"Why China won't invade Taiwan" | Paul Warburg

 

I don't know Paul Warburg -- I came across him just today -- but he makes good sense, above. It's kinda long, but worth it for those interested in the geo-politics of our region here in East Asia. 

I've long thought the best thing for China-Taiwan relations is simple: the status quo.

There's no real good outcome for China for an attack on the island of Taiwan, which would be fraught at best. 

Meantime: Beijing threatens. And gets a lot of attention for that. It gets leverage. The best outcome for China is precisely the current one: keep pressure on the world, keep it wrong footed, use the leverage of threats to "regain" the "renegade province" in any international negotiations. 

But don't actually do anything. 

China would have a tough time if it did attack Taiwan. It has a limited amphibious landing fleet, that can only slowly be replenished. It has no decent Blue Water fleet. Its two aircraft carriers are ancient Russian rust buckets.  

Taiwan is protected by its mountainous terrain and limited beaches to land on. It's defensible. Taiwan now has huge inventories of anti-ship and anti-aircraft missiles and the latest military drone technology from Ukraine. All the pressure would be on the attackers. 

Meantime Taiwanese are 70-80% in favour if staying just as it is. No interest there in becoming part of the motherland. Our Hong Kong experience has made it clear to Taiwanese just what it means to have "One Country, Two Systems", an early strategy of China, to make it seem attractive to its "renegade" to come back into the embrace of the Motherland. Since the 2020 Hong Kong riots and the resulting National Security legislation, that's no longer a reasonable hope.

Another thought: China has had no experience of war or battles since it fought Vietnam in 1979.  Which didn't go well. It now has 45 years of Zero experience in war, apart from a few trifling border skirmishes with India. The United States, meantime, for better or worse, has been in almost constant war. Its Navy is well practiced and hugely outguns and out-technologies the Chinese. Some war game scenarios have China winning; but, really, I can't see them winning against the battle-hardened, technologically superior US Fleet, assuming it came in support of its ally Taiwan. Don't believe me? Check out some of the amazing vids of on-board training exercises on US carriers. 

I've also seen reports that Chinese naval commanders are not up to chop. They're inexperienced soyboys.... (So goes the scuttlebut). FNGs in military slang.

Warburg also suggests that a number of countries in the region -- Vietnam, Singapore, Malaysia, Indonesia, Japan -- would come to the support of Taiwan, in case of any Chinese aggression. 

As for the Naval Blockade scenario. The trouble with that from China's point of view is that it's easily countered. A blockade of Taiwan would lead to counter blockades of China, blockades of the Straits of Malacca, of the ports of Burma, Bangladesh and Pakistan. It would see a catastrophic drop in its trade and in imports of energy. 

And all for what? For pride? For getting hold of Taiwan's chip industry? (not likely to survive a war). For... what.... I don't see it. A game not worth the candle. 

Anyhow: let's hope Warburg and I are right. The status quo is the most attractive, for sure. We hope that China, Beijing, also sees that it is. 

Remembering and forgetting: June 4 vigils

China, as in Chinese, started forgetting June 4 decades ago. The result of a successful censorship by the government. Of that 36-year ago event.

I totally remember that actual June 4 1989. I was in Beijing just a few days before. And then a few days after. My Significant Other was herself in the Square on the day. We both remember it, so vividly. 

I thought it would never be forgotten. 

But it was. Quite quickly. After the riots and the violent suppression, I lived back in Australia for a while before being headhunted by the Australian government to run their Trade Office in Shanghai, then Beijing and then regionally out of Hong Kong. 

Those were crazy days, with few foreigners in China -- because of the sanctions against China -- and so heavy partying by those of us who happened to find ourselves in post-June 4 China. Like the days of old Shanghai. Of Austria before Adolf. Kinda crazy and in super fun way. For us foreigners, anyway. I recall 1990 as a Golden Year in life. And then squirm, for thinking that, while so many mothers were mourning their sons. Fathers their daughters. 

