Chinese Offensives Against Taiwan Expose Xi’s Imperialism
The “One Country on Each Side” principle was developed during the Democratic Progressive Party government of Chen Shui-bian over Taiwan, from 2000 to 2008. It regards the political status of the island, and emphasizes that the People’s Republic of China (PRC) and the Republic of China (ROC, known as Taiwan), are two different and separated countries, opposed to the “One-China policy”, which states the same political status as an only single country for both PRC and ROC under two different entities. In the “One-China policy” case, Taiwan is considered a rebel province of China. On 3rd August 2002, during the annual conference of the World Federation of Taiwanese Associations meeting in Tokyo, Chen Shui-bian affirmed that “with Taiwan and China on each side of the Taiwan Strait, each side is a country.” His statements were received with huge criticism by Mainland China’s press and deviated from the original “Four Noes and One Without” principle from his inaugural speech.
Chen’s speech on 20th May 2000 encompassed four pledges to PRC since Mainland China had no intention to use military force against ROC. The pledges were that Taiwan would not declare independence; would not change the national title from “Republic of China” to “Republic of Taiwan”; would not include the doctrine of special state-to-state relations (in practice, the “One Country on Each Side” principle) in the Constitution of the Republic of China; and would not promote a referendum on unification or independence. Meanwhile, Chen asserted the administration (the “One Without”) would not abolish the National Unification Council (abolished in 2006) or the National Unification Guidelines. Those principles were important to maintain the relations with Mainland China and the United States closer and mild, although with the complete shift in ROC’s policies during Chen’s tenure tensions escalated quickly.
The PRC have begun a policy of control and isolation over the ROC. The United States, whose policies with China were quite pleasant during the 2000’s because of George W. Bush international policies, approached its ties with Insular China while relations with Mainland China started to crumble. On 4th March 2007, Chen Shui-bian addressed a speech at a function of the Formosan Association for Public Affairs stating Taiwan’s new “Four Wants and One Without” policy: that Taiwan wants independence; that Taiwan wants the rectification of its name; that Taiwan wants a new constitution; and that Taiwan wants development. Moreover, Taiwan is without the question of left or right, but only the question of unification or independence.
But if tensions were high between the two nations after Chen’s legacy as Taiwan’s president, today a spark in the haystack can burn all the proximity down. On 12th October 2021, Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA) performed a landing exercise on the Chinese province of Fujian, in the disputed Taiwan Strait. Taiwanese President Tsai Ing-wen condemned the military practice seeing it as an offensive action against Taiwan sovereignty while Beijing stated it was an exercise of self-protection. The Taiwanese Defense Minister, Chiu Kuo-cheng, said that ROC-PRC relations are the worst in the last 40 years. And there’s a reason for that.
In 2008, China experienced a 9,7% GDP growth and the country was marking its presence on other continents, such as Africa, Asia and Latin America. Socio-economic equality was raising with the Scientific Outlook on Development, the ideology for economic growth of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). The Summer Olympics were opened by president Hu Jintao in a lush and eye-catching Opening that is considered the most beautiful and incredible ever from the Olympic Games. The former Chinese gymnast Li Ning flew over the US$ 290 million Beijing National Stadium (known as the “Bird’s Nest”) with wires on his back to lit the cauldron. China was flying, finishing the 2008 Olympics at the top of the medal table. Hu Jintao was more than ever a popular and a respected leader in and outside China.
The dissidents and the demonstrators were cracked down with violence during Hu Jintao’s term. Minorities were subdued, Tibetan monks were arrested and China’s growth as a super power was accompanied by a need of “increased democracy”, according to Hu. China was definitely the country of the future, no matter wether human rights were being violated or not. But one thing Hu Jintao brought to the negotiations table that garnered him even more respect.
ROC-PRC relations were fragile during Chen Shui-bian government and Hu Jintao presidency. Chen demanded the immediate Taiwan’s independence or conversations with Beijing without any preconditions, what was rejected by the CCP. In March 2005, the Anti-Secession Law was passed by the National’s People Congress, formalizaing a “non-peaceful means” as a response to any declaration of independence of Taiwan. The normalization of the relations only came after Hu’s approach with the Kuomitang (KMT) and its election for Taiwan government. The “softer” diplomatic approach between ROC and PRC, under the figures of Ma Ying-jeou and Hu Jintao, were responsible for Taiwan’s participation in the World Health Organization and the agreement on the Three Links: the re-opening of mail, trade and direct air links between the two sides.
