Sino notes

Two weeks ago, the Chinese ambassador to France asserted, ‘After the reunification with Taiwan, the Taiwanese population must be re-educated.’ This seemed like an unusually frank response from a regime that is undiplomatic at the best of times. When questioned about this at the National Press Club in Canberra a week ago, the CCP ambassador to Australia, Xiao Qian reiterated the comment: the Taiwanese had to learn the correct understanding of China. Rather than dismiss the view as far fetched, the ambassador doubled down. Three conclusions can be drawn immediately from the response. The first is that Beijing’s talking points had been distributed widely. Secondly, the CCP leadership had instructed their representatives to up the ante.

The third is that the fate of the Taiwanese people, if ever invaded, is clear. There should be no misunderstanding what this means: senior Taiwanese officials will either ‘disappear’ or be subjected to a show trial and then executed or sentenced to life imprisonment. Secondary officials will be dealt a range of lessor offences but with harsh penalties. The rule of law will be ignored, human rights abused and the free media closed.

If there was any doubt about how we should respond, it is now beyond question. Instead of repeating Beijing’s propaganda, the West should use its own language. Here are a few suggestions. Instead of repeating the line about so-called ‘reunification’, state it is the CCP’s assertion and is rejected by the Taiwanese. Instead of following the script that Taiwan is part of China, remind readers that it has never been ruled by the CCP - that it has been independent for 70 years. Instead of accepting China’s claims of provocation, indicate that it is CCP propaganda to claim every unliked statement or action as a pretext for aggression. Instead of swallowing the argument that the overthrow of Taiwan is inevitable, point out the significant challenges to a PLA invasion. Instead of accepting the unstoppable rise of China, remind listeners it has peaked economically and faces stagnation and decline in coming decades. Finally, let us remind the CCP that sovereignty is not granted or removed by Beijing.

There were various criticisms of Nancy Pelosi’s visit to Taiwan, ranging from ‘it wasn’t the right time’ to it constituted ‘poking the dragon.’  ‘If not now, when?’ is the obvious response to the oft repeated criticism. Little of the criticism identified the views of the Taiwanese, 76 per cent of which believe the country to be independent according to a 2022 poll. As the Taiwanese scholar Yu-Jie Chen wrote in the New York Times, ‘I’m Taiwanese and I want to thank Nancy Pelosi.’ Ordinary Taiwanese that I spoke to during my recent visit were pleased that the Speaker was visiting their country.

The other criticism is equally misplaced. According to this narrative, the US Speaker’s visit triggered the CCP response. This is straight from the CCP playbook, such as Foreign Minister Wang’s claim that Pelosi’s visit ‘deliberately undermined the peace in the Taiwan Strait’. More damaging to peace in the region has been the construction of military installations on artificial islands and the CCP’s assertion that it owns the waters. The PLA had been planning these exercises for a long time. The visit was a pretext. As the Philippine president, Ferdinand ‘Bongbong’ Marcos said, ‘to be perfectly candid, I did not think it raised the intensity, it just demonstrated it’ while reiterating his nation’s important relationship with the US. The CCP also published a new foreign policy paper, also long in preparation, that asserted its willingness to forcibly claim Taiwan.

There are also the critics who claim that relations between the West and China have deteriorated because of our own cultural baggage, as if concerns for the human rights, sovereignty and freedom of people can be traded away just so China can have a favourable view of us.

The firing of PLA missiles into Japanese waters has been the subject of considerable discussion. Two factors have heightened Japanese concerns. First, the maps of the live fire exercise zones published in the CCP publication Xinhua included Japan’s  Exclusive Economic Zone but failed to show Japan’s Nansei Islands. The ruling LDP policy director Sanae Takaichi said at the time that ‘It is a very malicious and dangerous act for China to fire as many as five missiles into the Japanese EEZ in one day’. Reports have since emerged that it was Xi Jinping himself who ordered the targeting of Japanese waters. ‘Xi preferred the drills to be conducted in waters overlapping Japan's EEZ as a military blockade of sea areas near the Nansei Islands, a chain that includes Okinawa and stretches southwest from Kyushu toward Taiwan, would be unavoidable in the event of an actual operation to take control of the island’, the reports claimed. Given Xi is the country’s supreme military commander with a desire for total control, the reports most likely are true.

The CCP’s military exercises were accompanied by a high level of cyber warfare, including interference with Taiwanese websites.  China also launched hundreds of attempts to spread disinformation in Taiwan, including an alleged missile attack on Taoyuan International Airport and the apparent proximity of a Chinese frigate to Taiwan's east coast among many social media stories that were shown to be completely false.

Perhaps the most ridiculous social media post was the tweet that claimed because Taipei has many Shandong dumpling restaurants and Shaanxi noodle shops, Taiwan is part of China! Among the responses: does the UK belong to India because of all the curry shops in London; and China to the US because of the presence of Starbucks?

This arcticle was first published in the Spectator Australia, August 2022