Anyone Smelling a Fuse Burning?

The protests in Hong Kong began in June of last year and have roiled up and down ever since. Begun to stop a law from allowing those arrested in HK to be tried in China – which succeeded to be reversed – the protests did not stop. They reflected the fear of younger HK residents that the PRC commitment to honor the British legal system in HK until 2047 was (a) already being eroded by Beijing, and (b) even if the PRC honored the full commitment until then, HK would eventually subject HK to the undemocratic totalitarian system that runs modern China. For younger Hong Kong residents, who have always lived in a democratic system where free speech is simply taken for granted, the prospect of China taking over and changing the rules is simply intolerable.

China’s non-democratic, centralized system of government is the platinum standard for so many impoverished and developing nations striving for economic success and inclusion as relevant and functioning governments. China was able to force through economic reform, and in the short space of 30 years was able to elevate a billion people out of abject poverty. There are still pockets of poor in China, but they are the next targets for economic betterment.

Indeed, the People’s Republic of China is touting its Belt & Road initiative – building infrastructure and economic connectivity with strategic loans to developing nations – as the path to that economic betterment for those who embrace China. But Hong Kong was an economic powerhouse since the 1970s, way ahead of China in economic success. There is little in the way of the PRC system that Hong Kong residents find remotely attractive. They certainly do not need China to continue their success. The same is equally true of the Republic of China (ROC, which we call Taiwan), another mega-success story well before the PRC reached its current pinnacle of success.

From the beginnings of the PRC, China has always maintained that relatively small island nation of Taiwan (under 25 million people) is an inseparable part of the mainland (with 1.45 billion people). Willing to deploy the same “one nation, two systems” structure that exists in Hong Kong (until 2047) on Taiwan, China under strongman Xi Jinping is rattling its sabers and reinstating the unification of Taiwan and the PRC as a major priority. Perhaps incented by the protests in Hong Kong, China’s efforts at convincing Taiwan to merge are slip-sliding away.

As candidates friendly toward Beijing, which has embraced trade with Taiwan in a big way, once fared better in the ROC’s elections, Beijing was more hopeful and more relaxed about forcing the issue. That complacency, combined with President Xi’s determination, was slammed as Tsai Ing-wen – an independence hardliner – won a second term as Taiwan’s president. But for China, which has been trying to lure Taiwan into that merger, this was clearly bad news.

It also could mean bad news for Taiwan and the United States, as resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute and an assistant professor of security studies at Georgetown University, Oriana Skylar Mastro explains in this OpEd for the January 14^th Los Angeles Times: ” The growing world of China skeptics will undoubtedly celebrate her win as a sign of Taiwan’s mature democracy and continued de facto independence in the face of ever-increasing pressure from Beijing…. More likely, however, Tsai’s victory will darken Taiwan’s future as the Chinese Communist Party comes to realize that the only way Taiwan will ever reunify with mainland China is at the end of a gun.

“For decades, China’s ruling Communist Party had hoped that tightening economic ties with the ‘Province of Taiwan’ would convince the Taiwanese that they would be better off as part of the People’s Republic. President Xi Jinping has doubled down on this logic, adopting new measures to attract Taiwan businesses and human capital and to integrate industries more deeply across the Taiwan Strait.

“Beijing’s official line has been that it is progressing toward peaceful reunification and that the pro-independence agenda of Tsai’s Democratic Progressive Party is losing support in Taiwan. China was reassured by the 2018 local elections, in which the more pro-mainland Kuomintang Party won 13 out of 20 jurisdictions. Beijing leaders believed the Taiwanese people would see the material benefits and prestige to be gained from reunification as China’s economic strength and international status grew.

“But Tsai has explicitly rejected China’s formulation of “one country, two systems,” and her reelection will likely convince Chinese leaders that peaceful reunification is a pipe dream. They would be right. Recent polls show the people of Taiwan are less and less interested in unification and prefer either the status quo or independence. The younger generation, born after Taiwan transitioned to a democracy, has known nothing but the freedoms it currently enjoys, and is more reluctant than the older generation to give them up for what Beijing has to offer.

“At the same time, China’s 2005 Anti-Secession Law mandates an armed reunification if peaceful reunification is not possible. And, according to Chinese opinion polls, 89% of people on the mainland favor forced reunification. Luo Yuan, a major general in the Chinese military, recently said that China’s leaders ‘can only follow the will of all Chinese nationals [and] realize reunification by force,’ should Taiwan refuse to cede to Beijing’s leadership…

“A Chinese attack on Taiwan would, of course, have major implications for the United States. While America no longer has a treaty commitment to defend Taiwan, the Taiwan Relations Act of 1979 specifies that ‘any effort to determine the future of Taiwan by other than peaceful means, including by boycotts or embargoes, [is] a threat to the peace and security of the Western Pacific area and of grave concern to the United States.’ Practically, there would be serious pressure for Washington to come to Taiwan’s defense militarily — in short, a war between two nuclear-armed powers with all the attendant costs…

“[President Xi] has publicly called for concrete movement toward reunification, an explicit demand that stakes his legitimacy on progress in that direction. By doing so, he moved the goalpost from preventing Taiwan independence, which means living with the 40-year-long status quo, to an actual change in the nature of the cross-strait relationship, which is substantially less achievable without the use of force.

“For the first time in Chinese history, Xi will also have at his disposal a military capable of forcing unification. Chinese military modernization has been geared toward developing combat capabilities and training to invade and take the island. While many Western observers think China will be able to do so in the next five to eight years, Chinese military leaders have told me that they will be ready within a year.” While the United States can still claim global military superiority, its forces are stretched all over the earth. China may have a smaller force, but it is all concentrated in that Asia-Pacific region.

What makes matters worse is that China knows how to play Donald Trump. The clearly inferior “phase one” trade agreement was a big loser for the President, although as usual he will claim its glory. His belief that President Xi is his buddy is a joke in China, where they watch Xi manipulate the US leader. When push comes to shove, will Donald Trump even know what to do? Will such a confrontation, badly played, lead to a war no one wants?

            I’m Peter Dekom, and this is a “little” story that few are watching that could redefine the entire 21ste century.