The Foreigner in Formosa

Investment Opportunity For Lien Chan And Like-Minded Quislings

Chinese Communists seek outside investment to fund their military ship-building program

Who knows? For his generous contribution, the ChiComs might even name an aircraft carrier after the old boy.

(KMT chairman emeritus Lien Chan in his new People's Liberation Army duds following his disgraceful attendance and endorsement of a Communist military parade. Image from Holy Mosquito)

Loyal Son Of The Yellow Emperor Sells Out Taiwan

Taiwan Today has the story:

The ROC Military Supreme Court sentenced former Maj. Gen. Lo Hsien-che to life imprisonment July 25 for selling secrets to mainland China and jeopardizing national security.

(Major General Lo Hsien-che image from Taiwan Today.)

SinoDaily describes the information Taiwan's Turncoat General is said to have passed along to China:

. . . documents Lo handed over to China included details of the Po Sheng (Broad Victory) command, control and communications system that Taiwan is buying from US defence contractor Lockheed Martin for US$1.6 billion.

They said Beijing is believed to be extremely interested in learning more about the project, which gives the Taiwanese military some access to US intelligence systems.

Other information leaked by Lo reportedly covered the army's procurement of 30 Boeing-made Apache AH-64D Longbow attack helicopters and the army's underground optical fibre network.

As for motive, there are some reports that Maj. Gen. Lo was seduced by a Chinese female agent. Lo, on the other hand, claims he turned traitor only after Chinese Intelligence threatened to expose damaging photos of himself in the company of Thai prostitutes, taken while he was stationed in Bangkok. (As utterly improbable as THAT scenario may sound...)

Others may speculate that he was merely doing some "eventual reunification" freelance work. As some Chinese Nationalists have occasionally been known to do.

 

Chinese Militarist Troublemakers Provoke Japan

Apparently, Taiwan's Chinese ultranationalist "Supreme Leader" isn't the only one who believes that Japan's Senkaku islands belong to China:

A tense maritime incident Tuesday in which two Japanese patrol vessels and a Chinese fishing boat collided near a disputed island chain triggered a diplomatic spat between the Asian giants.

[...]

The Chinese boat's bow then hit the Yonakuni's stern and also collided with another Japanese patrol boat, the Mizuki, some 40 minutes later, Kyodo reported citing the coast guard.

All the more reason for America to participate in joint exercises with ally Japan to exert sovereignty over the islands.  Because contrary to the assertions made by Taiwan's China Post, Peking's Pekinese Ma Ying-jeou in Taipei simply cannot be counted on if Beijing makes a land-grab.

Chinese Communists Would Conquer Taiwan In Three Days

According to the most recent computer wargame simulations conducted by the island nation's Ministry of National Defense.

The ruling Chinese Nationalist Party of Taiwan was said to be horrified by the revelation, and vowed to rectify the country's precarious situation by blocking all weapons procurement bills at least 60 times over the course of the next two years.

KMT Institutes Catch-And-Release Program For Chinese Spies

It's all part of Chinese puppet president on Taiwan Ma Ying-jeou's ingenious Swiss-cheese defense strategy.  Build a big wall, then punch holes in it.  Or in 21st Century parlance, ask for advanced fighter aircraft -- then let spies take pics of military installations with impunity:

A Chinese tourist who was arrested on Monday for entering a military facility and taking pictures was released on his own recognizance late on Tuesday night.

[...]

. . . [the Chinese "tourist"] was caught taking photos of military equipment installed at a computer warfare command center that is part of a military recruitment complex on Keelung Road in downtown Taipei. The recruitment center is open to the general public, but the computer warfare command area is a restricted facility.

Guy sneaks into a cyberwarfare center, and the Taiwanese authorities release him without bail.  Perish the thought that an honorable Communist Party member such as he would ever abscond !

(Compare that to former president Chen Shui-bian, who's has been held in pre-trial detention for 6 1/2 months.  But then, he doesn't have friends in Zhongnanhai places.)

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UPDATE:  Takes on this from The View from Taiwan and J. Michael Cole.

UPDATE (Jun 3/09):  The Chinese spy returns home, scot-free.  We'll be seeing a lot of this, I think.

Twenty Percent, Right Off The Top

Taiwan's China Post, denouncing the country's main independence party's efforts to prevent recognition of Chinese diplomas in Taiwan:

. . . [sovereignty-minded] legislators would deny Republic of China students the right to determine their own futures.  They would deny them the right to attend mainland universities.  They would deny them the right to obtain a higher education because they could not afford the tuition on Taiwan.

Let's leave aside the irony of the China Post now posing a champion of the individual (the paper which obsequiously applauded Taiwan's martial law-era rulers as it mercilessly crushed the rights of individuals for 40 years).

No, let's instead look at the security implications of the policy.  Mr. Peabody, if you'll do the honors and set the Way-Back machine back to the 1970s:

Western liberals, politicians and academics alike saw higher-education exchange programs [with East Germany] as a chance to foster mutual understanding between the superpowers.  But for Communist spymasters such as Markus Wolf, the wily head of East Germany's foreign-espionage service, the Hauptverwaltung Aufklarung or HVA, foreign-intelligence wing of the Stasi, the programs had one use only: They served as a rich source for recruiting American and British students as long-term penetration agents who could be groomed to work their way into government jobs in their own countries -- or into other influential spots in journalism, business, higher education (including scientific and technical studies) or the military.

[...]

Based on a huge cache of hitherto secret East German intelligence documents, including complete Stasi mole files of two British academics code-named "Armin" and "Diana," Insight/BBC has established the Stasi had a high recruitment success rate among American and British exchange students. "Regardless of whether these were students from Britain or other countries, as a general rule one out of 10 attempts to recruit someone for the secret service were successful," says Pieter Richter, a former HVA analyst.  [emphasis added]

There you have it.  A full TEN PERCENT of American & British students who studied in East Germany returned home as communist spies. 

What would the number be for Taiwanese students studying in China, I wonder?  Fewer language barriers.  Fewer cultural differences to work against their recruiters' effectiveness.  A "Greater China" mentality already inculcated into many of them by a Chinese nationalist educational establishment . . .

So I'll say 20%.  Yes, twenty percent.  Give or take some change.
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Postscript:  I seem to recall blogging on this subject a couple years back, and that 10% figure seems to ring a bell.  Worth repeating now, now that the policy isn't just a hypothetical anymore.

GhostNet At The Feast

David Gelernter, the computer scientist who was maimed by the Unabomber a few years back, discusses the discovery of a Trojan horse program originating from China:

Last weekend, a report by researchers at the Munk Center of the University of Toronto revealed "GhostNet," a computer espionage virus that had infected around 1,300 computers worldwide--including many "high value" targets where diplomatic and national security information was stored . . .  Experts disagree on whether the evidence proves China's guilt or merely suggests it overwhelmingly.  [emphasis added]

Nice turn of phrase there.  The Chinese government's reaction was certainly telling.  Chinese officials COULD have calmly announced that **ahem** freelance hackers must be at fault, and that they'd launch an investigation to find those responsible.

Instead what the world heard was the shoe on the table.  LIES, LIES, these are all LIES!  Those devious CANADIAN schemers are trying to start a new COLD WAR for their own malicious purposes!

Very . . . Kremlinesque.  China launches Cold War-style cyber attacks -- then accuses the VICTIMS of its attacks of trying to start a Cold War.

Gelernter outlines why China's cyberwarfare was so difficult to uncover:

The focused nature of the attack helped it succeed. Businesses and other organizations that detect viruses are less likely to notice and get hold of a new virus that attacks a mere thousand computers instead of hundreds of thousands. Until the target organizations do get hold of the virus, they can't analyze it and use "signature detection" and related techniques to warn users when infected cyberstuff arrives on their machines.  [emphasis added]

His conclusion?

GhostNet reminds us that the new Cold War won't be fought with the threats and weapons of the old one.  Americans might have less trouble keeping in mind occupied Tibet, the war on Chinese Christianity, the imprisonment and torture of political dissidents and members of Falun Gong, the one-child-only decree and other specimens of PRC tyranny if they didn't find Asian-on-Asian violence so deucedly boring.  Instead of paying attention to those issues, we simper about mutual respect and cooperation--without acknowledging the fact that China is today the world's most powerful Evil Empire.  The Soviets favored large armies and nuclear arsenals, but China is our new Cold War enemy, and her favorite weapons will also be novel: financial weapons, trade weapons, cyberweapons.  Welcome to Cold War II.  [emphasis added]

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UPDATE:  Just ran across reports of Chinese cyber-warfare against India, from the Truth about China blog.  More about that from the Times of India.

Estonia To Host NATO Cyber-Defence Center

From Yahoo News:

Almost a year after falling victim to a "cyber-war" blamed on Russian hackers, the Baltic state of Estonia is now piloting NATO's efforts to ward off future online attacks on alliance members.

After this week's NATO summit in Romania, Estonia and seven other alliance partners will set up the "Cyber Defence Centre of Excellence" in Tallinn next month.

