BEIJING: The situation across the Taiwan Strait has seemed to be on the brink of crisis since 2018.
Beijing has sent numerous sorties of military aircraft to conduct exercises near Taiwan and frequently crossed the median line of the Taiwan Strait.
It has been rumoured that the mainland is considering seizing Taiwan’s outlying islands, suggesting that it is increasingly eager to take Taiwan by force.
With the exception of missile exercises during Taiwan’s first direct presidential election in 1996, Beijing has historically been restrained in its military intimidation, choosing to vent its anger through rhetoric or symbolic sanctions.
WHY CHINA APPEARS MORE ASSERTIVE?
Its recent assertiveness is best explained by its rising military power status and stronger expressions of motivation for reunification.
Improved amphibious warfare and anti-access or area denial capabilities mean the military balance is tipping in the mainland’s favour over Taiwan and the United States.
With increasing national strength, the Chinese leadership believes that continuing to adopt softer policies as it had in the past may give the impression of weakness to both domestic and foreign audiences.
Unlike his predecessors, Chinese President Xi Jinping has demonstrated greater intensity in the desire for reunification.
The report of the 19th National Congress of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) in 2017 demonstrated this enthusiasm, announcing the “great rejuvenation” of the Chinese nation needs to be achieved by 2049, and that the reunification of China is a condition for that.
DOMESTIC POLITICAL COST
But the mainland unlikely has any intention to pursue reunification by force anytime soon.
A Taiwanese coast guard looks at a sand-dredging ship with a Chinese flag in the waters off the Taiwan-controlled Matsu Islands, Jan 28, 2021. (Photo: REUTERS/Ann Wang)
One reason is that the domestic political risks are high if the use of force is not successful.
Victory is not yet a forgone conclusion — having prepared for conflict with the mainland for decades, Taiwan has toughened its ability to defend itself. Taiwan’s will is strong. Polls show that 80 per cent of Taiwanese people are willing to defend the island by force.
In the context of the 20th Party Congress in 2022 in particular, Xi needs a stable domestic political environment to ensure the extension of his term as General Secretary of the CCP.
Brinkmanship towards an incursion may risk domestic stability, provoke public discontent and stir backlash that could scuttle his leadership.
OTHER OPTIONS REMAIN
There are still other options for reunification.
Some in China suggest that the possibility of peaceful reunification has not yet been completely lost, and that Taiwan can be corralled into reunification through the so-called “Beiping model”.
This model is based on 1949 CCP negotiations with the Kuomintang garrison to take over Beiping, now Beijing, without bloodshed, and it could be a cost-effective option to take the outlying islands of Taiwan.
Anti-landing spikes on Taiwan's Kinmen islands, which lie just 3.2km from the mainland China coast. (Photo: AFP/Sam Yeh)
China faces the risk that, if it uses force, the United States might extend full military support to Taiwan, in which case China would end up paying an unpredictable cost to achieve its goal.
China is still the weaker party in the power dynamic and, while the economic gap between the two is great, military, technology and financial gaps are greater still.
INCURRING US’ WRATH
Though some in the United States are wavering on the issue of Taiwan’s defence, the country is unlikely to abandon Taiwan — doing so would mean an embarrassing lapse in security commitments and an unbearable loss of international leadership.
Professor Graham Allison once said that the United States and China are more likely to fight a nuclear war over Taiwan than over any other place.
Even if it decides not to send troops to Taiwan, the United States and its allies can effectively isolate China economically, diplomatically and militarily, just as China experienced from the 1950s to the 1970s.
Violating norms against aggression and coercion by force would make China a pariah in the international community and prevent it from achieving its modernisation goals by mid-century.
Beijing also lacks a convenient excuse to use force.
Far weaker in military terms, Taiwan dare not declare independence and can only maintain the status quo.
Meanwhile, the mainland’s legal provisions are vague and can be interpreted flexibly.
Article 8 of the Anti-Secession Law stipulates that the mainland may take non-peaceful measures if Taiwan were to “secede from China in any name or by any means, or if a major event occurs that will cause Taiwan to secede from China, or if the possibility of peaceful reunification is completely lost”.
