When will Taiwan attack China?

Lau Guan Kim  Updated: 2004-08-21 09:07

Just recently, Taipei Times wrote about Taiwan going nuclear and targeting vulnerable spots such as the Three Gorges Dam, among other targets mentioned.

Way back some four years or so ago, a lady poster wrote in an American forum that to inflict some 20 million civilian deaths, Taiwan must strike at the Three Gorges Dam, still then under construction. This Chinese lady had to all intent been apparent to us as a shill planted in that forum to extol American values and berate and demonise China.

I remember I raised the vulnerability of building the Three Gorges Dam five years back exactly the reason raised by the Chinese lady rabidly bent on seeking the destruction of her birthplace.

Thus my taste of American democracy was weaned on the plight of many banned from that forum because they refuted her - this so-called beneficiary of American enlightened system that not only enriched her whole family escaping from China, but had given her a wonderful life in the US.

And her story went on ad nauseam.

Just after China won the bid to host the Beijing 2008 Olympic, I raised the alarm Taiwan might start trouble just before the opening. Playing the devil's advocates, I felt Taiwan would spoil the show for China, if anything to deny the Mainland its crowning moment of glory and world recognition of its success and legitimacy as a Great Power.

But even before that, Taiwan threatened to flatten Hong Kong and Shanghai as retaliation against Mainland China. Indeed if we were to go even further back, Taiwan had a number of times bragged about its military superiority and not even as hinted but brazenly declared it would attack China.

The thrust of my comments is not so much as Taiwan has the audacity to take on China, given the hot rhetoric, if not hot air as the anti-China lobby puts it, but that it goes out of the way to antagonise and precipitate a crisis in the Taiwan Strait.

Given the tensed emotions of two members of the same family involved in a squabble, understandably for one member to threaten another as a quid pro quo is not a surprising behaviour.

That Taiwan did threaten to wipe out some of China's cities and mega projects can only mean that her claim as a militarily weakling is a deception, and that her constantly upgrading the military hardware is not defensive but offensive.

And even more recent is the 'stopover-in-US' diplomacy on a flight to some banana republics that Taiwan bankrolled for recognition as a sovereign state. The exercise in this perennial stopovers in the US is to sour up Sino-US relationship whatever the claim to the contrary from Taiwan.

Given China's vacillating hot-n-cold airs over the Strait imbroglio, no wonder Taiwan is not taking the mainland seriously.

China must remember that if a threat is made about Taiwan, it will lose its credibility if it blinks and stops. To Taiwan, China is just a Paper Tiger.

The danger now is not whether China can control the event in the Strait, but how emboldened can Taiwan get to manipulate and cause mini crises prior to the Being 2008 Olympic?

To all intent, Taiwan's plan will be stark naked and foreboding by 2006.

It then becomes a question of when will Taiwan attack China to force an attack from the Mainland?

Here Taiwan will capitalise and exploit its 'weakness' to tarnish China as the aggressor in what we can draw a historical parallel in its past colonial master Japan's fabricating the Marco Polo Bridge (Luguoqiao) incident that precipitated the Second Sino-Japanese War (1937-1945).

The Freudian slip in the recent Taipei Times' jingoism rests not so much on its claims the need for Taiwan to take the initiative in the absence of the US support in the defence of the island; rather this is a sinister and insidious plot to maneuver the US and China into a Sino-US War.

Deep down the hearts of the Taidu, there is a faith that the US will want Taiwan within its fold of strategic bases to contain China. It thus raises often, with the aid of the hysterical US media, that China in control of Taiwan is not only a threat to the lifeline of Japan, but also an eventual threat to the influence and national interest of the US and its enshrined democracy, whatever that means post Iraq War.

The flaw here is the 1979 Taiwan Relations Act is illegal and not internationally binding. Besides, the national interests of US are in no danger of being diminished, as there are many US bases in Asia encircling China.

Why should the US make Taiwan its cause célèbre and the manufacture of black body bags a major US industry?

In the final analysis, there is a big question mark over whether the US will get itself involved under whatever pretexts. To put it plainly, there is no permanent alliance except permanent interest.

To most Americans, Taiwan may not be worth the fight, even when American bigots tout their warped concept of democracy. After the Iraq War, that evangelical mission to spread democracy sounds hollow to many outside the US.

China's stand is one of national honour, territorial integrity, and security.

Behind all the bravado about being higher-tech than China, a Taiwan bristled with advanced weaponry, is an unsure and frightened niche with the audacity to claim it represents democracy.

When will Taiwan attack China?

When it declares its independent. So the Taidu are smart. They want Taiwan to be the 51st state of the USA so China would not dare attack. For the hawks in the US, this is a bonanza, as Taiwan can be another US unsinkable aircraft carrier like Japan.

This time it is better, for it is much nearer to China.

For China, if Taiwan becomes an American state, its national security is threatened. I think the Americans never forget the Korean War (1950-1953).

The Americans will know the Taiwanese are trying to dupe them. American interest precludes intervention in the Strait. Posturing is their way of showing the American colours and keeping up with America's image as a superpower. This is less costly, and Americans will never end up in body bags.

All indications are that China will attack if Taiwan attacks first or declares independence. Then the Taiwanese ploy is to cry foul, and America the "lao da ge," will have to save face by fishing in the muddied Strait.

After that Taiwan hopes to sit behind and watch America do the dirty work for them.

The Americans will have to ask themselves are they sentimental suckers?

The above content represents the view of the author only.

Close