We had the June 4 memorials in Hong Kong over the years. But in China, I can attest by personal experience, just a few years after June 4th, when I travelled in China, and asked people about it, they didn't know. I mean, not that they were just saying they didn't know. They genuinely didn't know. They'd forgotten, even if they ever knew -- the CCP controlled the national media. 

In recent years there's been less and less June 4 remembering here in Hong Kong. Partly because of the National Security Law of 2020, after the ill-thought out protests and rioting to push for an "independent Hong Kong". And partly, I guess, for the passage of time. And I'm pretty sure that the rest of the west has forgotten too.

The South China Morning Post has an article on "June 4 Vigil in Hong Kong". [Internet archive]

As it did Last year. 

And I shall try, at least to recall it, once a year, on the day, to my death. 

ADDED: Ask the Chinese AI DeepSeek about June 4, and it says it has no info on the date and "can we chat about something else". I accused it of being a puppet of the CCP, and it said "let's talk about another subject. How can I help?". Kinda crazy for the CCP to suppress this, as it's easy enough, even for a Chinese citizen, to get other AI's, like Grok to tell you all about theTiananmen Square massacre on June 4, 1989. 

"Hong Kong 47: city condemns Western nations for ‘malicious smears’ over guilty verdict in subversion case" | Kahon Chan

First comments at the site

I never did understand the whole issue of the thing they called a "primary" being so sensitive.

“Malicious smears”: commie-speak. When they say “authorities condemn”, what they mean is government officials condemn. 

"Hong Kong 47: city condemns Western nations for ‘malicious smears’ over guilty verdict in subversion case"

“Hong Kong in Trouble” | Stephen Roach, SCMP

Online here

To a large extent we brought this on ourselves.

First, early post-handover, 1997, our timid, our insecure, our pusillanimous bureaucrats called on Beijing's National People's Congress to "interpret" laws for us. When they should have done so themselves. 

Beijing clearly didn't want to do this. They wanted to show the world they were hands off. But our apparatchiks pressed and got what they wanted from Mummy China. Rulings — from Beijing — on things like whether babies born in Hong Kong to mainland mothers should be treated as locals. In short, we invited Beijing in. We let the nose of the camel into the tent. 

Then widespread demos in 2014. Moves proposed, by our local government and approved by Beijing — to move us towards universal suffrage — real, if limited, moves  — were rejected out of hand by our so-called "pan democrats", a loose coalition of pro-democracy activists from the plain-vanilla Left to the crazy Left. For them perfection was the enemy of action. They didn't get everything so they preferred nothing. 

We, many of us, thought it most unwise (stupid, in fact): to reject moves forward, even if they were only limited. We could gain a beachhead and move on. But no, the pan-dem loonies had to have their extreme ways and rejected it all, out of hand. 

Then, of course, the demos of 2019. These achieved their initial aims, the rejection of new extradition laws with China. Instead of resting on success, hotheads began demonstrating for independence for Hong Kong. Soon the demos became out-and-out riots, trashing our dear city. We saw all that with our own eyes. Burning subway stations, attacking mainland businesses, racist taunts at mainlanders. Horrid stuff. 

That brought on the Nation Security Law, which is the main cause of the problems identified by Stephen Roach above. 

On the plus side, Beijing's point man on Hong Kong, Xia Baolong has been in town and quoted as saying One Country Two Systems "will last forever". This is positive, given that it's otherwise due to expire in 2047. For day-to-day management by our own government and Common Law in our courts of law, 1C2S is key. To have a Senior Beijing official say so publicly is significant as he wouldn't say it without the most senior approvals in Beijing, including, I asssume, Xi Jinping.  /Snip:

The one country, two systems principle was one of 10 things that made Hong Kong different from mainland Chinese cities, Xia told the representatives, according to one attendee who asked not to be identified. Other distinguishing features were the city’s legal system, stock market, number of international banks and proficiency in English, the official was quoted as saying.

ADDED: The comments are mostly negative. 