China has ramped up pressure on Taiwan since the election of Tsai Ing-wen as president, as she does not acknowledge Beijing's stance that the island is part of 'One China' AFP/Sam Yeh
Besides an explicit declaration of independence, it is unclear what actions this covers.
Does diplomatic recognition of Taiwan by the United States count as a “major event”? And what are the criteria for the loss of peaceful reunification possibilities? In this ambiguity the mainland has room to manoeuvre on the issue of when to launch an offensive.
Given the limitations, reunification by force is still not an option for China, and Beijing has no choice but to bide its time.
Force could be considered as an option only when China’s national power significantly exceeds that of the United States, the international community is limited in its collective motivation to push back, and there is greater certainty in physically winning the war and retaining the island.
In the meantime, the mainland will continue to use grey-zone tactics, which are a better alternative to a military strike, and probe ways to subdue the island without fighting.
And perhaps, at some future tipping point, Taiwan may consider accepting a Beiping-type model to avoid an impending use of force by the mainland.
Cui Lei is a Research Fellow at the China Institute of International Studies, This commentary first appeared on East Asia Forum. Read it here.
WASHINGTON: A US intelligence report made public Friday (Feb 26) said that Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman - a key figure in the US-Saudi relationship - "approved" the gruesome murder of dissident journalist Jamal Khashoggi.
The prince, who is de facto ruler of Saudi Arabia and due to take over from the ailing King Salman, "approved an operation in Istanbul, Turkey to capture or kill Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi," the report said.
The intelligence report said that given Prince Mohammed's influence, it was "highly unlikely" that the 2018 murder could have taken place without his green light. The killing also fit a pattern of "the Crown Prince's support for using violent measures to silence dissidents abroad."
Khashoggi, a critic of Prince Mohammed who wrote for The Washington Post and was a US resident, was lured to the Saudi consulate in Istanbul in October 2018, then killed and cut into pieces.
Washington is widely expected to impose new sanctions on Saudis seen as connected to the prince - although not directly against Prince Mohammed himself. He has broadly accepted Saudi Arabia's responsibility but denies any personal involvement.
US President Joe Biden ordered a declassified version of the report - first completed under his predecessor Donald Trump - to be released as part of a reset in which Washington is distancing itself from Prince Mohammed.
This comes on the heels of a first phone call between Biden and King Salman late Thursday, when the White House made clear that Biden had no intention of speaking to the 35-year-old crown prince.
The White House said that Biden and the 85-year-old king emphasized the countries' security ties and "the US commitment to help Saudi Arabia defend its territory as it faces attacks from Iranian-aligned groups."
However, in a shift from the Trump era, Biden also "affirmed the importance the United States places on universal human rights and the rule of law."
A veteran Saudi journalist and editor, Khashoggi was in self-exile and residing in the United States, writing articles critical of the crown prince when he was assassinated on Oct 2, 2018.
The writer had been told by Saudi Arabia's ambassador to the United States to go to the Saudi consulate in Istanbul if he wanted to obtain documents for his forthcoming marriage to a Turkish woman, Hatice Cengiz.
There, the 59-year-old was killed and his body dismembered by a team sent from Riyadh under the direction of a top aide to Prince Mohammed, Saud al-Qahtani.
Just one month after the murder, the US Central Intelligence Agency concluded with high confidence that Prince Mohammed had ordered the assassination, according to The Washington Post.
But, determined to maintain strong relations with Riyadh, Trump refused to publicly hold the Saudi strongman responsible, even as the US government demanded the perpetrators be punished.
The published intelligence report asserts that the 15 people sent to target Khashoggi in Turkey included members of Prince Mohammed's "elite personal protective detail," the Rapid Intervention Force.
According to The Washington Post, US intelligence also discovered a phone call from Prince Mohammed to his brother Khalid bin Salman, the Saudi ambassador to the United States, in which Prince Mohammed gave instructions for luring Khashoggi to Istanbul.
Another piece of evidence was a recording of the murder obtained by Turkish intelligence from inside the Istanbul consulate. This helped identify the participants and showed communications between them and Riyadh.
Few observers of Saudi Arabia believe the murder could have taken place without the knowledge of Prince Mohammed, a calculating strongman who has jailed a number of critics and locked up competing factions in the royal family.
