About farce
In its efforts to appear tough, there's a risk China will trip over its shoelaces, if it hasn't already – seriously angering Japan and making Taiwan a global cause célèbre.
President Tsai Ing-wen undertaking an inspection at Zuoying Naval Base. Official Photo by Wang Yu Ching: Office of the President.
We invoked the “Fourth Taiwan Strait Crisis” in the last ChinaDiction, but there’s been online bickering about this “crisis,” with some colorful reporting on Taiwanese dancing in parks and eating dumplings and noodles in droves.
Clear evidence that Taiwanese don’t care about “the crisis,” they don’t know about “the crisis,” or they’re 淡定 (dàndìng) – “unperturbed”/”calm” etc, as the Taiwanese press is putting it – with thanks to @shu_wang_gong for the tweet heads up on the latter.
The reason it didn’t feel like a military crisis in Taipei is because Taipei and the rest of urban Taiwan didn’t get invaded.
Good for ordinary Taiwanese, disappointing for some Chinese, reports the Financial Times (paywall).
At the weekend, Hu Xijin, former editor of nationalist tabloid Global Times, wrote on Twitter and Weibo that the PLA Air Force would be entitled to shoot down Pelosi’s plane if it approached Taiwan with US fighter escorts.
‘I waited until 1am last night to see our air force take down Pelosi’s plane,’ a Weibo user wrote on Wednesday. ‘All I could see is a repetition of harsh words from the Chinese government and random cannon fire financed by taxpayers’ money. So disappointing.’
But there was plenty of action at sea and in the heavens overhead, even if Beijing neglected to shoot down the US House Speaker, in a move that certainly would have hurt the feelings of the American people – even the ones who don’t like Pelosi.
In fact, as ChinaDiction noted on Thursday, the PLA managed to drop five missiles in Japan’s exclusive economic Zone, almost ensuring that Japan will be part of any intervention to stymie China’s military claims on Taiwan.
The Wall Street Journal reports (paywall)
The launches were part of exercises that simulated a blockade of Taiwan, and the inclusion of targets near Japan sent an unmistakable message, said Masahisa Sato, who heads the ruling Liberal Democratic Party’s foreign-affairs committee.
‘If you’re talking about surrounding Taiwan or imposing a blockade, of course in that case it means you’re bringing Japan into it as well,’ said Mr. Sato, a former army officer. China’s missiles have made it plain for the eye to see that our outlying islands and Taiwan are in the same war zone,’ he said.
Meanwhile, Taiwan's Ministry of Defense reported that by 5pm Friday there had been 68 sorties by Chinese military aircraft, and 13 sorties by Chinese warships across the Taiwan Strait Median Line.
As the Guardian reports, most of China’s drills will end today and in theory everything will be hunky dory by tomorrow (Monday), although FlightRadar24 was showing normal flight behavior over Taiwan at the time of publication (early Sunday evening, Taiwan time).
‘As long as there is no response and no accident, Beijing will feel as though it has demonstrated its displeasure and potentially deterred future high level visits of this kind,’ said a Lowy Institute analyst, Natasha Kassam …
… Kassam also thinks China is likely to be emboldened to operate much closer to Taiwan than before. But she says this week may also have backfired on it. “China’s aggression in the wake of Speaker Pelosi’s visit has shifted the status quo to some extent but it’s also drawn more international attention.”
Yes, “international attention.”
It’s been underway for more than a decade now, but with every China provocation and denial of service attack (metaphorically speaking), Taiwan becomes a bigger, greener “leaf” on the map.
It’s almost as if the CPC is actively re-branding Taiwan as a freedom-and-diversity icon simply by loudly advertising itself as resolutely opposed to freedom-and-diversity.
The ante has been upped. Sooner or later something has to give; otherwise all this tit-for-tat bluster and posturing will become farce.
And there’s a thin line between farce and tragedy, as Karl Marx might have said.
US military considers the ‘slow squeeze’
‘The Slow Squeeze’ does not refer to fitting the USSR Reagan and ancillary vessels provided by allied nations into the Taiwan Strait. Photo: US Department of Defense Current Photos
The US has undoubtedly been gaming how to counter a direct attack on Taiwan for decades, but, the New York Times reports (porous paywall), a more difficult issue may be how to deal with the “slow squeeze.”
In short, blockade: cut off all lifelines to Taiwan.
How that plays out …
… may soon be tested for the first time in a quarter of a century. China’s declaration during Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s visit that it would begin live-fire military exercises in six locations encircling the island could set up the largest crisis in the Taiwan Strait since 1996, when President Bill Clinton ordered American aircraft carriers to the area.
But those exercises were significantly farther from Taiwan’s shores than the series the Chinese government has warned mariners and aircraft that it plans. And it took place in a far more benign strategic environment, back when China’s entry into the global economy was supposed to modify its behavior, and when Mr. Clinton would tell Chinese students that the spread of the internet would foster freedom and dissent. It was also when China’s military packed a fraction of the punch it now boasts, including anti-ship missiles developed to deter American warships from getting close.
It’s all about chips really
Yes, it’s a Russian chip from 2007, we think, but it’s a cool chip pic. Photo: Milandr, WikiCommons.
Bloomberg reports on the latest US efforts to boost its own chipmaking capacity and curtail China’s chipmaking reach.
That involves a $52 billion federal program to boost chipmaking capabilities.
One caveat.