The United States, Germany, Italy, Spain and Estonia's fellow ex-communist NATO member states Latvia, Lithuania and Slovakia will spearhead the project.

Be nice if Taiwan could establish some kind of unofficial channel to the new center.  Leaving aside the political problems, it'd still be a tall order - must be tough finding Taiwanese IT personnel who speak Estonian.

What's In A Name?

Gee, ya think China might be trying to send Taiwan some kind of, I dunno, some kind of message, or something?

In China sailors and civilians working on the former Russian aircraft carrier Varyag, report that the ship will soon be officially renamed to the Shi Lang (after the Chinese general who took possession of Taiwan in 1681...)

(Image from Varyagworld.com)

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UPDATE:  A suggestion that the Varyag be re-christened the Clinton instead.  Ouch.

Not To Be Nitpicky, But...

Saw this Reuters story in one of the local Taiwanese papers sometime within the last week, and didn't think this should go uncorrected:

Upcoming elections in Taiwan, with lawmakers keen to appear firm on defence, nudged parliament to pass the most extensive arms budget in years, including funds to produce a missile that can strike China.

[...]

The KMT initially threatened to slash the budget for the Hsiung Feng missiles but eventually passed one third of the T$3.84 billion (US$118 million) sought for 2008, and froze the rest.

The missile, early versions of which have already been built, is being domestically developed and is believed to have a range of about 600 km (400 miles), making it capable of striking cities as far away as Shanghai.   [emphasis added]

The Hsiung Feng IIE is a cruise missile, and is probably pretty accurate, even if one discounts its advertised accuracy of one meter.  Unlikely that something like that would be pointed at CITIES and employed as a crude weapon of terror against civilians.

By a democracy that cares about world opinion, at any rate.

French / Israeli Weapons for China

This is a pretty pro-Israel blog, but I can hardly rip the Europeans for wanting to sell weapons to China, and then give Israel a pass on this one.  From the Weekly Standard:

In 1987 [Israel Aircraft Industries] was forced to cancel a program to build an indigenous fighter, the Lavi (Lion). The Lavi was a modified version of the Lockheed Martin F-16 already being used by the Israeli Air Force, but cost significantly more than the U.S.-made fighter. So the Israeli Air Force opted to stick with the off-the-shelf model.

Some time later, the technical details of the Lavi were provided to [China's Chengdu Aircraft Industry Group], although no government has ever officially acknowledged this fact. When the J-10 was rolled out in a public ceremony in Beijing late last year, a report in the Singapore Straits Times noted the obvious: "The Jian-10 aircraft that China unveiled recently bears a striking resemblance to the Lavi. . . . The Jian-10's sophisticated pilot helmet, which allows missiles to be aimed in the direction of the pilot's eyes, is almost certainly of Israeli origin. So are the missiles themselves, which appear to be based on the Python 4 variety manufactured by Israel's Rafael Armaments Development Authority. Neither side will admit it, but the Lavi aircraft died in Israel and has now been reborn in China."  [emphasis added]

And now the J-10 menaces Taiwan.  Thanks ever so much for that.  But as it turns out, the sale managed to turn around and bite the Israelis in the end:

In late October, the Russian newspaper Kommersant reported that China's Chengdu Aircraft Industry Group will sell 24 of its new-generation Jian-10 (J-10) fighter aircraft to Iran in a contract valued at $1 billion.

[...]

Last week, the Paris-based defense and strategy publication TTU reported that China is planning to supply the J-10 to Syria as well.

So, Israel sold fighter designs to China, which then sells the completed jet fighters to IRAN and SYRIA.  THAT deal certainly worked out well, didn't it?  It gives me no pleasure to say this, but what the hell were you guys THINKING?

(Jianjiji-10 image from Aerospaceweb.org)

Meanwhile, the French want in on the action:

France's Délégation Générale pour l'Armement (DGA), which tightly controls all arms export sales, has been trying for more than a year to complete a sale of the Thales RC400 radar and MBDA Mica missiles to Pakistan for the JF-17 fighter. Although the JF-17 is being built under license in Pakistan, it is also a Chengdu design. The Pakistani Aeronautical Complex and its Chinese partners have comprehensive agreements that grant access for both parties to any technology acquired by the other.

Since the same French radar and missiles are on board the Taiwanese Air Force's French-built Dassault Mirage 2000 aircraft, acquisition of this technology by Beijing would be a considerable blow to the defense of the island nation. India, Pakistan's neighbor and rival, also operates the Mirage 2000. If France's DGA were to allow Pakistan to acquire the radar and missiles, Taiwan and India would see their air force's investment in French jets wiped out.  [emphasis added]

The Standard goes on to say that Taiwan's investment would be wiped out because the Pakistanis have not proven themselves to be overly scrupulous in keeping Western defense technologies out of Chinese hands.

(Mirage 2000 image from Airforceworld.com)

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UPDATE (Mar 3/09):  Former Soviet republics also selling hardware to China.

Sure-Fire Vote-Getters

Opposition to Taiwan's attempt to join the U.N. from the local China Post:

The KMT has been...mimicking the DPP [Taiwan's main independence party] in every major political initiative, including such crucial issues as the U.N. bid and what the United States has branded an "ill-conceived" plan to hold a national referendum on U.N. membership under the name Taiwan.  Apparently out of electoral considerations, the opposition KMT has chosen to follow, rather than oppose, the DPP's move for fear of losing votes.

Taiwan's 23 million people do not deserve U.N. membership.  They should gain membership to have their voice heard and to contribute to the world organization.  [emphasis added]

Picture the electoral chances of some poor boob from the KMT who takes the Post's advice and proclaims, "My fellow Taiwanese:  You SHOULD gain U.N. membership...but you don't DESERVE it!"

(Pity we aren't given the reasons WHY Taiwan's people don't deserve it.  Are they too stupid?  Too fat?  Too ugly?  Killed puppies in their previous lives?  What, exactly?)

To the China Post, the issue is an unwelcome distraction from badmouthing the economy as a means of persuading people to hitch Taiwan's economy even further to China's:

But there are issues more important than the U.N. bid, which is a non-starter in the first place.  The KMT should have the courage to initiate campaign issues of its own, issues that concern the public interest.

One of the more comical aspects of the KMT's recent rally in support of its U.N. referendum question was its half-heartedness.  Taiwan should try to join the U.N. under the Republic of China name, or some other practical name.  That was supposed to be the event's major theme, anyways.  But the march's organizers couldn't resist throwing all manner of economic complaints into the stew, even going so far as to request that supporters wear blue flip-flops as symbols of their destitution under President Chen's administration.

The result was a diluted message.  Hey everybody, we're FIRMLY committed to Taiwan joining the U.N..  (But please notice we'd rather talk about all this OTHER stuff instead!)

In a similar way, the paper sought to dismiss the value of U.N. membership by trotting out the example of one country that's doing very well on its own outside of the U.N., thank you very much:

The U.N. membership is important to be sure, but it is not everything.  Switzerland is not a U.N. member for instance.  It is rich and prosperous.

Of course, the effect of this argument is somewhat blunted by the fact that Switzerland DID become a U.N. member.  Back in 2002. 

(And regardless of its recent date of entry, the Swiss had long played host to a number of U.N. organizations in a little town known as Geneva.)

From Beijing's lips to the China Post's presses, the next one's wrong as well:

Taiwan's U.N. bid, initiated in 1993 when Lee Teng-hui was in power, was a political move to deceive the people.  The hidden purpose was to promote the cause of Taiwan independence...

By that reasoning, East Germany and North Korea's entry into the U.N. were also crafty moves designed to promote those respective countries' independence.  Funny, but it didn't exactly work out that way for East Germany.  And I dare say it won't for North Korea, either.

The piece concludes on an optimistic note, best paraphrased from Homer J. Simpson: "Taiwan, you tried your best and you failed miserably.  The lesson is, never try."

Now, 15 years has elapsed [since Taiwan first attempt to rejoin the U.N.] and the bid has become more hopeless than ever.  Yes, Taiwan can keep trying next year and every year "to let the world know the absurdity" of the issue.  But is it wise to do so when there are more pressing issues at home?

What I would dispute here is the notion that Taiwan can't walk and chew gum at the same time.  Is it really so difficult, so costly, for Taiwan to apply to the U.N. that resources can't simultaneously be channeled towards other domestic problems? *  Just how much time does it take for President Chen to draft a few letters to the Secretary-General?  How hard is it for Taiwan's overseas diplomats to petition its allies for help?  I mean, that's their JOB, isn't it?  It's what they're PAID to do.  The government isn't going to wake up tomorrow and say, "Hey!  We've got more pressing issues at home!  Let's recall all those good-for-nothing diplomats of ours and put them to work in Allen-wrench factories instead!"

There are plenty of countries that are worse off than Taiwan.  Far worse off.  But relative poverty has not been an excuse for them to put off joining the U.N..