Under heavy pressure from the United States and the international community, the Saudi government put some of the perpetrators on trial.
The closed-door trial exonerated the two officials widely seen as the masterminds: Qahtani, the royal court's media adviser, and deputy intelligence chief Ahmad al-Assiri. Both are part of Prince Mohammed's inner circle.
Five unnamed defendants were sentenced to death and three others given stiff prison terms. Nine months later, the death sentences were withdrawn by the court and replaced with sentences of up to 20 years.
Amnesty International and Reporters Without Borders both branded the case a "parody of justice."
But it assuaged the Trump administration, whose main action was to place 17 suspects in the case, including Qahtani but not Assiri, on its sanctions blacklist.
YANGON: Myanmar security forces cracked down on anti-coup protesters in the country's second-largest city on Friday (Feb 26), injuring at least three people, two of whom were shot in the chest by rubber bullets and another who suffered a wound on his leg.
Protesters had gathered on a wide road outside a park in Mandalay in the early afternoon when security forces arrived and began firing what sounded like gunshots and using flash bang grenades to disperse the crowd.
Bullets, shell casings and other projectiles were later found by local residents on one of the main streets and shown to journalists.
The victims were all taken to a private clinic for treatment. One of the men who was shot in the chest with a rubber bullet also had a white bandage wrapped around his head. The man with an injured leg was later photographed in a cast that stretched from his foot to his knee.
An injured protester receives medical treatment during a demonstration against the military coup in Mandalay, Myanmar, Feb 26, 2021. (Photo: AP)
A protester show bullets, shotgun shells and rubber bullets used by security forces during a demonstration against the military coup in Mandalay, Myanmar, Feb 26, 2021. (Photo: AP)
The confrontations underscore the rising tensions between a growing popular revolt and the generals who toppled the elected government of Aung San Suu Kyi in a Feb 1 takeover that shocked the international community and reversed years of slow progress toward democracy.
Also on Friday, a Japanese journalist covering a separate protest in Yangon, the country's largest city, was detained by police and later released, according to Japan's Kyodo news agency.
Yuki Kitazumi could be seen in a video circulating among media as police seized him, with one of the officers briefly putting a truncheon around the journalist's neck.
Earlier in the day, security forces in Yangon fired warning shots and beat truncheons against their shields while moving to disperse more than 1,000 anti-coup protesters.
The demonstrators had gathered in front of a popular shopping mall, holding placards and chanting slogans denouncing the Feb 1 coup even as the security presence increased and a water-cannon truck was brought to the area.
When around 50 riot police moved against the protesters, warning shots could be heard, and at least one demonstrator was held by officers. Security forces chased the protesters off the main road and continued to pursue them in the nearby lanes, as some ducked into houses to hide.
Protesters take part in a demonstration against the military coup in Yangon on Feb 26, 2021. (Photo: AFP/Ye Aung Thu)
Security forces blocking a main road in Myaynigone, Yangon in Myanmar on Feb 26, 2021. (Photo: Naung Kham)
On Thursday, supporters of Myanmar's junta attacked people protesting the military government, using slingshots, iron rods and knives to injure several of them. Photos and videos posted on social media showed groups attacking people in downtown Yangon as police stood by without intervening.
The violence erupted as hundreds marched in support of the coup. They carried banners in English with the slogans "We Stand With Our Defence Services" and “We Stand With State Administration Council", which is the official name of the junta.
A military supporter points a sharp object as he confronts pro-democracy protesters during a military support rally in Yangon, Myanmar, Feb 25, 2021. (Photo: REUTERS/Stringer)
Late Thursday, police turned out in force in Yangon's Tarmwe neighborhood where they tried to clear the streets of residents protesting the military’s appointment of a new administrator for one ward. Several arrests were made as people scattered in front of riot police who used flash bang grenades to disperse the crowd.
No pro-military rally appeared to be scheduled for Friday.
Aung San Suu Kyi has not been seen since the coup. Around 50 of her supporters held a prayer on Friday opposite her home in Yangon. The mansion is where she spent many years under house arrest during previous military governments, and the residence has long had iconic status among her supporters.
