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March 09, 2005
Tension Mounts Between China, Taiwan
Reprinted from Tufts E-News
Chinese legislators are poised to pass a bill that would authorize the use of military force in the event of Taiwan declaring its independence. One Tufts scholar says that the effect of the move – aimed at trying to convince Taiwan to give up its independence movement – is uncertain.
"There's no assurance of what will happen once the sword is out of the scabbard," Alan Wachman, associate professor of international politics at The Fletcher School, told The Boston Globe.
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"The Communist Party can barely control China today. Even if it were to win a war against Taiwan, how do you subordinate a nation of 23 million educated, cosmopolitan and wealthy people who'd be united in their hatred of China?" he said in the newspaper.
While Taiwan operates independently of China, it is still legally part of the Communist nation.
Last year, according to the Globe, Taiwanese President Chen Shui-bian stated his intent to revise Taiwan's constitution – a move the Chinese said would essentially be a statement of independence.
"Suddenly Beijing felt itself to be losing control," Wachman explained to the Globe. "The antisecession law was conceived then as a response to the anxiety China was feeling about Chen… as a measure to show firmness and resolve."
Taiwan's actions were met with international criticism – causing Chen's party to suffer in subsequent elections and prompting the leader to make conciliatory gestures to China, the Globe reported. Despite Taiwan’s backpedaling, Beijing moved ahead with drafting the antisecession bill.
"Things had gone so far [with the antisecession bill] that it wasn't politically feasible to withdraw it," Wachman told the Globe. "Now Beijing risks stirring up a benign situation, painting itself further into that awkward corner of promising it will fight a war it really doesn't want to."
As China struggles with Taiwan, it is simultaneously making an effort to become more involved with multi-national and humanitarian efforts around the world, Wachman said.
China's outreach "has resulted in the announcement of agreements with states in South America, Africa and the Middle East that suggest an expansion of the realms in which China is seeking to establish a greater presence," Wachman told China's official news service Xinhua.
"It reflects a very real change in China's wealth and capacity to involve itself more broadly than it has in issues that only indirectly benefit China," added Wachman.
But the United States, for one, has condemned the antisecession bill, showing that how the Taiwan issue plays out will have an effect on international attitudes toward China.
Posted by jessica at March 9, 2005 12:17 PM