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* Sunday's Taipei Times put a price tag on Taiwan's recent U.N. bid:

Which brings us to the Chinese Nationalist Party's (KMT) threat last week to sue the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) for spending an estimated NT$100 million (US$3 million) on its UN campaign. Though the exercise failed in its primary objective, it was immensely successful in promoting Taiwan and engendering debate all over the world. Rarely has Taiwan been discussed so extensively in newspapers, from the US to Denmark, or had rallies -- from San Francisco to Vancouver -- held in support of the nation.

To put things in perspective, the DPP's campaign only came at one-fifteenth of the cost of an F-16 aircraft. From a PR point of view, that NT$100 million was a wise investment.

Quite an apropos comparison to make, between the cost of the U.N. bid and part of Taiwan's defense expenditure.  For three million dollars, Taiwan energized some of its international supporters, and those supporters made their backing public.  Such visible support, in some SMALL way, makes an attack on Taiwan less likely, because it makes the point clear to Beijing that any attack would not be yawned at by members of the international community.  It lets the Chinese know there may be unpleasant international consequences for them if they ever take aggressive action against the Beautiful Isle.

I'd be the first to say that the significance of this deterrent value should not be overestimated.  Given that though, I'd also ask whether an additional one-fifteenth of an F-16 would have provided Taiwan with much more deterrence at the margins.

David Frum On Taiwan & Other Links

Apparently David Frum of the American Enterprise Institute was in Taiwan recently, and he wrote a few pieces about La Isla Formosa.  Haven't had much time to follow the 'net over the past few weeks (belated congratulations on blog post #2000, Michael!), so apologies to anyone who has already posted these links.

Frum gives a good summary of China's behavior towards Taiwan here.

Even better is his second piece (though it's a bit deceptively-titled).  He certainly grasps that left-right labels aren't really applicable to Taiwanese politics:

The "left-wing" DPP has proposed to purchase American warships, surveillance craft and interceptor missiles. It presses the U.S. to engage in joint training exercises with Taiwanese forces, to allow U.S. naval vessels to call at Taiwan ports and to change current policy so as to allow serving generals and admirals to visit Taiwan.

The "right-wing" KMT prefers detente. It has used its majority in Taiwan's parliament to stall the DPP's arms purchases. It advocates closer contacts with China even if China refuses to recognize Taiwan. Some of its members voice rising doubts about the relevance of the U.S.-Taiwan alliance. Leading KMT members have travelled to Beijing to hold party-to-part talks with leading Chinese Communists.

(My favorite moment a few years back was when "left-wing" Vice-President Annette Lu channeled Ronald Reagan, calling China "an empire of evil".  A statement which the "right-wing" KMT hastened to denounce as "China-bashing".)

He closes this one with a concern many of us here have had for a long time:

One hears persistent rumors in Taiwan that the Chinese Communists pressure Taiwan businessmen with interests on the mainland to make campaign donations to their ancient enemies in the KMT. China ranks among the most corrupt countries on Earth. Young democracies are vulnerable to external corruption.

I travelled to Taiwan worried that the Chinese might try to invade the island. I returned worrying that China will try to buy it.

Over at his blog with the National Review, he gives a book review of Minxin Pei's China's Trapped Transition:  The Limits of Developmental Autocracy.  One highlight:

* The Chinese Communist party's grip on power is tightening, not loosening. While 60% of entrepreneurs who launched businesses in the 1980s were workers, peasants, or other ordinary people, by 2002, two-thirds of China's business owners were former government officials, party cadres, or executives of state-owned enterprises. This is not a case of successful businessmen opportunistically joining the ruling party. Rather, it seems that the ruling party is opportunistically seizing successful businesses.

[...]

Pei argues that these disturbing trends represent something more than growing pains. He argues that they inhere in the path the Chinese Communist Party chose for the country it rules.

The great problem facing any state is how to control the actions of its agents. In a democracy, we rely on a free press to alert us to abuses by the government and competitive elections to correct them. Mao Tse-Tung's version of communism relied on capricious and all-enveloping terror. But when the Chinese reformers semi-opened their economy, while sedulously denying political freedom, they loosened their control of their agents - while creating lucrative new incentives for their agents to siphon wealth away for themselves.

A vicious cycle has been unleashed. The richer China grows, the more reluctant the ruling elite becomes to surrender power, because power has become so much more valuable. But the refusal to loosen the grip on power undermines China's wealth, by creating unchecked incentives to the state's agents to prey upon wealth creation.  [emphasis added]

Elsewhere, George Will points out that James Mann has something similar to say in The China Fantasy:  How Our Leaders Explain Away Chinese Repression:

[Mann's] most disturbing thesis is that "the newly enriched, Starbucks-sipping, apartment-buying, car-driving denizens" of the large cities that American visitors to China see will be not the vanguard of democracy but the opposition to it. There may be 300 million such denizens, but there are 1 billion mostly rural and very poor Chinese. Will the minority prospering economically under a Leninist regime think majority rule is in their interest?

Maybe this is piling on, but Guy Sorman says much the same:

Still, hasn’t [economic] growth [in China] created an independent middle class that will push for, and eventually obtain, greater political freedom? Many in the West think so, looking to the South Korean example, but [dissident economist] Mao Yushi isn’t convinced. What exists in China, he argues, is a class of “parvenus,” newcomers whose purchasing power depends on their proximity to the Party rather than their education or entrepreneurial achievements. Except for a handful of genuine businessmen, the parvenus work in the military, public administration, or state enterprises, or for firms ostensibly private but, in fact, owned by the Party. The Party picks up the tab for almost all their imported luxury cars, two-thirds of their mobile phones, and three-quarters of their restaurant bills, as well as their call girls, their “study” trips abroad, and their lavish spending at Las Vegas casinos. And it can withdraw these advantages at any time.

In March, the Chinese government announced, to much fanfare in the Western press, that it would begin to introduce individual property rights. We should understand that this “reform” will benefit only the parvenus, not the peasants, whose tilled land will still belong to the state. But the parvenus will now be able to transmit to their children what they have acquired thanks to their Party connections—one more reason that they will be unlikely to push for the democratization of the regime that secures their status.

Speaking of democratization, Sorman gives us an idea of just how much democracy Taiwan can expect to retain should the KMT's dream of reunification ever be implemented:

...like everybody else, the Chinese love to watch TV, despite pervasive censorship and the propaganda broadcast on it in China. One of their favorite shows is a local version of the U.S. hit American Idol called Super Girl, broadcast by a Hunan satellite channel and produced by a private firm. In 2005, the winner of this amateur singing contest was Miss Li, a lanky 20-year-old with a punk hairdo, sporting jeans and a black T-shirt—a fashion inspired by South Korean pop bands. Miss Li won democratically with nearly 4 million votes, text-messaged by viewers using their cell phones from home. Over 400 million Chinese viewers—more than the combined populations of the United States and England—watched the finale.

An unexceptional story—except that it happened in China, and the Communist Party, taken by surprise, condemned Miss Li for not singing in Chinese but in English and Spanish and for wearing clothes that didn’t conform to the anodyne official dress code laid down by the national television station. A columnist in China Daily, the Party’s mouthpiece, interpreted her victory as a popular uprising against the established order, concluding that “Miss Li has been elected but the people have made a bad choice. This is what happens when people are unprepared for democracy.”  [emphasis added]

Taiwan Drills For Attack On PRC Aircraft Carrier

From Tuesday's Taiwan News:

Taiwan is performing a computerized military exercise which for the first time focuses on attacking a Chinese aircraft carrier, it was reported yesterday.

The scenario of a five-day drill - part of a military maneuver codenamed "Han Kuang 23" is that in 2012 the People's Liberation Army launch a blitz on the island after they acquire their first aircraft carrier...

In the drill beginning yesterday, the Taiwanese navy armed with home-made "Hsiungfeng II" ship-to-ship missiles and the improved version of supersonic "Hsiungfeng III" missiles is to simulate launching its arsenal against a Chinese aircraft carrier...

The Taiwan air force's F-16 fighters would also simulate attacks on the carrier using U.S.-made Harpoon missiles...

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UPDATE (May 17/07):  This is an update which really should have been done about a month ago.  The April 22nd edition of the China Post reveals that this report was false:

The simulated war games didn't cover the use of nuclear weapons or Taiwan military attacks on China's aircraft carrier battle groups as some media outlets had speculated, the sources said.

The Taipei Times emphasized the positive, final outcome of the computer simulation:

The complex simulation involved a scenario of China invading Taiwan in 2012.

[...]

In the simulation, Chinese ships ferry forces to the island, backed by heavy missile barrages and pinpoint air strikes on Taiwanese military bases and other strategic facilities.

The "invaders" then establish beachheads along Taiwan's west coast, though their arrival is delayed for days by Taiwanese missile strikes on Chinese military bases and by Taiwanese navy counterattacks.

The simulation saw western Taiwan radar stations, missile bases and airports suffer heavy damage, but ground forces held down casualty numbers by taking cover in specially prepared areas.

