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Jamyang writes "In the run-up to the first anniversary of September 11, Taiwan's President has accused China of threatening Taipei with "terrorist" tactics in a speech that will fuel Beijing's current fury: "Communist China has accelerated development of 'unrestricted warfare' similar to terrorist methods," he said. Reuters man in Taipei reckon he's referring to "Unrestricted Warfare" [PDF] by leading PLA strategists - Qiao Liang and Wang Xiangsui - who famously argued that China should focus on "asymmetric engagement" in the 21st century. In fact, many related secret documents have leaked out of China lately. Taiwan's Defense Ministry is taking the threat of infowar very seriously, as can be seen in their 2002 Defense Whitepaper. If the U.S. gets tied up in a ground war in the Middle East, China's going to be real tempted ...."
Perhaps Taiwan is the party which is tempting to shed American G.I. blood to save their sorry ass.
Below is a repost:
Reposted from http://www.antiwar.com/orig/chu3.html
Taiwan Independence and Free Lunches by Bevin Chu Special to Antiwar.com
8/31/99
A standing joke among Sinologists, or China experts, is that the Taiwan
independence movement's leaders are ready to fight to the last American G.I.
The Taiwan independence motto could be summed up as Give me liberty, or give
them death.
Taiwan "independence" has little to do with genuine independence. Taiwan
"independence" is characterized by complete and utter dependency, materially
and emotionally, on whomever wields the most power. A cliche constantly
invoked in Taiwan political debates says it all: "Xi gua kao da bian" (The
watermelon tilts toward the big end.)
Materially, the Taiwan "independence" movement is utterly dependent on
America. Every evening, reunification proponents warn militant separatists on
television debates they are courting disaster, and every evening the
separatists argue that America will shield them from the negative
consequences of refusing to negotiate in good faith with the Chinese
mainland.
So far they have been proven right. Lawrence Eagleburger, Secretary of State
to former President George Bush, lamented in the wake of President Bill
Clinton's kneejerk dispatch of two carrier battle groups to the Taiwan
Straits in 1996: They (Taiwan) have played us like a fiddle.
The Taiwan Relations Act's raison d'etre ended with Chairman Mao's death and
his replacement by the man Mao denounced as the Number Two Capitalist Roader,
Deng Xiaoping. Whatever purpose it may have once served, it is now merely a
blank check signed by Uncle Sam and made out to the Taiwan separatist
leadership, to be cashed at their convenience. The amount is yet to be
determined, but sooner or later it will be inked in with the blood of
American G.I.s.
The east Asian financial crisis was an textbook case of what economists refer
to as moral hazard. International Monetary Fund guarantees amounted to an
artificial incentive for wealthy investors to indulge in high-risk
speculation, knowing the IMF would pull their chestnuts out of the fire if
they underestimated how hot it would get.
The Taiwan Relations Act is the political and military analog of IMF bailout
guarantees, amounting to an artificial incentive for stealth separatists like
Lee Teng-hui to deliberately adopt non-starter negotiating positions and
engage in reckless brinksmanship. They know the US Seventh Fleet will come
steaming to their rescue if they overplay their hand and Beijing calls their
bluff.
The moral hazard of IMF intervention resulted in east Asia bleeding oceans of
red ink. The moral hazard of well-intentioned but wrong-headed assurances of
American military intervention in the Taiwan Straits will bleed oceans of
something far more precious.
American military leaders who may be required to send Americans into combat
are painfully aware of the implications of Lee Teng-hui's shenanigans. As
Admiral Dennis Blair, America's top military commander in the Pacific
testified before Congress, Taiwan was crapping in the punch bowl of US-China
relations.
ROC President Lee Teng-hui watched with delight as the US Air Force served as
the air wing of the Kosovo Liberation Army. The timing of Lee's "two nations"
provocation was hardly coincidental, coming as it did on the heels of NATO's
Chinese Embassy bombing fiasco. Lee interpreted the event as his cue to stoop
over the punchbowl and take yet another dump.
Fifty-eight thousand Americans ordered to Vietnam came home in bodybags. A
black granite monument on the National Mall inscribed with their names serves
as a solemn reminder of that tragic waste of American lives.