Buddhists pray outside Aung San Suu Kyi's residence in Yangon on Feb 26, 2021. (Photo: AP)
A Buddhist prays outside Aung San Suu Kyi's residence in Yangon on Feb 26, 2021. (Photo: AP)
"Because of the situation, on this day of the full moon we are sending love to, and reciting Buddha's teachings for Mother Suu, President U Win Myint and all those unlawfully detained," said Hmuu Sitt yan Naing, who joined the prayer group.
It is believed Aung San Suu Kyi is currently being detained in the capital Naypyidaw. She is due to face a court on Monday on charges brought against her by the military junta. The charges are widely seen as politically motivated.
Security forces blocking a main road in Myaynigone, Yangon in Myanmar on Feb 26, 2021. (Photo: Naung Kham)
Protesters near the Singapore embassy in Yangon, Myanmar on Feb 26, 2021. (Photo: Naung Kham)
Protesters hold up the three finger salute during a demonstration against the military coup in Yangon on Feb 26, 2021.
(Photo: AFP/Sai Aung Main)
YANGON: Myanmar security forces cracked down on anti-coup protesters in the country's second-largest city on Friday (Feb 26), injuring at least three people, two of whom were shot in the chest by rubber bullets and another who suffered a wound on his leg.
Protesters had gathered on a wide road outside a park in Mandalay in the early afternoon when security forces arrived and began firing what sounded like gunshots and using flash bang grenades to disperse the crowd.
Bullets, shell casings and other projectiles were later found by local residents on one of the main streets and shown to journalists.
The victims were all taken to a private clinic for treatment. One of the men who was shot in the chest with a rubber bullet also had a white bandage wrapped around his head. The man with an injured leg was later photographed in a cast that stretched from his foot to his knee.
An injured protester receives medical treatment during a demonstration against the military coup in Mandalay, Myanmar, Feb 26, 2021. (Photo: AP)
A protester show bullets, shotgun shells and rubber bullets used by security forces during a demonstration against the military coup in Mandalay, Myanmar, Feb 26, 2021. (Photo: AP)
The confrontations underscore the rising tensions between a growing popular revolt and the generals who toppled the elected government of Aung San Suu Kyi in a Feb 1 takeover that shocked the international community and reversed years of slow progress toward democracy.
Also on Friday, a Japanese journalist covering a separate protest in Yangon, the country's largest city, was detained by police and later released, according to Japan's Kyodo news agency.
Yuki Kitazumi could be seen in a video circulating among media as police seized him, with one of the officers briefly putting a truncheon around the journalist's neck.
Earlier in the day, security forces in Yangon fired warning shots and beat truncheons against their shields while moving to disperse more than 1,000 anti-coup protesters.
The demonstrators had gathered in front of a popular shopping mall, holding placards and chanting slogans denouncing the Feb 1 coup even as the security presence increased and a water-cannon truck was brought to the area.
When around 50 riot police moved against the protesters, warning shots could be heard, and at least one demonstrator was held by officers. Security forces chased the protesters off the main road and continued to pursue them in the nearby lanes, as some ducked into houses to hide.
Protesters take part in a demonstration against the military coup in Yangon on Feb 26, 2021. (Photo: AFP/Ye Aung Thu)
Security forces blocking a main road in Myaynigone, Yangon in Myanmar on Feb 26, 2021. (Photo: Naung Kham)
On Thursday, supporters of Myanmar's junta attacked people protesting the military government, using slingshots, iron rods and knives to injure several of them. Photos and videos posted on social media showed groups attacking people in downtown Yangon as police stood by without intervening.
The violence erupted as hundreds marched in support of the coup. They carried banners in English with the slogans "We Stand With Our Defence Services" and “We Stand With State Administration Council", which is the official name of the junta.
A military supporter points a sharp object as he confronts pro-democracy protesters during a military support rally in Yangon, Myanmar, Feb 25, 2021. (Photo: REUTERS/Stringer)
Late Thursday, police turned out in force in Yangon's Tarmwe neighborhood where they tried to clear the streets of residents protesting the military’s appointment of a new administrator for one ward. Several arrests were made as people scattered in front of riot police who used flash bang grenades to disperse the crowd.
No pro-military rally appeared to be scheduled for Friday.
