“Abandon illusions and prepare to fight!”
That is the advice Mao Zedong gave to the
Communist Party in a speech in August 1949, in response to the then Secretary
of State, Dean Acheson’s report on US-China relations to President Truman. The
report was aimed at absolving Washington of responsibility for the collapse of
the KMT regime on the mainland, but also dashed any hope of developing any
relations with the new republic founded a month later.
After almost 70 years and arduous efforts
of generations of statesmen on both sides, we are now witnessing an 800 billion
US dollars trade flow of goods and services across the Pacific between the two
largest and greatest economies in the world, in addition to sharing a range of
common interests between the two countries from denuclearization of the
Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK) to combating the climate
change.
Yet, such a critical relationship, in fact,
the most important relationship of the 21st century, is now in danger of being
put on Donald Trump’s mercantilist altar as a sacrifice. The sneaky signage of
the Taiwan Travel Act on a Friday night appears to be just a tip of the iceberg
of a potential wave of actions coming from the White House, not really meant to
advance and protect the so-called “democracy” in Taiwan, but merely as a bargaining
chip in Washington’s haggling over the trade imbalance issue with
Beijing.
US President Donald Trump walks on the
South Lawn towards the White House after arriving on Marine One in Washington,
DC, US, on Wednesday, March 14, 2018. /VCG Photo
But they are playing with fire. I would say
to those China hawks in the White House, in the Senate, and in the Congress,
who think that somehow it is possible to dance around America’s One-China
policy, which, not coincidentally, has been upheld by every single
administration since establishing diplomatic relations with China. Unlike the
trade money on the table, the Taiwan issue is just not negotiable.
Some political analysts argue that this Act
only encourages more US official travels and contacts with the Taiwan
authorities; it does not mandate it. And the administration does have some room
to control its actual implementation without impairing the One-China policy. To
refute this, I only need to remind them of how the 1996 Taiwan Strait crisis
was started, with the then Taiwan leader Lee Teng-hui’s so-called unofficial
visit to Cornell University. Back then, missiles were literally flying over the
skies of Taipei.
In 1949, Mao Zedong’s response to the
Acheson report was swift and resolute. In a succession of five articles, he
pointed out the “illusions some Chinese still harbored about the US, recounting
the history and ultimate failure of American aggression against China, and
dissecting the misperceptions, failures, and confusions plaguing American
policy.”
Today, this line of thinking still enjoys a
broad audience in China’s various political factions, and Mao’s warning could
easily be the rallying slogan against America’s ill-fated strategy, the
calamity of which I wonder if is even within Washington strategists’
calculation.
A night view of Kaohsiung, Taiwan on April
4, 2016. /VCG Photo
The famed China Lobby in the 1940s,
composed of the offspring of many missionary families in China, was at least
sincere and passionate about Chiang Kai-shek as a perceived symbol of American
ideals in a land far away. Yet, today’s Taiwan Lobby, thanks to Taiwan
authorities’ checkbook diplomacy in Washington DC, is merely a mercenary
hodgepodge of people, from the far right to the far left, who have no real
concerns over the well-being of the Taiwanese people, but who merely see it as
a bargaining trip in its dealing with China.
So to those who are still dreaming in
Taiwan, I say the same: “Abandon illusions and prepare to fight!”
The game of playing Washington against
China is not going to go far. The more the US puts China into a corner, the
more China puts Taiwan authorities into a hole. In the end, Taiwanese
authorities are not likely to gain anything meaningful for its people. If one
plays with fire, it will get fire.
Dr. John Gong is a research fellow at
Charhar Institute and professor at the University of International Business and
Economics.
Source:CGTN