After two weeks of fierce fighting, Taiwan's army corners and destroys the Chinese invaders.

[...]

The computer simulation envisioned no role for the US in the fighting, [Marine Lieutenant  General Hsu Tai-sheng] said, despite expectations that Washington would assist Taiwan if China attacked.

Meanwhile, Taiwan's China Post played up the devastation angle:

In the mock counterattacks, Taiwan's troops struck coastal Chinese military targets and cities with such weapons as cruise missiles and short-range ballistic missiles.

[...]

In the first three days of the simulated Chinese invasion, Taiwan incurred severe human and material losses from China's saturated ballistic missile assault, as well as its naval and aerial bombardment.

However, Taiwan's armed forces managed to get up to steam to stage counterattacks on China's coastal military targets and its major cities, causing heavy human casualties and major destruction.

In the warfare scenario, the military strikes not only take a heavy toll on the economic well-being of both sides of the Taiwan Strait, but also adversely impact the global economy and cause a worldwide panic.

In the end, the United States and other Western countries jointly mediated a ceasefire.

Of course, the U.S. probably wouldn't be in a position to mediate a ceasefire if it were to come to Taiwan's aid.  At any rate, U.S. officials were present, and presumably spoke to a few of Taiwan's armed forces to try to get a handle on troop loyalty:

Meanwhile, the sources said, the U.S. observation group focused in particular on assessing the Taiwan military personnel's "combat spirit" to see whether their morale has been affected by the prolonged political infighting that has cast a long shadow over society since the transition of power between different political parties back in 2000.

In weighing the military's "combat spirit," the sources said, the U.S. delegation wanted to determine whether Taiwan would likely lean toward China and whether any advanced U.S.-built weaponry systems or sophisticated defense strategies would end up in the hands of the Chinese communists.

Guests Of The Ayatollahs

None of us knows with 100% certainty whether the 15 Brits were captured in Iraqi or Iranian waters, though the cartoonist at the Taiwan News was pretty sure on March 26th that he knew the score:

It may be particularly unwise for people in Taiwan to defend those with a well-known predilection for hostage taking. Because one of these days, the Chinese may pull a stunt like that, too.  Rather than lob off a missile, just snatch a few Taiwanese servicemen.  Demonstrate there are no Taiwanese waters - only CHINESE waters.

Fortunately for Taipei, a diplomatic solution will be graciously offered.  Anything is negotiable, under the "One China" principle...

A Few Links

From Strategy Page:

Taiwan's movement towards a volunteer army

Birth of a Cyber-Cold War with China?

From Taiwan's China Post:

Engineer steals American submarine silencing technology for China

America lacks defense against Chinese supersonic aircraft carrier-sinking missiles

On The Sunny Side Of The Street

I'm not going to heap scorn upon this China Post editorial.  Because there are days when I, too, think things might work out for the best in the Middle Kingdom:

Today's communist leaders in China are pragmatists, who believes in Deng Xiaoping's "cat theory" of getting results rather than Mao Zedong's egalitarianism of glorifying poverty on an equal footing. The merit of the law should be judged by the answer to a single question: Do the people want it?

But the mainland people may want more-free elections, free press and independent courts, for example. Clearly, the National People's Congress is in no hurry to work on these political reforms, which are lagging far behind. These are the reforms that can best safeguard against the abuse of power by corrupt officials. So, after property reform, political reform must be on the agenda.

Already, grassroots pressure for such reform is mounting. The rising middle class and increasingly well-educated people will demand political reforms that are now put on the back burner. If the past is an indication, we have reasons to be optimistic that such reforms will be carried out in another decade or two, if not sooner.

China's communists may be more pragmatic than they once were, but is that pragmatism directed at doing what's good for their country, or merely doing whatever allows them to hold their positions of power and privilege?  A selfless utilitarian might, out of a sense of pragmatism, be willing to allow himself to be voted out of office in order to better serve the needs of society.  But communist oligarchs obsessed with clinging to power may be much less inclined to do so.

Furthermore, while I agree that the well-educated will demand political reforms, it is not at all inevitable that they will succeed in getting these demands met.  Tienanmen Square happened once, and it can happen again.  And again and again.  Heinlein once depicted a society whose subjects were completely co-opted by a fascist state; they were perfectly free to make all the money they wanted, and as long they tended to their own gardens, the State was content to leave them alone.  The Federation was unapologetically brutal to those who dared meddle in politics, however.

"Starship Troopers" may have been fiction, but a few societies HAVE paralleled it in real-life.  Could China take that path as well?  I wonder...

There ARE indeed hopeful developments in China, but there are others the sober observer cannot ignore.  The creation of the "Great Firewall", continuing persecution against certain religious minorities, a blithely amoral foreign policy - these are all things that suggest China might be moving in a darker direction.

To this list, I might add China's treatment of the free and democratic state of Taiwan.  A few years ago, a Taiwanese industrialist doing business there was threatened, with tax audits and overzealous safety inspections, into signing a document declaring his "opposition" to Taiwanese independence.  It was only last year that Chinese arm-twisting caused an airplane carrying Taiwan's president to be forbidden from flying over Mexican airspace.  And let it not be forgotten that China currently aims a thousand missiles at Taiwan, in an effort to terrorize the population into submission. 

Taiwan is the canary in the coal mine, and how China treats it should be of interest to everyone.  Today, it's Taiwanese industrialists who are being bullied into taking political stances; tomorrow, it may be businessmen from YOUR country.  Today, China prevents Taiwan's president from freely traveling; tomorrow, it may prevent the president of some other democratic country it's displeased with from doing so.

And the missiles?  Well, TODAY they, and other weapons, are targeted upon Taiwan.  And tomorrow?  Well, by now I hope you've gotten the picture.

KMT To CPC: Kidnap And Murder Taiwan's President; We Don't Mind

Taiwan's Chinese Nationalist Party bellyaches about military evacuation drills for the President in case the Communist Party of China orders a decapitation strike:

"The military wasted money just to create a war nightmare to impress upon the people the possibility of the enemy at the door before the two important elections," [KMT legislator Lin Yu-fang] charged.

If I recall correctly, the military undertakes these drills about once a year, so the charge that this is something new to influence elections is a bit hollow.  The Taiwanese can sleep well knowing the KMT takes their country's security so seriously.

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UPDATE (Apr 15/07):  There was an air-raid drill in northern Taiwan on Apr 10th at about 2 pm, which lasted about a half hour.  In my place of employment, we were told to turn out the lights and close the curtains.  Naturally, the KMT complained that that, too, was an election gimmick.

The Umran Javed Defense

British Islamofascist Umran Javed was convicted of soliciting murder after he tried to convince a jury that his cries of, "Bomb, bomb Denmark!  Bomb, bomb U.S.A.!" during the Danish Mo-toon crisis were merely harmless slogans, and that he didn't LITERALLY mean what he said.

Greg Gutfield has a bit of helpful advice:

In the future, radical fundamentalists (or Radfuns, for short) could avoid confusion by shouting, instead: "Bomb, bomb Denmark, Bomb, Bomb USA, in a purely figurative sense, of course!"  [Emphasis added]

Doesn't exactly roll off the tongue, but sometimes ya gotta CYA.

(I believe video of Javed and his fellow Gandhi-wannabees can be found here.)

All this reminded me of a Dec 7/06 China Post editorial, which defended the right of members of the Taiwanese military to threaten the president of their country with death:

A drillmaster was recently arrested for participating in an anti-President Chen Shui-bian rally in September wearing his full dress uniform and for distributing a letter in which he stated the "army will turn their guns inwards" [on the president in the event of a war]...

A member of the MILITARY participated in a political rally?  I'd say that's Strike #1.  Strike 2 would be doing it in full dress uniform.  And handing out literature saying that in wartime, the Taiwanese army would SIDE WITH COMMUNIST CHINA and kill the Taiwanese president?

Strike 3, you're outta there.

But that's just the way I see it.  The China Post however, invoked the Umran Javed Defense:

In our opinion, the remark "the army will turn their guns inwards" was meant mainly to remind the public of a danger and can hardly be interpretted as the incitement of a rebellion.

No wonder the capitulationist People First Party threatened to freeze the entire budget of the Ministry of National Defense for putting Tung in the brig.  Why, the way the paper put it, the man's a HERO.

And if you disagree, you're obviously some kind of fascist, or something:

What happened to Tung became a focus of attention because his arrest smacks of a return to martial law rule.

[...]

[It] reflects an attempt by the government to suppress the display of discontent by members of the Armed Forces.  The attempt is a violation of human rights and represents a slip back on the road to democracy.

Expect the China Post to do a major rethink on this issue if a KMT president is elected in '08.  At that point, it'll suddenly become VERY UNCOOL for the army to "turn its guns inward".

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UPDATE (Jan 11/06):  Thanks go to Tim Maddog, for finding the link to the China Post editorial in question.  Truth be told, my biggest concern in writing this post was that readers unfamiliar with Taiwan might think I was distorting the Post's position, or even making the whole thing up.