Meantime, we hope that Roach's hope comes true: namely that he's wrong. 

“Chipping away in Hong Kong” | Wang Xiangwei

Click to enlarge and clarify 

Wang Xiangwei is right. 

I've talked of this before. The grotesque view of local officials bending the knee to Beijing when they don't need to. I've talked of "commie speak" by local functionaries. And I do know commie speak — I learned it at the end of cultural revolution Peking in 1976.

And back in the early days after the handover, it was local officials who asked for "interpretations" of our Basic Law, from Beijing’s National People's Congress. When they absolutely did not need to. And when Beijing made it pretty clear that they didn't want to be asked. But our apparatchiks did it anyway, Tung Chee-hwa, Donald Tsang and Carrie Lee, past chief executives. They all  kowtowed to China. Even when Beijing didn't ask them to.

The kowtowing continues and is worrying. 

Note how even Xi Jinping calls for Hong Kong to continue with One Country Two Systems. Yet it's Hong Kong officials making it less so.

Though, tbf, Washington doesn't help, by removing policies that have recognised Hong Kong's separation. 

Interesting how brutally critical Wang Xiangwei is, in this piece. Pretty straight. Pretty direct. 

They claimed they didn’t push for HK independence, but…

.. they lied, because they did. “Self-determination” = independence. 

And for that they brought the National Security Law down on us.

Thanks Pan-dems. Not

Taiwan: Do NOT press for “independence” — the status quo is fine!

"Independence": That was the real trigger in 2020, for Beijing to step in to Hong Kong with the National Security Law (NSL). 

After hotheads, mostly from the so-called "pan Dems", called for Hong Kong independence. We knew at the time that that was crossing a clear Red Line. But they didn't listen. Yet the pre-NSL status quo for Hong Kong would have been just fine. We had all our freedoms. Now, rather less….

Instead we now have the Chinese University of HK being upbraided for not adhering strongly enough to the NSL, and declaring itself "grateful" for the criticism. Sigh… 

Taiwan parties, and the U.S. must listen to what Beijing says. The status quo on Taiwan is fine for all parties. Stick to it.

Beijing is deadly serious. NO independence. Not even any calls for independence. No, non, nyet, 不要!

We should have listened to Putin, and his repeated, extremely clear, calls to stop the eastward expansion of NATO. Putin had designs of Ukraine anyway, part of his Soviet revanchism, but the U.S. push on NATO sure was a trigger.

So: DPP, listen to Beijing and be serious. NO calls for independence!

“Canadian and American pots call the Hong Kong kettle black” | Alex Lo

 

Online here

I clearly remember the invasion of our LegCo chamber by the mobs in 2019. How they trashed the chamber. 

The west and many here in Hong Kong — including many of our friends — cheered this on. A battle against the tyrants in Beijing. 

While we were thinking — this is crazy. It isn’t going to end well. And it didn’t: it gave us the National Security Law. 

Hong Kong gets hammered for jailing some of the vandals of LegCo. Jailed for some months or in some cases for a few years. Meantime the US regime cheers the jailing of January 6 protesters for 30 years. 30 years! Who did nothing more or less than the demonstrators in Hong Kong did. 

This is grossest hypocrisy. Hypocrisy: a better word for “Whataboutism”. Hypocrisy. 

So, again, I’m agreeing with Alex Lo. Weird, but there it is.

Oh Dear. Activists and democracy fighters now “rats in the street”

Today South China Morning Post 

Commie speak. Said by our Dear Leader in a town in the mainland, note. 

Comes from:

老鼠过街人人喊打. Lǎoshǔ guòjiē rén rén hǎn dǎ. "Rats running across the street, people yelling 'kill, kill'". 

Also note: no presumption of innocence. No saying "the alleged crimes" or "the alleged criminals". They're just RATS 🐀!

“4 former Demosisto members arrested” | SCMP

The arrests go on…

I remember when “Demosisto” was founded. And note: they were calling for Hong Kong “self-determination”. i.e. independence. That was their (very major) mistake.