If our Beltway Bombardiers have failed to learn the lessons of Vietnam, as it
appears they have, and pointlessly dispatch young Americans halfway around
the world to intervene in a Chinese Civil War that is none of our business,
how many will return in bodybags from the Taiwan Straits? After it is all
over, win, lose or draw, what would they have died for?
Are American values what the Taiwan separatists hold sacred and expect
American fighing men and women to die for? If that were the case, American
intervention on the separatists' behalf might be slightly less absurd. But as
we shall see, American values are not what the Taiwan independence movement
is all about.
Ignore the scripted, feel-good speeches high-powered American PR firms like
Cassidy & Associates have carefully coached Lee Teng-hui to spoonfeed our
Congress and mainstream media. Ignore especially his 1996 Always in my Heart
class reunion speech at Cornell, where he really laid it on with a trowel.
Instead find someone fluent in Chinese or better yet, Japanese, to translate
what Lee and other Taiwanese separatists have written for the consumption of
separatist militants in Taiwan and neo-fascist fellow travellers in Japan.
Americans may be shocked to discover the Taiwanese separatists' bottom line
objection to eventual reunification with China has little to do with
professed admiration for American concepts of individualism, liberty,
republican government, and everything to do with nostalgia for authoritarian
Japanese colonial rule.
Lee Teng-hui's book Taiwan's Proposal, published shortly before his "two
nations" declaration, is Lee's manifesto for Taiwan's future. It was
ghost-written by an anonymous Japanese author from a right wing Japanese
perspective. The first edition was in written in Japanese and printed in
Japan. Only later was it translated into Chinese and printed in Taiwan. In it
Lee praises Japanese culture as being incomparably superior to American
culture. Lee boasts publicly that he is more thoroughly steeped in Japanese
culture than even the average Japanese.
In case that went by too fast, let me repeat it. A manifesto by the President
of the Republic of China, purporting to represent the interests of the people
of Taiwan, is actually penned by a neofascist Japanese author in Japan,
published in Japan, and only gets translated into Chinese afterwards?
Hello?
During a 1995 interview with visiting Japanese author Ryotaro Shiba,
President Lee Teng-hui ordered his cabinet and bodyguards out of his office,
and speaking in Japanese to a long lost countryman, gushed that he still
considered himself Japanese until a young adult, wept when he heard Japan had
surrended to the Allies and was returning Taiwan to China, and that his grief
upon hearing Emperor Hirohito had died was more profound than that of
Japanese in Japan. The conversation was ostensibly confidential, but Shiba,
being a journalist first and Lee's confidant only in Lee's fevered
imagination, promptly published their little tete a tete verbatim the minute
he got back to Japan, where Japanese neo-fascists applauded it
enthusiastically.
Far from being freedom fighters, Taiwanese "independence" leaders fell over
each other to collaborate with Japanese colonial administrators for personal
advantage.
Lee Teng-hui's father collaborated by serving as a deputy in the colonial
Japanese police force, actively oppressing his own people. In return, his
family received comfortable housing, quality rations, and educational
opportunities. Lee Teng-hui himself attended the Universty of Kyoto, a
singular "honor" doled out only to those deemed "politically reliable."
Lee's chief negotiator in cross-Straits negotiations with Beijing is crony
capitalist Koo Chen-fu. An historian at Taiwan's Academia Sineca recently
exposed Koo and the Koo family business empire as WWII era profiteers engaged
in the selling of Taiwanese women into sexual slavery.
Younger Taiwan independence leaders born too late to have been collaborators
routinely offer elaborate rationalizations for WWII era Japanese war crimes
on local talk shows.
When China was refused an apology in writing from Japanese Prime Minister
Obuchi for WWII war crimes, which included years of gang rape of Taiwanese
comfort women and Joseph Mengele-style Unit 731 "medical experiments"
performed on American POWs in Manchuria, Lee Teng-hui huffily proclaimed that
"Japan has apologized enough. Any further apologizing will only harm Japan's
dignity!"
