei Times, the new tri-service Air-Sea Battle Office (ASBO) "is directed mostly at the Western Pacific and its principal actor, China." Obama has also promised a greater US military presence in Australia. Slowly the wheel turns....

Taiwan is an important flash point, but the South China Sea, where China seems to be completely out of hand, is becoming increasingly ominous. A reminder of what renewed US commitment to the area will mean occurred this week. This week China moved its claim even closer to the Philippines as it demanded Manila cease permitting oil exploration just 80 kms off the coast of the province of Palawan and over 800 kms from the China coast. I think those analysts who were wondering exactly what China meant by the famous "cow's tongue" map under which it appeared to claim the entire South China Sea are getting their answer: China means everything, even stuff not included on the map. Recall that the US and Philippines have a mutual defense treaty and Manila basically has no navy to speak of. Whereas with Taiwan the US can always retreat into ambiguity, the situation with respect to the Philippines is quite clear: if hostilities commence, the US must intervene.
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Daily Links:

• No really: Taipei Times actually had a news article about some blogger complaining about the KMT's youth activity.
• Don't forget: U of Nottingham's blog on the 2012 election.
• New CSIS report on the election implications for the US
• Ryan's look at George Kerr's book on Taiwan under Japanese rule.

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[Taiwan] Don't miss the comments below! And check out my blog and its sidebars for events, links to previous posts and picture posts, and scores of links to other Taiwan blogs and forums! Delenda est, baby.

The Irrational Rise

Manchurian Candidate 2010: student recruited by PRC intelligence for deep penetration. He can't be the only one:

The operations range from sustained cyber-attacks to deep-penetration agents inside the US government like the kind of agent Shriver was meant to be,” he said.

Shriver first went to China when he was 21 years old, to study Mandarin at East China Normal University in Shanghai for a year.

He returned to China the following year for a visit and was approached by a woman called Amanda who offered to pay him US$120 to write a political assessment of how US-China relations were impacted by Taiwan.

According to court papers, Shriver was then introduced to two Chinese intelligence officers identified as Mr Wu and Mr Tang.

They persuaded Shriver to continue working for them by returning to the US and getting a job in either the US State Department or the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA).

The intelligence agents told him: “If it’s possible, we want you to get us some secrets of classified information.”

Shriver went home and took the Foreign Service exam twice — failing both times — in order to apply for a job with the State Department.

To keep his spirits up, the Chinese agents gave him a US$30,000 bonus.

Next, he applied for a job with the CIA and the Chinese gave him US$40,000 more.

Shriver told the agency that he had no contact with a foreign government, but during the extensive background checks it performs on potential employees, the CIA discovered that he had held 20 meetings with Chinese agents from 2004 to 2007.

Which is by way of introducing Dan Blumenthal's piece in Foreign Policy: What happened to China's peaceful rise? Blumenthal asks: what happened to China's soft power, its reputed patient, skillful diplomacy? Disappearing, as China rises. He turns to a couple of recent books to explain China's behavior in terms of its cultural view of a heirarchical, sino-centric world in which it sits at the top, with the Warring States period as its model for current international relations:

Thus, it could be that the current sanctification of Westphalian norms in China's foreign policy is merely a useful instrument in what Chinese strategists view as the competitive struggle for political hegemony ongoing today. Sovereign equality is accepted as a reality, at least for now, until China can establish a political order more in line with the Sino-centric hierarchy it naturally prefers. The concept of "non-interference" and respect for sovereignty is a useful way for Beijing to defend the territory China already controls and that which China claims.

In a competitive international setting, China would be highly attentive to the slightest adjustment in the distribution of power among states. The proximate cause of China's expansive South China Sea claims may have been a judgment that the current hegemon -- the United States -- was reeling from the financial crisis and distracted by two wars. The weakness of the strongest state in the system presented an opportunity for China to make its claim on the South China Sea more public and coerce the lesser "tributary" states along its periphery to accept Beijing's diktat.

The strong counter-reaction by Secretaries Clinton and Gates took the Chinese by surprise and left Chinese Foreign Minister Yang Jiechi stunned and furious. But precisely in his moment of fury, Foreign Minister Yang had much to reveal about how the Chinese elite think. In Yang's view, Secretary Clinton was "attacking China." And as Yang said, "China is a big country and other countries are small countries and that is just a fact." This reaction makes a great deal of sense when seen through the prism of China's world view as explained by Ford, Newymer and Pillsbury. First, Beijing sees itself as in an intensive competition for primacy that parallels the Warring States Period. U.S. attempts to stand up for its interests and allies are not taken at face value, they are "attacks" on China. Second, the natural order of things is that the "small countries" must accept China's superior position. In Beijing's view, accepting your natural place in the hierarchy is not just a matter of power politics in the classical realist sense, it is right, proper, and the only way to establish a stable order.

These two ideas help explain a lot of what we're seeing in Beijing's international diplomacy, including the waiting game it played when China was weak. The key in this case to understanding "the rise of China" is that it is a twofold event: China is rising, and the US is in decline. Had we not burned out our military and blown up our budget with two useless wars, we might be in a much better position to engage China.

The American folly in Afghanistan also gives lie, I would argue, to those who constantly argue that China will not do X because X is irrational. The US, a democracy with a vigorous opposition both right and left, still cannot shut down its war in Afghanistan, which is draining its strength, debasing the national democracy, and destroying its ability to make an economic recovery -- not to mention making Central Asia safe for Chinese expansion. The behavior of the US foreign policymaking elites on the Afghan War is the very picture of irrationality. And that is the supposedly competent US at work. How much worse will Beijing be?

Well, we're getting glimpses all over the place -- from China aggressing on Japan about Beijing's entirely artificial claim to the Senkakus to the steady seizure of Vietnamese fishing boats in the South China Sea to a whole state of India appearing on Chinese maps as Chinese to Colonel Saito and Annexation Barbie haranguing the Taiwanese delegation at a film festival in Japan.* There's no rational reason for Beijing to simultaneously peeve all of its neighbors at the same time. But there it is....

*Saito. Thanks to K C for "annexation barbie."
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[Taiwan] Don't miss the comments below! And check out my blog and its sidebars for events, links to previous posts and picture posts, and scores of links to other Taiwan blogs and forums! Delenda est, baby.