China’s chances of successfully invading Taiwan anytime soon look slim. Military and logistic challenges aside, there are daunting social and political problems. For example, in a country of one-child families, every dead Mainland soldier means the end of his parents’ lineage. But even if they managed it – what then? Lowy Institute paper by Richard McGregor and Jude Blanchette on how Beijing would try to run the place…
Beijing’s thinking on Taiwan has shifted decisively from peaceful accommodation to absorptive control. As Taiwanese identity and democracy have become entrenched, Xi Jinping’s unification terms have hardened, demanding full political integration rather than offering genuine autonomy. Drawing on PRC academic and policy literature, this paper finds that Chinese scholars see a form of phased subjugation for the island: an immediate security crackdown neutralising political opponents; institutional restructuring beyond what has taken place in Hong Kong; and a decades-long psychological re-engineering project so Taiwanese come to identify with the CCP’s China. Millions of Taiwanese would be excluded from public life and many current political leaders would be jailed.
Yet PRC thinking on integration is riddled with unresolved contradictions. Autonomy without credible guarantees generates no trust; coercion achieves stability but not legitimacy; economic integration cannot substitute for consent. Beijing understands the scale of the challenge it would face — governing a consolidated democracy against its will — but remains ideologically constrained from resolving it.
…these writings reveal persistent anxieties about legitimacy and capacity, and the long-term sustainability of rule over a society that has developed outside the PRC’s political orbit for more than seven decades.
…To many PRC experts, a core challenge is Taiwan’s democratic political identity and its shaping over decades outside the PRC’s ideological system. As a result, resistance is expected to persist even after formal sovereignty transfer, particularly among younger generations, civil society networks, and professionals. Taiwan’s thicket of institutions — including media outlets, social organisations, professional associations, and local governments — is seen as providing fertile ground for covert or indirect forms of opposition. Taiwan’s international connectivity is also expected to sustain external attention and support for dissent.
Speaking of decades-long psychological re-engineering projects – a HKFP op-ed on the latest Hong Kong government publicity campaign…
…It seems we are urged to “Pro-actively align with the 15th five-year plan” and “Follow a holistic approach to development and security”.
I hesitate to criticise the work of other writers, but I cannot resist the thought that the author of this offering needs to give some thought to finding the sort of language which means something concrete and sensible to the man in the street, who is rarely told to proactively align with anything, or indeed to follow a holistic approach to it.
Most English people of my generation are not bowled over by the idea of five-year plans. This is partly because rigid adherence to erroneous five-year plans caused two of the 20th century’s most catastrophic famines: in Ukraine in 1932-33 and in China in 1958-62.
…it is far from clear what the average Hong Kong person can do to further the doubtless laudable aims of the national plan.
At a quick first glance, I misread the headline as “How China plans to ruin Taiwan”.
If Taiwan adopted its own Second Amendment with Chinese characteristics and encouraged its population to arm itself, that would definitely put a stick in the spokes of the CCP’s post-invasion plans to subjugate the ROC.
@ Eye Care
No, you didn’t misread.
Re 5 Year Plan, the role of Joe Public is to look the other way while swathes of rules and regulation are flaunted and manipulted in order to deliver what is percieved as the desired HK contribution.
As to Lowy Institute and PRC difficulties because of embedding of democracy into Taiwan, should not be forgotten that democracy has only recently come to Taiwan.
On my first visit to Taiwan, in 1986, when I was leaving my well connected host only got to the perimemter of the airport with some difficulty. I was checked everywhere I went, and each escalator had two imposing soldiers at the top and two more at the bottom. Why?
Some opposotion figure (name long forgotten by me) had announced he was going to fly back (from Hong Kong).
Plus the comments about legitimacy are irrelevant. As my muother used to say “possession is nine tenths of the law”.
If you doubt, look around, starting with Hong Kong.
If Xi instructs the PLA to invade Taiwan, the only way Taiwan can survive is to fight, hard.
Mind you President Xi may look at the actions of the mango moron. He Xi will have to decide whether Taiwan is Venezuela or Iran.
If it comes to pass, I expect the CCP will use the Xinjiang playbook, which probably won’t work quite so effectively against a population that speaks mandarin already.
Note to Arthur: “Starship Troopers” was a satire (and a pretty brilliant one), which a fair number of credulous viewers seem to have missed, and Mel Gibson’s “Patriot” presented exactly the kind of fun house mirror version of the American Revolution that you’d expect from a right wing Australian. So you should work to wean yourself of these John Wayne fantasies. The Second Amendment was the second biggest mistake the US founders made, right behind appeasing the enslavers.
All these discussions of how difficult it would be to invade Taiwan fail to answer a nagging question I have had. What’s to stop them from working with the KMT to engineer a bloodless coup? Promise the KMT permanent power, privileges and riches, manipulate an election, manufacture a crisis, suspend the constitution, jail the opposition, order Taiwan’s military to stand down, and welcome in the PLA, all without getting into a shooting war. Maybe despite evidence to the contrary, the KMT isn’t stupid enough to take that deal but as they become increasingly unelectable, it’s got to look more and more tempting.
Olease do not jumpt to the bait and engage with steve, its like oxygen to a moron.
What’s up, Mary? Guns are the US’s most persistent and lethal epidemic.
As for Taiwan, yes, resist by whatever means necessary. But insurgencies are really, really hard. (And I’m afraid of how plausible why not a coup’s scenario might be.)
@Mary Melville: How is “The Second Amendment was the second biggest mistake the US founders made, right behind appeasing the enslavers.” bait and oxygen to a moron??? Makes damned fine sense to me.
And where are all those “Don’t tread on me”, 2A stalwarts now that the Cheeto has been chipping away at everyone’s rights and sending a new Gestapo running around with no constraints or knowledge of that sacred “constitution”??
@netizen the J6 Gadsden Flag stalwarts joined the new Gestapo, methinks
Mea culpa. I made reference to the incorrect poster in the frequent tit for tat exchanges.