The link has been added, so readers can decide for themselves.

If China Attacks Taiwan: Chapter Two

(This is the third in a series of posts reviewing If China Attacks Taiwan.  A brief review of Chapter 1 can be found here, while a review of the entire book can be found here.)

Political and military factors determining China's use of force

Maochun Yu is responsible for the second chapter, and he begins by discussing historical precedent:

"Alastair Iain Johnston has documented a 'Chinese Realism' which emphasizes offensive action as the preferred way to end geopolitical disputes.  By examining official documents from several dynasties in imperial China, Johnston shows a clear pattern of inherent militarism within the Chinese historical consciousness.  This pattern of 'Cultural Realism' tends to regard war as the primary means to conduct inter-state and inter-regional relationships.

Also called 'active defense,' 'coercive diplomacy,' or 'coercive strategy,' the PRC's attitude toward Taiwan has been consistently within this domain of historical 'Cultural Realism,' where war and the use of blunt force remains the ultimate option for ending the decades-long standoff between the communist state and the de facto independent government of Taiwan."

Just a bit of an antidote there to all the "peaceful rising" stuff that Taiwan's China Post reprints so uncritically for its readers.

The author then describes the machinery of the communist state leadership, and notes that leaders within the hierarchy tend "to compete fiercely to be seen as the most hawkish on Taiwan."  He tells an amusing anecdote of Premier Wen Jinbao, who used to tell audiences that the economy was China's top priority, so peace needed to be kept "at any cost".  When he was derided as being soft on Taiwan, Wen changed his speeches, simultaneously proclaiming that "peace had to be maintained AND war waged against an independent Taiwan, both at 'any cost'." (Emphasis added)

Regarding economic interdependence between the two countries, Maochun notes that contrary to classical liberal theory, political distrust has increased even as economic links between Taiwan and China have grown.  But he also points out that China has begun to capitalize on Taiwan's excessive foreign investment there*, bullying Taiwanese businessmen into becoming a "pro-unification political lobby".

The news isn't all bad, however.  Maochun gives a few examples suggesting that the Chinese people may not be behind their leaders on this whole war thing.  He tells of one incident where PLA experts tried to sell the use of force against Taiwan to a national audience; in the following Q&A they were bombarded with sceptical questions regarding cost, price and potential [Chinese] civilian casualties.  As the author says:

"One could almost sense from the audience...subtle disapproval..."

Finally, there were a couple of points of trivia that were interesting:

1.  According to the Washington Post, "Some [PLA] units spend 30 percent of their training time studying politics."

2.  Apparently, many of Taiwan's capitulationists have told Beijing not to invade.  I suppose that's one small comfort, at least.  He tells of an odd duck named Huang Shunxin who was "father of Taiwan's early 1980's grassroots democracy  movement,...a daring member of Taiwan's Legislative Yuan, [and] a fanatic advocate of reunification.  After his defection to Beijing in 1985, and after he became a member of the Standing Committee of the National People's Congress and a heavyweight figure in the PRC's United Front against Taiwan, he told [the] CCP Secretary General...that if the PRC were to invade Taiwan...he would go back to Taiwan to organize the resistance movement against the PLA." (Emphasis added)

Never heard of Huang Shunxin before.  A Taiwanese democracy activist who defected to Communist China!  That's way more bizarre than the recent spectacle of Shih Ming-teh teaming up with his former KMT jailers!**

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* 66% of Taiwan's yearly foreign investment was directed towards China as of 2002.  I believe the figure has since increased to 75%.

** Shih Ming-teh is a former democracy activist who is currently organizing protests calling upon the president of Taiwan to resign.  A recent story can be found here.

If China Attacks Taiwan: Chapter One

Drivers behind the use of force

Chapter One of If China Attacks Taiwan is written by the book's editor, Steve Tsang.  In this introductory chapter, he integrates and summarizes the chapters which follow.  Here's a few points he made that I thought were interesting:

1.  Like all dictatorships, the Chinese leadership suffers from a lack of negative feedback.  As Tsang says, "[China's] assessments of outside reactions to China's 'righteous' use of force against Taiwan are colored...[by the fact that its] diplomats are required not to contradict senior leaders even when reporting views they have collected and collated in their diplomatic missions."

So when the Chinese leadership likens itself to the North in the American Civil War, it's not being informed that foreigners aren't buying the analogy.  Pretty bad news if Hu Jintao* thinks the world will view him as Lincolnesque if he launches a war to "hold the Union together" and free the Taiwanese "slaves".

2.  Many in the Chinese military don't seem to have a clue about the American psyche, which is why they entertain the notion that Americans would seek a quick negotiated settlement if one of their aircraft carriers is sunk.  Tsang correctly points out that the Japanese held similar thoughts prior to Pearl Harbor.

3.  While it was a British colony, Hong Kong was spared from sanctions whenever they were levied against China, but in the future it won't be so lucky.  Which means that the two greatest engines of China's growth, Taiwan and Hong Kong, would have their economies crippled in the event of war - at a time when China itself would fall under Western sanctions.  A triple whammy.

Now for a few gripes and quibbles.  A few sentences didn't sit well with me:

"[The Taiwanese government] needs to take the China threat very seriously....[It should] send out signals, not only through policy statements but also by its deeds, that it will not cross Beijing's albeit not clearly defined bottom line."

At this point, I'd like to point out that one of Beijing's bottom lines is that it will use force against Taiwan if Taiwan is dilatory in coming to the table to discuss terms of its surrender.  It's hard to see how Taiwan could satisfy this particular demand without actually surrendering.

Here's another objectionable line:

"...it was necessary for George W. Bush...to rebuke publicly President Chen Shui-bian in December 2003, when Chen appeared to embark upon a course that could cause China to resort to force."

First of all, China is an independent moral actor, not a force of nature or a wild dog.  Taiwan cannot "cause" it to do anything at all; only China's leaders can do that.  China's leaders will be the ones responsible for any war of aggression against Taiwan, and the Chinese people themselves will be culpable to the degree that they acquiesce, or even approve.

Secondly and more importantly, Tsang is wrong:  the smackdown of Chen was a mistake, and its repercussions are still being felt to this very day.  The reason why Chen was dressed down was because he wanted to hold a referendum showing that the Taiwanese were united in their desire for China to remove its missiles and renounce the use of force against Taiwan.

Tough questions, those.

Should China remove its missiles pointed at Taiwan?  Yes or No?

Should China renounce the use of force against Taiwan?  Yes or No?

China got wind of this and claimed it was all nothing more than a rotten, low-down provocation.  Asking these questions of the Taiwanese people was "a course that could cause China to resort to force," China blustered.

You got that?  In the Merry Old Land of Beijing, merely asking China NOT to use force is justification for China TO use force.

Taiwan (cowering on the playground):  Please don't hit me.

China:  Now you're asking for it!  Saying that just makes me want to hit you even more!

China's hyperventilating soon had the right effect.  The Bush administration got frightened by the tantrum, and denounced the referendum.  It was still held, although Chen watered down the questions a bit.  Peace prevailed, and more than a few members of the administration undoubtedly gave themselves a pat on the back for maintaining the status quo.

Ultimately though, the status quo was badly damaged.  The Taiwanese were rattled by the apparent loss of American support, and handed a legislative majority to the KMT and its allies.  KMT leaders then started to get awfully chummy with the Communist Party of China, and incredibly, even began to talk dreamily of a future Taiwanese "neutrality" vis-a-vis China & America.  What's more, they proceeded to block the purchase of weapons Bush had authorized in 2001 and that they themselves had requested in the late '90s.

In short, having won their majority with the Bush administration's help, the KMT and its allies showed their gratitude by stabbing it in the back.  While it may be arguable that preventing a "provocative" referendum helped to maintain the peace, the balancing act unquestionably strengthened the position of capitulationist parties in Taiwan.  Taiwan was weakened, militarily and psychologically.

So a phony provocation was replaced by a real one.  Real, because as Ronald Reagan observed, weakness too, is provocative.

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* My spell-checker highlighted "Jintao" and asked if I meant "junta" instead.  Just one of life's funny coincidences.

Mini-Book Review: If China Attacks Taiwan

Over the last month, I couldn't keep proper track of the news in Taiwan while visiting the folks back home, so I promised myself I'd try to refrain from commenting about current events here until I got back up to speed.

Therefore, instead of discussing the libel ruling against Taiwan's major independence party, or the renaming of the Chiang Kai-shek International Airport (to Taiwan Taoyuan International Airport), I thought I'd spend the next few days talking about If China Attacks Taiwan: Miltary Strategy, Politics and Economics.  I'll give a mini-review in this post, and then go through it chapter by chapter over the next few days, mentioning a few facts and bits of trivia that I found interesting or surprising.

(A more in-depth review can be found on Dr. Keating's website here.)

The first thing I noticed about this book in the store was its length (200 pages).  Good.  I like short books because I can find time to finish them - there are enough 800 page behemoths waiting for me on my shelf, thank you very much.

