Standing in the way of China-Taiwan reunification

By Lim Teck Ghee

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 shockwaves in the US, 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 Emmanuel 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 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 interview that was redacted 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 who 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 US, 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 such a world, 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 policymakers 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 Donald Trump, US President Joe Biden and the Western media to engage in what has been described as “relentless”, “off-the-chart”, anti-China “mass hysteria” taking place daily. Australian leaders and media are not very far behind the US propaganda and war-mongering curve.

Thus, the resort to the Tibet card, the Hong Kong card, the Uyghur card; the South China Sea 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 former US House speaker Nancy Pelosi, current House speaker Kevin McCarthy and other anti-China newbies from the US Democrat and Republican parties, and former Australian prime minister Scott Morrison, Liberal leader Peter Dutton and others in Canberra, stands the US military-industrial complex and a cohesive and vociferous array of anti-China interest groups, looking at their positions and pocketbooks and spooked by the loss of US leadership in the global economy and geopolitics.

Especially noteworthy are the US and British arms industry companies who have Taiwan and now Australia as their cash machine, generating billions of dollars for them and their little-mentioned but crucial support cast of Taiwanese military, lawmakers and government official counterparts. Together they are inflaming tensions in the Taiwan Straits and South China Sea while deluding Taiwan into believing that the US will go to war over Taiwan, and that Taiwan is able to defend itself should China abandon its bid for peaceful reunification.

Table: US-Taiwan recent military sales

Biden administration – $3.5bn

• 1 March 2023, $619m for hundreds of missiles and other F-16 munitions
• 28 December 2022, $180m for Volcano anti-tank systems
• 6 December 2022, $330m for aircraft standard spare parts and $98m for non-standard spare parts that would support “F-16, C-130, Indigenous Defense Fighter (IDF), and all other aircraft and systems or subsystems of U.S. origin”
• 2 September 2022 – $665m for support to surveillance radar program, $355m for 60 AGM-84L-1 Harpoon Block II missiles and related support, and $86m for 100 AIM-9X Block II Sidewinder tactical missiles and related equipment
• 15 July 2022 – $108m for technical support for tank and combat vehicles
• 8 June 2022 – $120m for ship spare parts
• 5 April 2022 – $95m for contractor technical assistance to support Patriot systems
• 7 February 2022 – $100m for support services for Patriot systems for five years
• 4 August 2021 – $750m for M109A6 Paladin 155mm self-propelled Howitzers and related vehicles and equipment

Trump administration – $18.3bn

2020 (multiple dates) – $5.9bn

• Harpoon missiles ($2.4bn, 26 October)
• AGM-84H SLAM-ER missiles ($1bn, 21 October)
• PAC-3 missile recertification ($620m, 9 July)
• MQ-9B remote piloted aircraft ($600m, 3 November)
• HIMARS launchers, support, and equipment ($436m, 21 October)
• MS-110 Recce Pods ($367m, 21 October)
• Field Information Communications System (FICS) ($280m, 7 December)
• Mk-48 heavyweight torpedoes ($180m, 20 May) 

2019 (multiple dates) – $10.7bn

• F-16s and associated support ($8bn, 20 August)
• F-16 pilot training and logistics support ($500m, 15 April)
• M1A2 Abrams tanks ($2bn, 8 July)
• Stinger missiles ($224m, 8 July)

2018 (all on 24 Sept 24) – $330m

• Foreign Military Sales Order II ($330m)

2017 (all on 29 June) – $1.4bn

• radar ($400m)
• AGM-154C JSOW missiles ($186m)
• AGM-88B HARM missiles ($148m)
• SM-2 Block IIIA missiles ($125m)
• Mk-54 lightweight torpedo conversion kits ($175m)
• Mk-48 heavyweight torpedoes ($250m)
• ​AN/SLQ-32 electronic warfare system upgrades ($80m) 

From 1979 to 2020, 77% of major conventional arms imported by Taiwan were of US origin, according to the database of the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI)

Note: The data here does not include direct commercial sales

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

The chips war

Besides the escalation in arms sales to Taiwan and the 50,000-plus troops stationed in more than a hundred military bases in Asia targeting China, we now have the US’ latest weapon to strangle “with an intent to kill China’s tech sector” as described by Washington think tank CSIS. This is the Biden-initiated ban on semiconductor sales to China, which took effect in October 2022.

If peaceful reunification of China and Taiwan takes place, it is inevitable that the political and economic reconciliation will enable TSCM, the world’s leading semiconductor foundry, to do business again in China. This development is one which the US will want to go to war with China over, in its belief that its technological and military supremacy will be irrevocably undermined.

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?

Dr Lim Teck Ghee is a Malaysian economic historian, policy analyst and public intellectual whose career has straddled academia, civil society organisations and international development agencies

The views expressed in Aliran's media statements and the NGO statements we have endorsed reflect Aliran's official stand. Views and opinions expressed in other pieces published here do not necessarily reflect Aliran's official position.

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