Pearls and Irritations

Scorched Earth: Anti-reunification forces use Taiwan to subvert China

The national flag of the People's Republic of China. Taiwan flag.

Written by

Lim Teck Ghee

in

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Written by Lim Teck Ghee

US and British arms industry companies and their little mentioned but crucial support cast of Taiwanese military, lawmakers and government official counterparts are opposed to China-Taiwan reunification, because the current situation acts as their ATM, generating billions of dollars in profit.

The recent visit to China by former Taiwan President Ma Ying-jeou – the first time a Taiwanese president has visited the country since the defeated Republic of China government retreated to Taiwan in 1949 – has set off shock waves in the United States, Australia and other countries bent on a non-peaceful resolution of the China Taiwan stand-off.

According to reports on the under-reported but closely watched visit by western media, Ma stressed that China and Taiwan must do everything possible to avoid war.

Accompanied by a delegation of academics and college students, Ma in comments provided by his office noted:

“People on both sides of the Taiwan Strait are Chinese people, and are both descendants of the Yan and Yellow Emperors.”

Despite the common history and ancestry, Ma acknowledged the magnitude of the reunification challenge.

“We sincerely hope that the two sides will work together to pursue peace, avoid war, and strive to revitalise China”.

“This is an unavoidable responsibility of Chinese people on both sides of the Strait, and we must work hard.”

More alarming to the US are the comments of French President Macron to the French media following his recent visit to China and meetings with Chinese leader, Xi Jinping. In his interview conducted with Les Echos and Politico, Macron told the reporters that “Europe faces a great risk” if it “gets caught up in crises that are not ours.”

“The paradox would be that, overcome with panic, we believe we are just America’s followers,” Macron said. “The question Europeans need to answer… is it in our interest to accelerate [a crisis] on Taiwan? No. The worse thing would be to think that we Europeans must become followers on this topic and take our cue from the US agenda and a Chinese overreaction.”

Much stronger words on Taiwan and the need for Europe’s “strategic autonomy” were in fact expressed by Macron in the posted redacted interview so as to avoid a bigger controversy with Taiwan, the US and US allies.

The French position on China and Taiwan especially should be required reading for Australians, especially those who have not given thought to or have dismissed outright, the possibility of a China Taiwan rapprochement or reunification. 

Anti reunification forces

Left unsaid by Ma and Macron is that the forces opposed to reunification of China and Taiwan are at their most virulent and most hostile point in history. Led by the United States, Australia and a supportive cast of suppliant allies, the anti reunification forces are using Taiwan to confront and subvert China and forestall any prospect of peaceful reunification.

What matters for the anti reunification forces is not the fate of Taiwan or the opinions of the Chinese and Taiwanese population. What is at stake is to win the US effort to contain and isolate China and to repulse any challenge to the US monopoly of power, wealth and dominance taken for granted in a US led unipolar world in which any attempt to resist American hegemonic control is portrayed as an assault on a ‘democratic’ ‘rules-based’ international world system defined by the US and backed by Australia but not agreed to by the great majority of the world’s countries.

High stakes behind forestalling reunification

Australian and other western media and policy makers will not admit it but reunification of China and Taiwan will dramatically change the world order from the current Western dominated one to a new one which will more fairly reflect the diverse interests and values of the international community; and not that of China alone.

This is the existential fear which has driven Trump and Biden, and western media, to engage in what has been described as the “relentless”, “off the chart”, anti China “mass hysteria” taking place on a daily basis. Australian leaders and media are not very far behind the American propaganda and war mongering curve.

Thus the resort to the Tibet card; the Hong Kong card; the Uygher card; the South China Seas card; and the Taiwan anti-reunification card.

The strength of the anti reunification forces should not be underestimated. It is not only western media, politicians and ‘democracy’ lovers in the US and Australia that are intent on making Taiwan the sacrificial pawn in a proxy war to ensure that China – and the rest of the world – remain subordinate and shackled to a western dominated world system.

Behind the political theatre and publicity grabbing actions of Nancy Pelosi, Kevin McCarthy, and other anti China newbies from US Democrat and Republican parties, and Scott Morrison, Peter Dutton, et. al. in Canberra, stands the US military industrial complex and a cohesive and vociferous array of anti China interest groups looking at their positions and pocket books, and spooked by the loss of US leadership in the global economy and geo-politics.

Especially noteworthy are US and British arms industry companies who have Taiwan, and now Australia, as their ATM generating billions of dollars for them and their little mentioned but crucial support cast of Taiwanese military, lawmakers and government official counterparts.

Table 1: US – Taiwan recent military sales

Biden administration – $3.506 billion

  • March 1, 2023, $619 million for hundreds of missiles and other F-16 munitions
  • April 5, 2022 – $95 million for contractor technical assistance to support Patriot systems.
  • February 7, 2022 – $100 million for support services for Patriot systems for five years 

Trump administration – $18.27 billion

  • 2018 (all on Sept 24) – $330 million: Foreign Military Sales Order II ($330 million)

From 1979 to 2020, 77% of major conventional arms imported by Taiwan were of U.S. origin, according to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI)’s arms transfers database.

Note: The data here does not include direct commercial sales.

Source: https://www.forumarmstrade.org/ustaiwan.html

Together, they are inflaming tensions in the Taiwan Straits and South China Sea whilst deluding Taiwan into the belief that the US is willing to go to war over Taiwan, and that Taiwan is able to defend itself should China abandon its bid for peaceful reunification.

Should this happen Taiwan will definitely become the scorched-earth battlefield that Washington’s war hawks have long been preparing for.

Is this what Australia is committing itself to for the present and coming generation?

Lim Teck Ghee
Lim Teck Ghee, ANU PhD graduate, is a Malaysian economic historian and policy analyst. He has a regular column, Another Take, in The Sun, a Malaysian daily and Oriental Daily; and is the author of Challenging the Status Quo in Malaysia, and Dark Forces Changing Malaysia (with Murray Hunter).

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