The disadvantage of such brevity though, is that some rather important topics aren't covered at all.  If China Attacks Taiwan does an excellent job in telling the reader what China could throw at Taiwan, and a pretty good job in informing us what Taiwan could do in response.  However, it has very little to say about what America could bring to the field, and nothing about a possible Japanese response.

(I confess to be very interested in the latter, and so was a bit disappointed.  Of course, add America & Japan to the mix and the book could have easily doubled in length.)

If China Attacks Taiwan is well organized, each chapter being written by a specialist with his own particular area of expertise.  Accordingly, one finds entire chapters devoted to short-range ballistic missiles, unconventional warfare, air war, sea war, and logistics.  So while it doesn't cover everything, what it does cover, it covers well.

Just a couple things in closing.  This an expensive book - $115 over at Amazon.com.  That's $115 for 200 pages.  Guess I should consider myself lucky that it was "only" $1500 NT ($45) at the Warner Village Eslite.

I'll also say that it's my impression that a few of the authors took great pains explaining why the Communist leadership feels it's important to conquer Taiwan, without stating why it might be equally important for the Taiwanese, Americans and Japanese to stand in opposition.  Maybe that's a false impression, but it's the one I received when I read it a month ago.

Johnny Rejects Isolationism

From Johnny Neihu's Saturday column in the Taipei Times:

Anyway, after a long day of clack-clacking [mahjong tiles] and shots of icy beer...I read an article that had been printed off the Internet by one of my more English-savvy friends from the mahjong marathon. It was a June 3 piece called "The Perils of Threat Inflation" by one William Lind*,and brought me back to such a level of agitation that I wished I hadn't read it. I'll be honest: I was so scandalized that the three or four schoolgirls opposite me in the [subway] carriage turned off their iPods to watch and hear an old man self-combust.

What got Johnny into such a state was Lind's suggestion that China's claims on Taiwan were legitimate, and that the U.S. should butt out.

Instead of repeating Johnny's points for him, I'll just quote from Mr. Lind's column, and raise a few objections of my own:

Under its "one China" policy, the U.S. recognizes that Taiwan is part of China.

Sorry Mr. Lind, but that's not quite true.  The U.S. acknowledges China's position that it has a claim to Taiwan, but it's wrong to say that it recognizes it.

In the same manner, I can acknowledge that the crazy-ass president of Iran thinks he has a right to develop nuclear weapons and wipe Israel off the map.

But I certainly don't recognize him as having any such right whatsoever.

Lind then tries to explain why poor little China will be forced against its will to put the Taiwanese in their place:

Taiwan is vastly important to China, because the great threat to China throughout its history has been internal division. If one province, Taiwan, can secure its independence, why cannot other provinces do the same? It is the spectre of internal break-up that forces China to prevent Taiwanese independence at any cost, including war with America.

Reality check here:  Taiwan has NEVER been controlled by the People's Republic of China.  Moreover, within the last century, Taiwan was only a part of a "Greater China" for a couple of years following World War II.  That means that it's essentially been separate from Greater China for a hundred years now.  And in spite of this, Communist China has miraculously managed to maintain its internal cohesiveness during its entire 50 year lifespan without collecting a single NT dollar in taxes, without imprisoning a single Taiwanese democracy advocate, and without murdering a single Falun Gong adherent.

Maybe, just maybe, it's an exaggeration then to say that Taiwanese independence is the single magical element that can bring the whole Chinese house of cards crashing down.

Next, Lind looks to history for an excuse not to get involved:

A strategic rivalry between the U.S. and China points to an obvious parallel, the strategic rivalry between England and Germany before World War I.

[...]

America needs to handle a rising China the way Britain handled a rising America, not a rising Germany.

I think the World War I analogy useful, but draw rather different conclusions from it than Mr. Lind does. To begin with, it's an error to think that World War I occurred because of some kind of "strategic rivalry".  The Great War started because of German militarism, pure and simple.  Donald Kagan's book, On the Origins of War and the Preservation of Peace, outlines Britain's dilemma:

The question is, what "accommodation" could the European states have made to the German "upstart" that would have brought satisfaction to Germany and stability to Europe?  What, in fact, did Germany want?  At the turn of the century, Germany was the strongest military power in the world.  It also had the strongest and most dynamic economy on the Continent.  In 1897, without any previous naval tradition, without any new challenge from the sea to require an expensive change in policy, the Germans undertook the construction of a major battle fleet concentrated in the North Sea where it threatened British naval superiority and the only security available to Britain.  The British gradually became alarmed as they came to recognize the threat Germany posed.

...their fears were well-founded.  However often the Kaiser might proclaim his friendly feelings for England and Tirpitz declare that the fleet had no offensive purposes, the continued construction of big battleships concentrated in the North Sea and the acceleration of that construction justified British suspicion and fear, even without inside information about German intentions.  Scholarship, of course, has now made clear that Britain really was the target of the new German Navy and that the likeliest explanation of Tirpitz's otherwise irrational naval program is that it aimed at least at equality with the British fleet; when combined with Germany's military power it would give the Germans the ability to change the status quo in its favor and to the great and dangerous disadvantage of other powers...It would be some years before the Germans could hope for parity at sea, but the British expected that even before the Germans were prepared for a confrontation at sea, they would try to use their "risk" fleet to force concessions.

(Kagan, p 206-207)

Some clue as to what these concessions might have looked like in the long run can be drawn from German Chancellor Theobald von Bethmann Hollweg's "September Program" for Europe, which was drawn up a month after hostilities began:

The [German] military would decide whether the French should cede Belfort, the western slopes of the Vosges, the coast from Dunkirk to Boulogne, and destroy their forts on the German frontier...Germany would acquire the iron mines of Briey.  A preferential trade treaty would make France "our export land," and the French would be required to pay an indemnity that would make it impossible for them to manufacture armaments for at least twenty years.  Belgium would lose Liege, Verviers, and probably Antwerp, and would become a vassal state, accepting German garrisons in its ports...Holland would be ostensibly independent, "but essentially subject to us."  Luxembourg would be directly incorporated into the German empire.  Apart from these territorial provisions, but by no means less important, was the plan for establishing "an economic organization of Mitteleuropa through mutual customs agreements...including France, Belgium, Holland, Denmark, Austria, Poland, and perhaps Italy, Sweden, and Norway" that would guarantee German economic domination of Europe.

(Kagan, p 208)

Looking at this laundry list, it may be difficult for the modern reader to imagine that most Germans considered Bethmann Hollweg's demands to be too...moderate.  Germans - left, right, and center - wanted more.  Of this, Kagan writes:

A "Petition of Intellectuals" published in July 1915 was signed by a great number of theologians, teachers, artists, writers, and some 352 university professors; it demanded a program of annexations that went far beyond the September Program.  At the same time...the leader of the Catholic Center party, Matthias Erzberger, was demanding the annexation of Belgium, parts of France, and the entire Congo, the conversion of the Baltic states and Ukraine into German dependencies, and the imposition of a reparation bill that would more than pay off the entire German national debt.

(Kagan, p 209)

In short, if one truly believes that China is some kind of Wilhelmine Germany analog, then one ought to be prepared to receive from China a set of territorial demands and economic concessions far in excess of little old Taiwan.  Exactly then, how many OTHER countries are we prepared to sell down the river?

Finally, Lind raises the specter of a nuclear confrontation, which ultimately gets back to the familiar question about whether America is willing to sacrifice Los Angeles for Taipei.  A Chinese general asked that a few years back, and Taiwanese (or are they Chinese?) commenters on Taiwan-related blogs ask it as well.

I confess I get a bit confused when I hear the question.  You see, China claims that the world has absolutely nothing to fear from it; that it's peacefully rising.  It swears this, up and down, to any and all.

I wonder then, will all that peaceful rising occur before or AFTER they nuke L.A.?**

Putting that aside, Mr. Lind should try to remember that the Cold War wasn't won by wetting our pants over the possibility of exchanging D.C. for Paris.  It was won by facing the communists down, and by betting that they were rational actors who weren't prepared to to lose THEIR cities in an unjustified war of aggression.

Is America willing to sacrifice Los Angeles for Taipei?  My response is to turn that question, which is asked purely in an effort to demoralize, upon its head.  What we really should ask is whether it is the Chinese who are willing to sacrifice Beijing for Banchiao***, or Shanghai for ShiminDing****?

If China is tempted to answer that irrationally enough, it may one day find itself boasting of its five thousand year history...while looking forward to nothing more than a fifteen minute future.

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* Lind's column is over at lewrockwell.com.  Looking over the site, I can't help but wonder what Ludwig von Mises would have said if someone had told him that 33 years after his death, the president of the Ludwig von Mises Institute would be writing a column extolling the virtues of anarchy in Somalia.

What the president of the Institute seems to have forgotten is that von Mises was no anarchist - he was a classical liberal.  Classical liberals advocate the "night-watchman state" - one which limits itself to protecting life, liberty and property.

That doesn't make them friends of modern big government, but it hardly makes them "anti-state", either.