“Rewards for wanted activists ‘send strong message’” | SCMP

“Strong message"? Sure. But of what? Sound national security concerns or authoritarianism?

Two of The Eight in Australia are: Ted Hui and Kevin Yam. There is no way they, or those in the US and Britain, are going to be given up and sent back to Hong Kong.

These activists show love for Hong Kong. I wish they’d show it by not calling for more sanctions on Hong Kong. That won’t help. It’ll only make it harder to hold in to the remaining freedoms we have — which are, by any standard, substantial. 

The garden of earthly delights

A memory of Tiananmen June 4 1989

The NED really IS the CIA!

I feel like a real chump about this National Endowment for Democracy. They were active during our year of demos and riots here in Hong Kong in 2019. But I assumed they were any old NGO. People told me they were CIA but I was dubious. I thought the riots would have taken place even without funding and training from outside. Which may well have been true. But they were most assuredly providing money and they most assuredly were training the young rioters. We had news of that at the time. 

But the also most assuredly are not just any old NGO, as I naively thought. They are the CIA. In the lingo, they are CIA “cutouts”. That is the separate and public face, but funded by the CIA.

Max Blumenthal of the Grayzone, gives chapter and verse here (~24 mins) he schools a NED staff member who doesn’t know as much about the outfit she works for as he does!

NED comments about Hong Kong after Beijing brought in the National Security Law, here. Looking at a few years down the line, it’s amazing arrogance. 

ADDED: The article by NED mentions Jimmy Lai. Founder and owner of Apple Media. Now in jail for subversion, the Apple Daily closed down. Bad news for press freedom, right? Well, yes, but…. At the height of the riots — which, by the way, Apple Daily stirred and stoked — Lai went to Taiwan and called for the United States to intervene, to come to the aid of Hong Kong. This was truly shocking. For Jing and me, at least. It was calling for another country, the United States no less, to intervene in the sovereignty of China. It left us breathless with its … what?… well, it’s stupidity, really. Stupidy, stupidy, stupidy. But it’s also treason, is it not? 

ADDED: the NED article says “..."East Turkistan, which the CCP refers to as Xinjiang...”, the equivalent of saying “Coahuila y Tejas, aka North Mexico, which the United States refers to as Texas”. Isn’t it?

I used to get the Apple Daily, sometimes, not daily. When I had a business here and was trying to change legislation on private schools, I wanted to write an op-ed, or letter to the editor, but found they don’t do that. It was a pretty lurid paper, tabloid, colour, with photos of the latest car crash on the front page, close-ups of bleeding bodies, and canto-pop chics on p.3. Pretty much ambulance chasing and flesh. So, not lamented, by me anyway. Though I do lament its closing, for impact on free speech and freedom of the press issues. What I say above about Jimmy Lai, is that he played a dangerous game. And one with a predictable outcome. 

Book Burning Hong Kong style

This is really depressing. Though also kind of irrelevant, coz Amazon. 

Still, not nice to think of dour communist appartchicks, skulking around libraries looking for books to burn. Anything on Tiananmen, June 4th, also the HK Riots of 2019 appears to be taboo. And also good old favourites like 1984 and Animal Farm. But also Lu Xun?? That’s like getting rid of Charles Dickens. 

Now it’s Foreign Policy by Vox Pop? | China and full-scale,war on Taiwan

A few random thoughts, since here in Hong Kong we’re right next to Taiwan, and worst-case scenario, it’s the flash point of a US-China war. An actual real war between two nuclear superpowers: 

1. We shouldn’t do Foreign Policy by Vox Pop. Just as we shouldn’t do Public Health Policy by Vox Pop. Consent is manufactured. China’s 71% who want to invade Taiwan have been groomed to think that, by a government with “sophisticated means to change public perception”. (Just as we in the west have been groomed in most of our cherished beliefs). Vanishingly few of these 71% would have looked at the geopolitics closely and made up their own minds that “attack Taiwan!” is the way to go.

