Would Taiwan provoke conflict?
Lau Guan Kim  Updated: 2004-09-15 09:43

Basically, there is no conflict between America and China if not for the unfortunate Korean War (1950-1953).

Just before the eruption of that war, President Truman actually accepted as fait accompli the CCP as the de facto government and US would not intervene but allow the KMT to its fate. The Cold War was between the West, represented by America, and the USSR. What happened between 1945 to 1949 was America's tilt toward the KMT because CCP was communist, even though Mao Zedong and Zhou Enlai in 1946 very much wanted China to pattern after America, for which Barbara Tuchman wrote "Had Mao Come To Washington" based on a declassified telegram sent by the two Chinese leaders. That telegram expressed to President Roosevelt that the CCP would be the power in China, and Mao wanted to establish a working relationship with America. Because of a pro-KMT American ambassador Hurley, that telegram was consigned to a forgotten tray. That was a singular callous act that in all likelihood unknowingly caused China to behave the way it did in the Korean War, and also the cause of thousands of fine Americans to die needlessly not only in Korea, but in Vietnam.

The US Seventh Fleet was ordered into the Taiwan Strait by Truman presumably to prevent; America having to fight the communists in two fronts, but in actual fact it was to preserve the KMT for a future wider conflict with mainland China. In pursuit of this, America became China's implacable foe, and vice versa, for more than twenty-two years.

China fought America only once. It did not fail to dawn on America that, unlike Japan, vis-à-vis Pearl Harbour, China gave America warning through India's ambassador K. M. Pannikar. This itself robbed China of any military advantage. On looking back, American military historians could see that China's entry into the Korean War was a concern for national security, as America not only sided with KMT, but also vowed to destroy communism.

Simply put, if there was no Korean War, America's sentiments for China through its missionaries, and China's gratitude for the unselfish aid during Japan's aggression against her, would have galvanized the two nations as partners for peace. Unfortunately, two men, Kim Il Sun and Stalin destroyed this platform.

The likelihood of a successful attack by Taiwan is nil. But Taiwan is an unrequited pretender to the "throne" of China. Only in recent years, as its hope to regain China receded, it began to talk of a Taiwanese identity and gravitate towards independence. This later move is amplified by the drives for diplomatic "lebensraum" orchestrated throughout by Dollar Diplomacy. I have already dealt at length elsewhere the insidious ploy to involve America and to use her to regain China.

The one bait that may get America to bite is democracy. This is a recent phenomenon out of expediency, one that binds America to protect Taiwan because it is a "first" for Chinese democracy. That was how Lee Teng-hui played his card ? to get America's involvement.

Militarily, Taiwan is weak. The non-military means is either overt or covert subversion and to plant agent provocateurs inside China. Its Dollar Diplomacy will likely take advantage of the rampant corruption in China by buying the loyalty of officials and those disaffected by losing out on promotions or other perks. These may not be enough to shake China out of its stability; drastic measure to draw out an angry CCP to take the fatal step of attacking Taiwan, such as intensifying its Taiwan Lobby in Washington to goad America at the same time. The miscalculation here is that vociferous sign of unrest in China may give the wrong signal for Taiwan to declare independence or align with Japan, a prospect likely to make China not only see red, but go on a war path. A weak, destabilized China will have no restraint to pursue a bellicose path, and Taiwan, in presenting itself as a fledgling Chinese democracy, hopes to draw in "sentimental" America.

Taiwan will for a long while be the Achilles' heel in America-China relationship. If looking at the Ming and Qing periods, Taiwan was detached and reattached back to China within decades, and then we may see a reunification by 2010 -2050 at best.

But if we look at the fragmentation of China just after the collapse of the Han dynasty, and its reunification in the Tang dynasty, we are talking of something like 400 years!

I think CCP knows this and my guess, given the average 250-year lifespan of a dynasty, it wants to accelerate the reunification before its time is up. China today is no more communist than Taiwan is democratic.

You have heard the phrase "half catty equals eight taels" in Chinese. The KMT in Taiwan is no different from the CCP in China, except the name they call themselves. Basically, CCP is an offshoot of KMT, notwithstanding the pogrom by Chiang Kai-shek in 1927 against communists working with the nationalist. Ten thousand China's best and brightest perished. This culminated into the epic Long march in 1935 for Mao and the remnant 100,000 communists.

Many Chinese fear an accelerated reform for PRC will bring in chaos and instability. Hence they advocate a slow gradual transformation, an example is my narration of a frog being subjected to water which was raised very gradually to boiling point the frog never even moved to escape the heat because it became acclimatised, and eventually ended up as a cooked dish.

I think this slow process is best suited to transform China, otherwise there will be a revolution, and not only China will lose everything it achieved, its floods of refugee will destabilise the world.

Is America prepared to take in, say, 50 million Chinese?

Without Taiwan, China and America will find its geopolitical problems to be similar. In a matter of a few decades, the danger to China is the Muslims on China's western flank, as in olden days. It will face Muslim fundamentalism as America is facing now. Japan will be America's enemy, for the danger sign I see is many Japanese harbour bad feelings for America a la Hiroshima and Nagasaki. It (Japan) has a sneaky way of fighting wars, such as against Russia in 1904, and America in 1941.

Everything points to China a potential reliable and trustworthy ally of America.

I think America need not bother much about the communism part of China. Communism is a passing phase of Chinese history. In the end, the innate mindset of the Chinese takes over, with its deep-rooted Confucian philosophy augment by penchant for enterprise and hard work.

If there is support for CCP, it is more of a nationalistic emotion. Any party that can make China respected and strong, the Chinese masses will support.

The process of developing into a pluralistic society is not muted in the Chinese, that being a part of their restrained and unemotional psyche. Every sign shows that is what the hoi polloi desire and in that a tenacious cling to political evolution rather than revolution.

Hopefully, CCP will eventually transform China into a politically pluralistic society with a democracy that is suited for the Chinese mindset. If America's support for Taiwan is based on its showcase of democracy to China, let it be reminded that if the KMT or even the DPP ever becomes the sole power in China, it will be just as ruthless and undemocratic, for there is no reason to please America anymore. I omitted other political parties because they are weak and effete, and will never govern a China that has, throughout its dynastic history, been fractious. It became united and strong only under tyrants and totalitarian government. That was the way Chinese were weaned, and it will have to take more time for the Chinese to acclimatise themselves to "freedom". Hitherto, freedom for them is to fight each other, imposed their will and supremacy on each other, and to kill each other. The so-called democracy fighters for China exhibit these traits subconsciously, for that was the way they were brought up. They can talk about freedom, democracy and reforms, yet they do not know what they are talking about. These are the Chinese who will bring the country down, for they do not have rational agenda for a prosperous and stable China.

China has said it needed a long period of peace to reconstruct the nation. It is for this reason America should not worry about a bellicose China giving trouble. Occasional posturing and beating the war drum is part of a psychosis to avoid war. This is very much a Sun Tzu teaching: to win a war without fighting.

I think America can understand that.

The above content represents the view of the author only.

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