** The paradox suggests that the Chinese are lying.  But about what?  About their peaceful rising?  Their willingness to start lobbing nukes around in order to conquer Taiwan?

Or maybe all the above?

*** A city on the outskirts of Taipei.

**** A Taipei shopping district.

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UPDATE (Jun 27/06):  Are the Chinese willing to sacrifice Beijing for Banchiao?  Some speculation here that the Taiwanese might have a few nukes of their own.  Not sure how seriously this should be taken.

Fingerprinting

Part of me HATES stuff like this:

The [Taiwanese] Ministry of Justice said yesterday the requirement for visitors from China to have their fingerprints taken upon arrival should be implemented as soon as possible.

[...]

At present, certain categories of Chinese citizens, including professionals and technicians, can visit Taiwan. The newly revised statute on cross-strait exchanges requires fingerprinting for them, but the requirement has not been implemented because some complementary measures have yet to be fleshed out.

As the government is preparing to open the door for ordinary Chinese citizens to sightsee in Taiwan, the officials said they will push for a further law revision to require fingerprinting for Chinese tourists as well as Chinese fishery workers aboard Taiwanese fishing boats and seized illegal Chinese immigrants.

Unfortunately however, I don't see how Taiwan can afford to be laissez faire about a million prospective tourists from a hostile foreign country flooding onto its shores.  Taiwan and China don't share criminal dossiers, and the two countries have no extradition treaty.  What a terrific opportunity for China's criminal element!

But let's leave concerns about crime aside.  How would America have reacted if the Soviets had allowed 10 million of their citizens to visit PER YEAR?  Sure, on the one hand, a lot of those tourists would have gone home knowing that America wasn't the demon that the communist propaganda mill was making it out to be.  But on the other hand, the possiblilities for breaches in national security might well have been intolerable.  Here in our time, it's safe to say that there are plenty of young men from Muslim countries that would absolutely LOVE to visit America.  However, for some reason or another, they haven't exactly been welcomed with open arms lately.  Ever wonder why THAT is?

So yeah, the libertarian in me has pretty strong reservations about fingerprinting tourists, whatever their national origin.  But the conservative in me, well, he can't find it in himself to work up much outrage.  Because THAT guy's of the opinion that if somebody wants to be treated like a friend, then they'd better damn well be willing to act like one.

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UPDATE (Apr 28/06):  A KMT legislator suggested that other nationalities also be fingerprinted - in the interest of "impartiality".

Why stop there, Mr. Wizard?  Maybe Taiwan's armed forces should begin training for a possible Lithuanian invasion.  In the interest of impartiality, of course.

War Drill

Page 3 of Tuesday's Taipei Times had a story informing us that a surprise war drill in Taiwan will be held later this month.  The purpose of the drill is not to see how fast the jets can be scrambled or the defense systems can be brought on-line; the goal is to evacuate Taiwan's political leadership from downtown Taipei, and rehearse the strategic / political response to a Chinese attack:

According to a report in the Chinese-language newspaper the China Times, President Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁) and high-level Cabinet members will suddenly be informed later this month without warning that Chinese missiles will reach Taipei within minutes. They will be required to meet at an emergency room at the Hengshan [Mountain] (衡山) strategic command in Taipei's northern suburb of Dazhi (大直) within 10 minutes.

I can't find Dazhi on my map of Taipei, so I'm going to guess that it's somewhere near the Yangmingshan area.  The President is supposed to be spirited there by chopper, but the defense minister will have to get there by car.

In ten minutes.  From the middle of downtown Taipei.

He doesn't need a car.  What he needs is transporter technology or a pair of ruby slippers.  The roads in Northern Taiwan are pretty congested, and they'd be even more difficult to navigate after the inevitable sabotage.*  Maybe traffic control could give him green lights all the way, but you'd have to expect electronic warfare on that front as well.

I just hope that one of his deputies is posted in Hengshan at all times.  Because the minister of defense just might be awhile.

The story goes on to say what will happen in Hengshan:

"Chen will immediately conduct a 90-minute national security meeting, followed by a 60-minute military meeting. The president will then decide whether the country would declare war against China after the meetings," the report said.

The report said that the war games will simulate two scenarios: Taiwan coming under a large-scale missile attack from China and China launching a decapitation-style attack on Taipei.

The report said various political, military, diplomatic and economic issues would be dealt with in the war-games, including outlining how to ask for foreign help, ways to communicate with the nation's most important allies, the US and Japan, as well as methods to reassure the public and stabilize consumer prices, and rescue the injured.

What can I say about any of this?  I'm just glad that I don't have Chen's job.

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* Sabotage will of course, be facilitated when large numbers of Chinese are permitted into the country as "tourists".  Perhaps as a sign of hospitality, each should be given a rifle and grenade at customs, so as to save them the long commute to their pre-positioned weapons drop points.

Seditious Acts

Saturday's Taiwan News reported on a ceremony marking the 17th anniversary of the death of Deng Nan-jung, a Taiwanese democracy advocate.  Deng was apparently the editor of a weekly magazine, "Era of Liberty", when it published a hypothetical constitution for a Taiwanese republic.  For this, the KMT shut the magazine down, and issued a subpoena for him to answer charges of sedition.  Rather than comply, Deng committed suicide by lighting a few barrels of gasoline in his office.

Sedition charges.  For PROPOSING a new constitution.  And only 17 years ago.  It's easy for the world (and me!) to forget how recently stuff like that was happening here.

Speaking of sedition, the March 22nd edition of the Taipei Times had a letter to the editor with a couple of intriguing paragraphs in it:

...in his interview with [Taiwanese TV network] TVBS on Feb. 28, [KMT leader] Ma said that he suggested the EU consider lifting the arms embargo on China during his recent visits to London and Brussels.  (Emphasis added)

[...]

We...demand that Ma explain why he initiated the discussion of lifting the arms embargo on China in Europe, while in Taiwan his party has repeatedly blocked weapons purchases from the US.

First of all, can anyone confirm that this is true?  I have no interest in spreading falsehoods about Ma Ying-jeou, and if I find out this is BS, then I'll HAPPILY correct it in a new post.  Because the man either said on national television that he lobbied the EU to arm Taiwan's enemy, or he didn't.

If it IS true, then decide for yourself which of the two cases outlined here truly represents an act of sedition.

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UPDATE (Apr 10/06):  Thanks to Tim Maddog for finding the link to the letter to the Taipei Times.  It's now included in the post.

He was also able to find a transcript of the TVBS interview, and included an excerpt in his comments.  His English translation can be found here.

UPDATE #2 (Apr 10/06):  It seems as though Ma didn't "lobby" the EU to remove the arms embargo on China, but he did provide them with conditions for the embargo's removal (ie: improved human rights conditions in China and "peaceful development" of cross-strait relations).

The tone of the speaker is EVERYTHING in this case.  When asked about whether the embargo should be lifted, did Ma say, "No"...or "HELL NO"?

That makes a big difference.

(I'd be willing to guess that Ma's response to the question was exceptionally mild.  To date, his  harshest criticism of China's Anti-Secession Law has been to say that it was "unnecessary" and "unwise".  Really, does he kiss his mother with that mouth?)

Secondly, I would like to know whether Ma helpfully offered the Europeans those conditions on his own initiative, or whether he gave those answers while being pressed.  If it was the former, then he probably earned a few brownie points in Beijing for giving them an out.  If the latter, then perhaps his answer was foolish, but not malicious.

The reason why I say it was foolish is that proposed conditions for removing the embargo ought to be specific and difficult to meet.  Ma's criteria however, are vague, and therefore too easily obtainable.  Think about the human rights condition:  If China frees a couple of Falun Gong members, won't European merchants of death be tempted to point to that as evidence that human rights are improving?  As for "peaceful development of cross-strait relations", would Taipei accepting a couple of pandas qualify?  Ma set the bar far too low, and didn't even suggest that China should become more democratic.  His little performance may not have been seditious, but it wasn't exactly a vigorous defense of Taiwan's interests, either.

Soft Coups And The Pan-Blue Line Of Silence

The 2004 presidential election in Taiwan was a precarious time.  Just imagine it:  President Chen gets shot a day before the election by an unknown assassin.  Then we hear he's still alive; the bullet merely grazed him.  Lien Chan, his KMT opponent, demands to visit the injured president in hospital, but is rebuffed - probably because the president believes Lien was behind the shooting.  Lien then trivializes the crime by telling television reporters that the situation is "not a crisis".  The military is mobilized.

The next day, the wounded president wins by a miniscule 30,000 votes.

And things REALLY get hairy after that.

First, the KMT and its allies go ballistic.  Didn't their polls tell them their guy was 4-7% ahead?  Didn't their newspapers tell them their guy was a shoo-in?  Their guy COULDN'T have lost, so they take to the streets.  They demand a recount.  They demand a do-over.  What of the members of the military who didn't get to vote because of the mobilization in the wake of the assassination attempt?  Let them vote, and let them vote NOW.  Thirty thousand votes - that's all the KMT needs.  Just 30,000...