Just before Lee threw his "two nations" gauntlet at Beijing's feet, he told
Taiwan's media he detected early storm clouds of "kamikaze" (divine wind)
gathering over the island of Taiwan. The media was baffled by his cryptic
remark, but his intention soon became clear. Time is running out for Lee,
just as it ran out for Japan's kamikaze squadrons approaching V-J Day. Lee is
hoping his "two nations" proclamation will provoke war. As Dr. Alex Kao, an
expert on Chinese military strategy sees it, Lee is gambling that the
mainland will launch a premature war now which, 15 years from now, Taiwan
would have no chance of winning.
Emotionally, the Taiwan "independence elite" is dependent on their former
colonial master, Japan, into whose arms they will fling themselves if their
divorce from China becomes a reality. Taiwan "independence" is merely a way
station en route to their final destination, Tokyo. Even their proposed
"Republic of Taiwan" flag is a fascimile of the Japanese Emperor's
"Chrysanthemum Flag." Taiwan separatists would be jubilant if upon achieving
"independence" they are promptly re-colonized by Japan.
Taiwan independence is a movement which if genuinely understood would evoke
scant sympathy from Americans, certainly not from American POWs who survived
the Bataan Death March, and the Taiwan independence leaders know it. So
instead they recite the catechism they know patriotic Americans want to hear:
Freedom, democracy, anti-communism.
In a sense we shouldn't blame the Taiwan "independence" parasites, who are
really no different from sundry homegrown parasites. The parasites know
perfectly well they're getting a free lunch at American taxpayers' expense,
but as long as their generous Uncle Sammy insists on picking up the tab,
they'd be crazy to pass up a free meal.
A few million in strategically distributed political contributions by the
immensely wealthy Taiwan Lobby, and presto, highly-trained military personnel
and trillions in advanced weaponry belonging to the World's Only Remaining
Superpower are placed at their disposal. Americans who enlisted in our armed
forces on the understanding their duty was to defend American territory from
foreign invaders find themselves job-shopped as mercenaries to would-be
founders of a would-be "Republic of Taiwan." The Taiwan tail winds up wagging
the American dog. The Taiwan mouse roars, and the proud American eagle
crosses the Pacific to do the mouse's bidding.
A pretty shrewd bargain for the Taiwan "independence" movement. But what kind
of a deal is it for Americans? We owe it to ourselves to consider long and
hard whether Taiwan independence is something American taxpayers want to pay
for with our sweat and American fighting men and women want to pay for with
their blood.
What will happen to 22 million ordinary Taiwanese if America repeals the
Taiwan Relations Act and informs the obdurate separatist Lee Teng-hui "You
want independence? Lots of luck. You're on your own."
The answer is: Not a damned thing.
Instead the Taiwan independence movement's Japanophile elite will be forced
to listen, for a change, to the 80% majority of Taiwan people who oppose
Taiwan independence and are perfectly content with defacto autonomy. If they
don't, the people will elect a more rational president, one who will drive a
hard bargain and negotiate a high degree of regional autonomy under a "One
Country, Two Systems" formula. Later, as the mainland liberalizes to a degree
deemed satisfactory by Taiwan, the two sides will reunify peacefully along
the lines of East and West Germany.
Both America and China will win. Heavily armed Taiwan will get an even better
deal than Hongkong, which to the chagrin of China-haters has remained utterly
unmolested since its restoration to China, despite being completely unarmed.
Only the Taiwanese separatist fanatics will lose. Without America's credit
card on the dinner table they will have to stare at the prices on the menu
before ordering. Without American carte blanche, Lee Teng-hui and his Taiwan
"independence" elite will have to ask themselves whether their dream of
becoming a satellite of Japan is worth risking their own miserable hides,
rather than the lives of American servicemen and women.
But, as the libertarian battle cry coined by the late, great libertarian
science fiction master Robert Heinlein goes, "Tanstaafl!" or "There ain't no
such thing as a free lunch!"
The author is an American architect of Chinese descent registered to practice
in Texas. Currently living and working in Taiwan, Chu is the son of a retired
high-ranking diplomat with the ROC government.
Why is it that non-Americans hate the US so much, yet it is always the United States cleaning up everyone else's spilled milk, as so to speak?
Replace yet with because.
Please mod me up. I hear Americans wondering this all the time.
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