Putin Remarks Leave President Tsai Lonely After Her National Day Performance
United Daily News Commentary, October 15 , 2021
In a rare public comment on how Beijing could unify Taiwan, President Vladimir Putin of Russia stated in a recent interview that China is now the world's top economy and is already ahead of the United States, and that it does not need to use force to achieve the goal of unification with Taiwan but can do so through economic strength. It seemed that he secured an endorsement from Chinese President Xi Jinping, Mr. Putin’s strategic ally.
At a conference to mark the 110th anniversary of the 1911 republican revolution, Mr. Xi stated his stance on peaceful reunification, saying that "realizing the unification of the motherland by peaceful means was in the best interest of the Chinese nation as a whole, including our compatriots in Taiwan."
But this was not the feeling in Taiwan. While having detected a 150-sortie show of force conducted by People’s Liberation Army (PLA) Air Force in early October, Minister of National Defense Chiu Kuo-cheng stated it was the most serious moment across the Taiwan Strait in four decades. Moreover, during an interrogation in the Legislature, Minister Chiu Tai-san of the Mainland Affairs Council, even said that a "quasi-war" layout had already emerged.
However, at that juncture, President Tsai Ing-wen presented an upgraded version of the two-state theory that infuriated Beijing in her National Day address, saying she would insist that the Republic of China and the People's Republic of China are not be subordinate to each other. It looked as if she added fuel to the growing tensions across the Taiwan Strait.
This was a rather strange scene, as one side that had deployed an unprecedented number of military aircrafts harped on the same string that it had no intention of unifying Taiwan by force, while the other side that feared war was imminent made provocative remarks from time to time, as if it felt that there were not enough the Communist Chinese aircrafts deployed to trigger the war tomorrow!
But, aren't the people in Taiwan worried about war? The day before yesterday the Brookings Institution released polling figures in a study which said "although Taiwanese people's lives are not affected by the imminent threat of war, they are by no means unaware of it". "57.6 percent of respondents said they were concerned that war was a distinct possibility". "We found that a majority of both DPP and KMT respondents were worried about the possibility of war," it said.
The situation was neither "external relaxation, internal tension" nor "external tension, internal relaxation." The PLA warplanes were increasing in its number exponentially, but mainland Chinese leaders were pacifying the hearts and minds of the people on east side of Taiwan Strait with their extremely subdued rhetoric, while more than half of the people on the same side are worried about the outbreak of war. Yet they support the hawkish rhetoric of their Taiwan leaders with unbridled enthusiasm.
This paradoxical situation was a real possibility of war. According to the Brookings study, although Taiwanese were worried about being attacked, they did not feel war was imminent in the least. After all, the vast majority of Taiwanese have never experienced war. And under such circumstances, if they keep advancing toward the red line all the way up, it would become an irreversible trend until it steps on the landmine.
Since political rewards could be gained by parading bravery in repulsing the enemy, politicians were tempted to put on such a political show one after another, as President Tsai had done on this National Day.
Fortunately, a safety valve has emerged to temporarily resolve the crisis, the United States and China were seeking cooperation, and President Joe Biden and Mr. Xi seem to have a "Taiwan agreement", or at least a tacit agreement. The United States stopped talking about "confrontation" with China a few months ago, while Mr. Xi felt comfortable enough to loudly sing the main theme of peaceful reunification with Taiwan.
Mr. Putin might sense that the wind had changed, and the cold wind started to warm up. As a result, he followed the tune that unification could be achieved without the use of force.
The heroic performance made by President Tsai with the two-state theory has earned her nothing but loneliness and solitude under the diplomatic maneuver of the big powers, except for a few rebukes from the PRC State Council Office for Taiwan Affairs.