What, the law says we CAN'T do any of those things, at least not immediately?  Well then, bend the law - JUST THIS ONCE.  President Chen, the KMT DEMANDS that you declare a State of Emergency so that the niceties of the law can be set aside*.

In the southern port city of Gowshung, KMT mobs gather and try to storm a government building, but are held back by police standing behind mobile metal barricades.  A KMT legislator with a bullhorn gets on top of a van and orders it to charge the barricades.  The van doesn't break through, but one policeman is injured - possibly with a broken arm.  Incredibly, the China Post claims that the "crowd" was merely "trying to learn the TRUTH about the assassination".

I wonder how much truth they got out of nearly running over that policeman.

In the northern city of Taipei, thousands of angry KMT supporters march in the cold rain.  I don't recall there being cases of egregious violence like in Gowshung, but matters take an ominous turn when men in military uniforms are permitted to address the marchers.  Rumors swirl of an impending coup.  Taiwan's defense minister resigns.  KMT leader Lien Chan grants the crowd his permission to "eliminate" the president.  Meanwhile, Communist China announces it will not sit by idly if the island descends into chaos...

After a few very tense days, America extends its congratulations to Chen, thereby recognizing the legitimacy of the election.  The ranks of the demonstrators slowly thin, though the street protests continue for a month or so.  The KMT explores legal avenues towards declaring the election null and void, but these end up leading nowhere.  It concocts elaborate conspiracy theories suggesting that the Machiavellian Chen was behind his own shooting in order to win "sympathy votes", and to deny 200,000 members of the military their franchise**.  These theories it attempts to "prove" by conducting an unconstitutional investigation that few of the principals cooperate with.  The investigation is eventually terminated by the Supreme Court.

Flash forward to this week.  Evidence that the rumors about a coup two years ago were not without foundation:

During a legislative hearing, Minister of National Defense Lee Jye (李傑) yesterday said that some military personnel had approached him and asked him to feign sickness and step aside so that they could organize a coup against President Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁).  (Emphasis added)

[...]

Lee Jye, who was Chief of General Staff at the time, yesterday confirmed these reports.

"Some unidentified military personnel came to me and asked me to `play sick' so they could carry out their plans to oust the president. But, when I refused immediately, they just walked away," Lee said.

Fortunately for Taiwan, the mutinous officers were not more ruthless.  This time, anyways.  Fortunate too, that Lee was an honorable man.  But as the German saying goes, "Unlucky is the land that needs heroes." 

In March of 2004, Taiwan was a land in need of them:

DPP Legislator Lee Wen-chung (李文忠) had said at a press conference that three admirals and eight lieutenant generals had been asked to resign or pretend they were ill after the presidential election. However, no military officials followed [the defense minister's resignation], which Lee Wen-chung attributed to the successful [depoliticization] of the military.  (Emphasis added)

News reports had reported that three deputy chiefs of the general staff at the time -- military adviser to the president Admiral Fei Hung-po (費鴻波), MND deputy-minister Admiral Chu Kai-sheng (朱凱生) and Chief of the Air force General Liu Kuei-li (劉貴立) were the key targets that had been asked to resign.

Then Deputy Minister of National Defense Chen Chao-mi (陳肇敏) was also reported to have been encouraged to resign.

At the moment, the question of whether the coup plotters acted on their own or were asked by KMT political leaders is a salient one.  Chen's political opponents have sued him for libel for saying they were involved in the "soft coup"***.  The case is being retried for technical reasons, but the evidence for KMT involvement may not be firm:

[Lee Jye said the plotters,] "came to me on behalf of [a] `certain group of people.'"

However, Lee said that neither former Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) chairman Lien Chan (連戰) nor People First Party Chairman James Soong (宋楚瑜) had approached him or sent anyone to see him on their behalf. But he said he was quite sure that the military personnel who came to him were [KMT] supporters [or their allies].

Who were the plotters?  Their identities are unknown to the public, but have been revealed in closed door sessions of the libel trial.  It's unfathomable to me why their names and faces aren't plastered on the front page of every newspaper in the country.  Firing them, allowing them to retire, or "promoting" them to an important post in the 21st Envelope-Stuffing Battalion isn't enough:  Each and every one of them should be tried for sedition and punished as an example to army officers in the future.  Leniency of course should be granted to those who finger political instigators.  Not wanting to air the military's dirty laundry is no excuse for covering this up. I cannot help but agree with one legislator (a KMT lawmaker, no less!) who spoke about the matter to Lee Jye during a hearing:

"Because you refused to name the generals who approached you and asked you to feign sickness and step aside, everyone keeps guessing, and that has hurt the reputations of innocent generals."

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* It was quite a spectacle to witness the KMT asking the same man they vilified as an "evil dictator" to declare martial law.  How many of you would ask a political opponent to declare martial law if you truly believed he had tyrannical tendencies?

** The KMT has stated that its party lost a disproportionate number of votes when the military was mobilized, because the military is composed primarily of KMT supporters.  While this may be true with respect to the officer class, it is a dubious claim to make regarding the young draftees that make up the bulk of Taiwan's armed forces.

*** The coup was intended to be a "soft" one - the mutinous armed forces did not intend to actually depose Chen, but they DID plan to cease obeying his orders.  Without control over the military, Chen's legitimacy would have been undermined, and he would have been forced to resign, sooner or later.

China's Strategic Oil Reserves

A few lines from "China to begin filling strategic oil reserves" in the March 7th edition of The China Post.  (Sorry, no link available).

China will start filling the first of its strategic oil reserve facilities by the year end, a senior planning official said Monday....Three other strategic oil reserve facilities will be ready in 2007-2008, [said the chairman of the National Development and Reform Commission]...

China...had previously not stocked its reserves due to high oil prices.

[...]

China hopes its reserves will be able to hold up to half a year's supply of oil within 10 years. [emphasis added]

China currently has a 30 day reserve; if it achieves these announced goals, it will have a similar amount of oil in reserve as America and Japan.  Thus, in the event of war, China would be able to weather disruptions in supply due to submarine warfare for a similar duration as its most likely adversaries.

I wonder then, if China's fuss over the National Unification Council has been nothing more than a classical case of misdirection.  China's been going on and on about Taiwan's provocations for the last week (regarding the elimination of a $30 a year council that hadn't met in 7 years), and in response, the papers have given the subject prominent attention.  Meanwhile, China has embarked on a status quo-shattering policy, which only one of Taiwan's three English newspapers saw fit mention (and barely at that).

Houdini would be proud.

Indian Su-30s vs. American F-16s

For the last two years, India has beaten the USAF in wargames using Russian Su-30s.  This is of some concern to Taiwan, since its F-16s might someday have to face Chinese-owned Su-30s.

It turns out that the rules of the US-Indian wargames may have been a bit slanted in India's favor:

These days, American pilots use close in dog fighting (with heat seeking Sidewinder missiles) as a fall back tactic. The main air-to-air weapon of the U.S. Air Force is now the long range (over 50 kilometers) AMRAAM missile, and superior radar equipment...when American fighter pilots go train with foreign air forces, they have to take their BVR (Beyond Visual Range) tactics off the table, since under those conditions, the “enemy” force would not have much of a chance.

India vs. Americans

(Taiwan received the first of its AMRAAM missiles back in 2004.)

Winds of Change had a similar, though longer, take on these wargames.  Many of the commenters went into more technical detail than I am qualified to discuss, but one had a political observation that I quite liked:

(The results are that) the Indian gov't gets to go to its people and say "We beat the U.S.!", and the DoD gets to go to Congress and say "We lost to India!"

EU Warned Not to Sell Weapons to China

Chinese President Hu Jintao is in Europe, and is trying to get the Europeans to drop the arms embargo they imposed after the Tianamen Square Massacre.

In response, an American representative once again warned Europe of sanctions if the embargo is lifted.

My guess is that Hu is going to be disappointed.  The French have been the chief instigators in trying to lift the embargo, as part of their "multi-polar world" (read: anti-American) policy.  But in the wake of the Paris-tinian insurrection, I believe their confidence will be sufficiently shaken to preclude any unfriendly actions towards America.

For now.

US warns EU again over arms embargo

Update: David's Medienkritik has a report about Hu's visit to Germany.

China's Navy

An interview with a retired Japanese Air Force rear admiral:

http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/taiwan/archives/2005/10/31/2003278138

The admiral believes that an outright invasion of Taiwan from China would fail because China couldn't control the sea lanes between the two countries for logistical support for the troops it would land.  He also thinks that a blockade would fail, because Chinese submarines are easy to detect.

Needless to say, he predicates these outcomes upon intervention by America and Japan on the side of the Taiwanese.

UPDATE (Nov 17/05):  Interestingly, the former Japanese officer doesn't feel that the 8 submarines President Bush offered to Taiwan are needed.  Wretchard at The Belmont Club disagrees, and thinks they're crucial.

The importance of submarines for Taiwan