Companies that receive the funding have to promise not to increase their production of advanced chips in China.
It’s a condition that will certainly add to escalating tensions between Washington and Beijing. The curbs will hit companies like Intel Corp. and Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co, leading chipmakers that have tried to build their businesses in China. TSMC won’t be able to substantially upgrade or expand its existing facilities, effectively losing some growth opportunities in the world’s biggest semiconductor market.
Specifically, the Chips and Science Act bars companies that get federal funding from materially expanding production of chips more advanced than 28-nanometers in China -- or a country of concern like Russia -- for 10 years. While 28-nanometer chips are several generations behind the most cutting-edge semiconductors available now, they are still used in a wide range of products including cars and smartphones. The ban covers both logic and memory chips.
Meanwhile, the New York Times, in what we have to admit is almost entirely another story, has an interesting think piece on largely failed US attempts to squeeze China out of its tech infrastructure.
Technology will no longer be an American near-monopoly, as it has been for the past half-century, and the U.S. needs to figure out and execute plans to help it benefit from global technology developments while preserving America’s safety and innovation. But the story of Chinese equipment shows we have a long way to go.
Some U.S. officials believe that the continued use of gear from Huawei and ZTE is a grave threat to America’s national security. Other policy experts that I’ve spoken to say that it presents a negligible risk and that it might not be worth trying to remove all the equipment right away.
What’s clear is that the U.S. said the Chinese technology ban was urgent and then failed to make it stick.
If there’s a message here, it’s that China and the US are in a race to be chip-independent, and success will likely be elusive for both of them.
Beach lockdown
Trust us; it’s really not that good when you get there. Photo: Dale_Preston.
A surge of cases in China’s beach resort city of Sanya, Hainan Island, has made it the nation’s latest virus hotspot, according to Bloomberg, trapping tens of thousands of holiday makers.
The city in the southern province of Hainan – often called the ‘Hawaii of China’ [presumably by people who have never been to Hawaii] – reported 107 new infections since noon Thursday, according to CCTV. That takes the total number of cases since Monday to more than 140. Officials say the flareup is driven by the BA.5.1.3 omicron subvariant, which hasn’t been found in China before.
At the time of writing, it appeared that all of Hainan had gone into lockdown, with many vacationers forced to quarantine in expensive five-star hotels at a 50% discount on the un-discounted come-visit-Hainan holiday prices – at least if the views in this Twitter thread can be trusted.
If nothing else, it’s yet another reminder that China is not messing around with zero covid and presumably the policy will be around for as long as subvariant waves sweep the globe.
The Greater Sinosphere
Hong Kong
Scrape and Mao
Legislator Eunice Yung Hoi-yan, center, has severed ties with her father-in-law to ‘firmly safeguard national sovereignty.’ Photo: The Stand News.
The South China Morning Post reports:
A Hong Kong politician has severed ties with her father-in-law after he was accused of subversion by authorities for proposing the creation of a parliament-in-exile, saying it was her responsibility to ‘firmly safeguard national sovereignty.’
In an advertisement placed in a local newspaper on Friday, legislator Eunice Yung Hoi-yan described herself as ‘a Chinese with the blood of the great motherland’ and said she had cut ties with Elmer Yuen Gong-yi, who was among three activists sought by local authorities on Wednesday after they called for the founding of a ‘Hong Kong parliament.’
Taiwan
Somebody, fire this man …
China’s Foreign Minister had yet more to say:
It’s like pub-level, spittle-on-the-tie, rambling slurs by a man whose day-job, unfortunately, is international diplomacy.
China goes nuts for Taiwan Shanxi sliced noodles
OK, so that’s sliced noodles with dongpo pork, not beef, which Taiwan is famed for. Photo: Peachyeung316, WikiCommons.
Chinese-language Mirror Media reports that Baidu Maps and AutoNavi maps now have maps of Taiwan that are "accurate to traffic lights" – and to shops and restaurants.
It’s the Shanxi daoxiaomian (刀削麵, dāoxiāomiàn) that has sparked Chinese “netizens’” interest, at one point causing Baidu to crash due to the number of searches for Taiwan noodle venues.
Yup, because if you’re going to claim an independent country as your inalienable territory, count up how many restaurants it has that serve variations of your regional cuisines .
Tibet
Yes, Nancy Pelosi met with Taiwan President Tsai Ing-wen, but she also met with other “sorts” unwanted in glorious, peacefully ascendent China.
Writes the New York Times:
The speaker went to Taiwan’s National Human Rights Museum, where she met with a group of activists and civil society leaders China views as a rogues’ gallery. They included a former Tiananmen protest student leader, a former political prisoner in China, a Tibetan activist and a Hong Kong bookseller.
Kalsang Gyaltsen, the Tibetan activist, said those at the meeting had told Ms. Pelosi of China’s deteriorating human rights situation and received support. “Discussing human rights in Taiwan is the biggest slap to a country like China that lacks human rights,” he said.
Let’s also not forget that Pelosi visited Tibet’s government in exile in Dharamsala in northern India in 2008, eliciting a stream of “we will bludgeon your pets to death on the streets and weld you into your homes” invective from a livid Beijing.
Nothing happened. But Nancy got to hold hands with the Dalai Lama, which everybody secretly wants to do at least once in their lives
Coda
Bring on the clowns
What better way to put a rocket under tourism in Asia’s World City.