By Tienchi Martin-Liao,
Independent Chinese PEN Center.
China claims that Taiwan is part of its territory and pressures the democratic island to accept its dominance. For decades Taiwan has lived with the threat of invasion by the People’s Republic of China. At the 20th Congress of the Chinese Communist Party, held between October 16 and 23, 2022, Xi Jinping has consolidated his power and has become the country’s leader for a third term. Xi said at the closing ceremony that China will not rule out a military intervention in Taiwan if either of these two scenarios occur 1. Foreign forces become involved in the Taiwan issue. 2. When Taiwan declares its independence.
Since Nancy Pelosi, Speaker of the US House of Representatives, visited Taiwan in August this year, other politicians from around the world followed in her footsteps and visited Taiwan to show their political sympathy and economic interest. After all, Taiwanese electronics company TSMC is the leading semiconductor maker, supplying about 60% of chips to industrialized countries. Most countries maintain diplomatic relations with China and accept the “one China” policy. Nobody wants to upset China, but business is business. However, China regards all such official visits to Taiwan as a provocation. China’s military aggression against Taiwan has intensified since August. There are dozens or even more than a hundred military aircraft and frigates circling the island daily.
Following the Russian invasion of Ukraine, we have reason to worry that the same military conflicts could break out in the Taiwan Strait. China would attack Taiwan and destroy the democratic republic along with its prosperous social and economic system.
In recent years, China has stepped up its cognitive warfare. High technology, especially the application of big data and artificial intelligence, has facilitated its military superiority. On the one hand, China offers Taiwan the principle of «one country, two systems»; on the other, it continues its cyber war against Taiwan. According to Check Point software, in 2021, there were 2,644 weekly attacks by China against Taiwan’s government institutes or private sectors. This figure is 5 times higher than that made against the United States. Beijing also sends a huge amount of disinformation and misinformation to Taiwan to destabilize the internal order. The Chinese authorities claim that they are private hackers and have nothing to do with the official sector.
Brief introductory reference to the International PEN Writers for Peace Committee.
Pen International ‘s Writers for Peace Committee was created in 1984, at a “…time when writers found it especially difficult to collaborate across the East-West divide in the Cold War era…”, wrote Emmanuel Pierrat, former president of the Committee, in the first editorial of this Bulletin of the aforementioned Committee that began to be published at the beginning of the year 2022. This Committee was created with the objective of bringing together writers from all over the world to discuss «conflicts, peace and freedom of expression, and create a space for dialogue between writers, especially from regions in conflict. To work in the fight against hate speech and all its forms, discrimination, treatment of migrants, protection of cultural property, authoritarian surveillance in Asia, and in particular in the People’s Republic of China, conflict prevention armed forces and wars (such as the situation in Nagorno-Karabakh, Kazakhstan, Ethiopia), the fight against dictatorships, in particular through cyber-surveillance”.
The Uruguay PEN Center supports this initiative of the Committee of Writers for Peace byjoining the dissemination of this Bulletinamong our members, friendsand readers of our website.
Since the outbreak of the Ukrainian war in February, global transport and distribution chains have been broken. There are global shortages of energy and food. The important dialogues on climate change have been interrupted. Millions of Ukrainians flee to other European countries. Inflation is out of control, the cost of living has risen so much that many people can barely afford it. The war in Europe has a devastating impact on the world order. We cannot afford another war in Asia.
Taiwan has increased its defense budget, increased its military forces and extended conscription to more than four months. However, with its 23 million inhabitants, it could not withstand an initial Chinese attack. Taiwan can expect limited support from the US, as well as some help from US allies in the Indo-Pacific, although European countries would likely give less support, because their economies cannot break ties with China after the power supply disruption Russian.
Henry Kissinger said in May 2022: «It is important for world peace that the United States and China mitigate their adversarial relationship.» The two largest economies have to avoid direct confrontation. Kissinger believed that China was unaware of President Putin’s plan to invade Ukraine, and the war has created uncertainty in Russia’s alliance with China, leaving room for new negotiations in the near future. The war has divided the world into autocratic and democratic blocs. Russia is facing sanctions and isolation, there is a chance that the free world will reach out to China. Beijing will not follow in the wrong footsteps of Russia, as it is not worth sharing the same goals with it. China must maintain its important trade with Taiwan, Europe and the US, and slowly accept the universal value of human rights, democracy, freedom and non-violence.
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