2. Xi Jinping has pushed “reunification” since he came to power in 2012. He wants to go down in history as the man who “finally united China”. Even though Taiwan has never been a part of the PRC. Which is why I put “reunification” in quotes. It has been self-run for virtually all its history. And its people don’t want to be part of the PRC. Doesn’t the will of the people count?

3. America has reacted too forcefully to the Xi push; that has not been helpful. “Strategic ambiguity” has worked well for 70+ years. Kept the peace. Now, making the US position “clearer” — as the Biden administration has done — makes conflict and war more likely, not less.

4. Australia should not go along with the US line on this. We don’t have to. We should keep pushing/maintaining “strategic ambiguity”. 

5. Strategic Ambiguity worked well and continues to work well for the Korean Peninsula. It’s worked well for Taiwan. It worked well for us here in Hong Kong until 2019, when some hotheads got it into their minds that the way forward was to push for independence. Wrong. 

6. The most correct of the Vox Pop above are the 22% who think China and Taiwan should just keep on keeping on, each with its own system, and not going to war over them. Spot on! Nothing is perfect. This status quo is far better than a war with China. For everyone. For everyone. Far, far better. For everyone. 

“Running for office in U.K. helped me, a mainland immigrant, feel accepted by British society”

Click above for article. Comments like “try this in China!”

Meantime, here in Hong Kong it’s been rapid movement backwards on any public voting issue. Like for District Councils, now mostly appointed. We’d been moving towards universal suffrage for the DCs and also the whole of government. 

I took part in District Council elections as Campaign Manager. I could have put my own name forward if I’d wanted. But some hotheads got it into their minds that “good is not perfect”. And incremental is not fast. So demanded independence. Which led to the National Security Law and “Hong Kong run by patriots”. No more elected councils, no more me putting my hat in the ring. Well done, Freedom and Democracy fighters! Who, to this day, don’t admit their culpability. Sigh…. Yue Parkinson tells her story in Britain:

The experience of running for office in this month’s UK local elections was a profound and quick way to dispel a stereotype that had existed in my mind for many years – that the British look equal but are actually deeply racist. I was surprised and heartened to discover that the British electorate really did not care about my looks and accent.

Before I started canvassing, my biggest concern was my immigrant status and my accent. As soon as I opened my mouth, my strong Chinese accent showed I was a first-generation immigrant. Had I not been unexpectedly invited to stand for election, I would not have considered myself eligible to be a candidate for the local elections.

I have not experienced much racial discrimination in British society in the almost 20 years I have been here, something I have always found surprising and admirable in the progress of equality in the UK.

However, my interactions with the mothers of my children’s classmates have led me to believe that, in general, British people deliberately ignore my presence and don’t want to talk to me. I met other mothers every day when dropping off and picking up my children from primary school. It was not a comfortable experience; most deliberately ignored me. More …

“Not the good news” category: results from the 2019 movement

Until 2019, and the demos and the riots, Hong Kong as moving slowly towards universal suffrage for electing the Chief Executive.  But the “democracy movement” was too impatient. Perfection the enemy of the good. Too slow was too bad. 

And it’s  true what our current CE John Lee says above: factions were pushing for independence for Hong Kong. Although many of them denied it, even at the time. I know because I met with them and challenged them, and they denied, flatly to my face, that they were pushing for independence, when they had it in all their online messaging. And it was all their graffiti. 

And you only had to know the Beijing view of “Hong Kong independence” to know that this was kryptonite. Playing with the most dangerous fire. Beijing has always made it crystal clear. Independence is not on. Even talk of it is not on.  As the undisputed sovereign, they have the right to make that crystal clear.

And yet, and so, the teenage  “freedom fighters” — who, if we’re going to be charitable, were schooled so badly they had no idea of Beijing’s views on independence— fought for independence. Rioted for independence. Burnt train stations and mainland owned businesses for independence. 

And what we get is above. Less suffrage than we had in 2018. Less representation than we had before. Fewer freedoms than we had before. 