2013 was the shift’s year on China’s foreign policy, especially regarding Taiwan. The ascension of Xi Jinping marked even more deterioration of democracy, human rights abuses, removal of presidential term limits, an international trade war against the US, more censorship and a massive cult of personality around Xi’s figure. A Chinese nationalist and warmonger, Xi impresses the world for his socialist imperialism.
At a first glance, Xi’s foreign policy consists in a downslide of relations with Japan, whom Beijing has a fierce dispute over the Senkaku Islands in the East China Sea. Japan owns the uninhabited islands since 1972, and at the same time both ROC and PRC claimed ownership after the USA passed control to Japan. But since Xi took office in 2013, an Air Defence Identification Zone was declared over Senkaku Islands, which the Chineses calls it Diaoyu, establishing new air traffic restrictions over that area. But why Xi would be so persistent about some uninhabited minor islands on the Pacific? In 1969, the United Nations Economic Commision for Asia and the Far East (ECAFE) identified potential oil and gas reserves in the vicinity of the Senkaku Islands, what would be a source of exploitation for China.
The Belt and Road Initiative, founded in 2013 and incorporated in the Chinese Constitution in 2017, emerged as an expression of Xi’s foreign policy and as a China-centered international trade initiative. As soon as he took office, Xi saw an opportunity for maximization of international trade with Africa, Eastern Europe and Asia in a global infrastructure development strategy. The Belt and Road Initiative has been accused of neo-imperialism and debt-trap diplomacy, where a powerful lending country, in this case, China, seeks to saddle a borrowing nation with debt to increase its leverage over it. In 2005, Chinese loans to Africa were around US$ 2 billion, but in 2016 the amount increased to US$ 30 billion.
This is a part of Chinese policy known as “sharp power”, an expression coined by Juan Pablo Cardenal in 2017 to designate the use of manipulative diplmoatic policies by one country to influence and undermine the political system of a target country. Since Xi’s inauguration, China has turned from a soft power bias in foreign policy to a more aggressive one. And this involves enterprises, public personalities, sport teams, politicians and further. When a company makes a bad statement over China or Chinese policies, in a sense, “hurting Chinese peoples’ feelings”, they’re immediately harassed by the Chinese government and can be banned from the market, while Chinese brands would never suffer the same consequences for stances on leaders from other countries. Even athletes, like former Arsenal football player Mesut Özil who defended Hong Kong, were harassed for giving support for Hong Kong or Taiwan. Companies that enter Chinese market have difficulty for expanding to Hong Kong or Taiwan, since it’s a matter of good imagery inside China (as they don’t talk nothing about Uyghurs genocide, freedom of press or Hong Kong and Taiwan subjects) or outside China (as they remain silent and correspond to China’s human rights abuses).
In fact, according to Simon Shen from The Diplomat, the CCP is regressing for a more Cultural Revolution-like era in contrast with the political opening of the 1990s and 2000s. Hong Kong, which has been one of the main issues in China’s foreign policy, is living under an almost-like state of siege. Xi Jinping supports Chief Executive Carrie Lam in Hong Kong and endorses the use of force by the police and massive arrests against the demonstrators who call for independence.
In Taiwan tensions may are worse than in Hong Kong. Not only because of the landing exercise in Fujian, but also because the military practices by the PLA are being a recurrent thing in the Taiwan Strait in the last weeks. Financial Times revealed that on August China tested a hypersonic missile accross the globe carrying a nuclear warhead, which was responded by a military exercise of the United States and Canada in the strait on 18th October. China is also reforming and renovating its air bases next to Taiwan. Chiu Kuo-cheng said by 2025 China would be ready to invade Taiwan, while Xi Jinping asked for “immediate reunification” in the celebration of the 110 years of the end of the Xinhai Revolution, that deposed the Qing Dinasty, during a CCP assembly.
The warfare between PRC and ROC seems unlikely in the recent next months, but not in the next years. But the costs of the war for Xi and the CCP are extremely high. China can lose a lot of investments and involve the United States on it. For Taiwan, the costs of an independence declaration are equally high: an invasion by China is certainly a dead-end for the Taiwanese people and the country’s politics. But one thing is for sure: China is not the only imperialist super-power in the world and Xi is not the only leader afraid of starting a war. Good for Taiwan, for instance and for a while, awful for free politics and human rights.