Way to go. Zoomers!

States of emergency

Click above for video

We have had a state of emergency here in Hong Kong for three years now. And the government is resistant to dropping it. On the face because of Covid. But also as “good” reason not to allow any public gatherings. Fear of 2019 rioting. 

Freddie Sayers, above right, is always a good interviewer. Talking to philosopher Matt Crawford.

Linking Covid, Climate Change, CRT, etc… all have "states of emergency” declarations in common.

Not making a song and dance — by making a *huge* song and dance | “Anthem-gate” redux

Not making a song and dance by making a huge song and dance. As above.

Turns out, as I suspected, that the outrage in Hong Kong over the playing of a 2019 HK protest song instead of China’s national anthem, at the Seoul rugby sevens, was all local Beijing loyalists. Super “patriots”. Beijing itself didn’t want to make a song and dance about it. Perhaps they are aware of the “Streisand effect”. Here, above, a whole page in the South China Morning Post today. Goodness.

It reminds me rather of the times back in the oughts and teens when Hong Kong officials, double-guessing Beijing’s views, sought “interpretations” of local laws from the National Peoples Congress in Beijing. Being holier than thou, our local officials. The “interpretations” weren’t demanded by Beijing. Yet later it was Beijing got hammered by the “freedom and democracy” crowd, for its being “Beijing interference”.

Claudia Mo Redux. Pushing for independence gets you in trouble

Claudia Mo, Hong Kong activist, now in jail, is the main item in today’s Financial Times article. Here. 

I wrote about Claudia Mo a couple of years ago. She did call for independence for Hong Kong, a silliness that was never on. If she’d had one jot of wit about what the tyrant to the north was all about, she would surely have known this. Which, regarding “independence” for Hong Kong, is not now, not then, not never, no not never, nay never, never never no more. Independence for Hong Kong? No. Never. Never no more. Ok?

That said, we had lots of freedoms here in HK. At least, until the Mo & Co pushed for independence, via “Hong Kong First”, via “Localism”, via “self-determination” (really??) and brought down on us all an entirely predictable backlash. The National Security Law of June 2021. For all of us. Thus, Claudia Mo is instrumental in crushing, for all of us, the freedoms we all had. (or at least some of them, for we remain a free and safe society).

Here is my letter to the editors re Claudia, which was published at the time. 

I don’t think she should be in jail. Leave it at that. Her views, celebrated by the Financial Times, her own, personal and rather dodgy views, have harmed all of Hong Kong. I say “dodgy” meaning her saying she’s against “mainlandisation”. If they were not also Han Chinese, that would be classic racism. As it is, it’s surely bigoted. Me, a foreigner, living here in Hong Kong as long as Ms Mo, thought that more Mandarin being spoken in Hong Kong was good. Because I speak Mandarin. Mo doesn’t like it. So she makes up stories about Chinese -- “mainlanders”! -- taking over Hong Kong, when all it was, was more mainlanders coming to Hong Kong, so we heard more Mandarin. To repeat: I think that Mo’s views, and those of her acolytes, are quite simply bigoted. Belted on to a demand for “democracy” to whitewash her horrid views. 

References: 

1.  Financial Times story, to get it without paywall, Google  "She was loved for standing up to China. She may die in jail” and try the link. Otherwise, the paywall version.

2.  My earlier post about Claudia Mo: “Protect the freedoms we already have, Claudia!”. February 2020

3. My letter, “Bigotry in the protest movement”. November 2019

ADDED: I don’t know Claudia, but I do know her husband, Philip Bowring. He was the editor of the Far Eastern Economic Review, back in the 1970s, when I was here as the Aussie Embassy point man for economic issues. Philip was on our list of folks to call on when in Hong Kong on official reporting duties. I like his writing, though lately he tends a bit far left for my tastes (the sort of leftism that got us the Beijing Backlash). Now, of course, I empathise with him. How does it feel, what’s to be done, when your wife is in the clutches of a horrid Beijing?