Aung San Suu Kyi has not been seen since the coup. Around 50 of her supporters held a prayer on Friday opposite her home in Yangon. The mansion is where she spent many years under house arrest during previous military governments, and the residence has long had iconic status among her supporters.
Buddhists pray outside Aung San Suu Kyi's residence in Yangon on Feb 26, 2021. (Photo: AP)
A Buddhist prays outside Aung San Suu Kyi's residence in Yangon on Feb 26, 2021. (Photo: AP)
"Because of the situation, on this day of the full moon we are sending love to, and reciting Buddha's teachings for Mother Suu, President U Win Myint and all those unlawfully detained," said Hmuu Sitt yan Naing, who joined the prayer group.
It is believed Aung San Suu Kyi is currently being detained in the capital Naypyidaw. She is due to face a court on Monday on charges brought against her by the military junta. The charges are widely seen as politically motivated.
Security forces blocking a main road in Myaynigone, Yangon in Myanmar on Feb 26, 2021. (Photo: Naung Kham)
Protesters near the Singapore embassy in Yangon, Myanmar on Feb 26, 2021. (Photo: Naung Kham)
Protesters hold up the three finger salute during a demonstration against the military coup in Yangon on Feb 26, 2021.
(Photo: AFP/Sai Aung Main)
TOKYO: Myanmar police released a Japanese freelance journalist on Friday (Feb 26) after briefly detaining him during a protest in the commercial capital of Yangon, Radio Free Asia showed in a livestream on Facebook.
The arrest of Yuki Kitazumi, who runs a media production company in the city and used to be a journalist with the Nikkei business daily, was the first detention of a foreign reporter since the Feb 1 military coup.
"Thanks very much to all my friends. I'm OK. I'm safe," said Kitazumi after leaving the police station in the city's Sanchaung district.
Earlier, Japan said one of its nationals in his 40s had been detained by Myanmar security police in Yangon, without giving details.
Police in Myanmar did not immediately return calls to seek comment.
Myanmar has been roiled by protests for weeks since the army seized power from elected leader Aung San Suu Kyi and detained her and most of her government.
Kitazumi briefly became the second foreigner known to have been detained since the coup, after Australian academic Sean Turnell, an adviser to Suu Kyi on economic reforms, was arrested on Feb 6. Turnell remains under arrest.
In 2007, another Japanese journalist covering protests in Myanmar, Kenji Nagai, was shot dead at point-blank range, when the army fired on protesters during Saffron Revolution protests led by Buddhist monks.
RAISING VOICES
Kitazumi's company produces video content, from news to movie trailers, and trains journalists with emphasis on free speech, his company says on its website.
His Myanmar colleague Linn Nyan Htun told Reuters Kitazumi writes political and business news for major Japanese media.
"When I listen to the young people taking part in the demonstrations, they say 'Yes, I'm scared, but if we don't raise our voices to say that we're scared, we'll have to live in fear our entire lives,'" Kitazumi said in a recent post on Facebook.
Kitazumi is a member of the Kaigai Kakibito Club of Japanese journalists and interpreters working overseas.
In July, the club's blog carried an interview with Kitazumi in which he said he had also directed a short comedy film titled One Bowl of Mohinga, a traditional breakfast dish in Myanmar.
Kitazumi has also had parts in movies in Myanmar, the blog said, posting a picture of him acting.
He told the blog he moved to Myanmar to cover the 2015 general elections, the country's first free polls in decades, won by Aung San Suu Kyi's National League for Democracy party in a landslide.
Kitazumi left the Nikkei in 2012 after having worked as a reporter from 2001, a representative of the paper said.
"Amidst the fear that this kind of thing is happening and this kind of thing could happen to them, people are raising their voices," said Kitazumi, posting a video of the arrest of a woman on Facebook.
"They're fighting today so that this kind of thing won't happen again, so they can live a future of peace."
TOKYO: The Japanese government is looking to end a state of emergency in all but Tokyo and three neighbouring prefectures at the end of this month, a week earlier than scheduled, the minister in charge of coronavirus countermeasures said on Friday.
Emergency coronavirus measures will be removed in Osaka, Kyoto, Hyogo, Aichi, Gifu and Fukuoka prefectures if an advisory panel approves the government's proposal.
Japan placed 11 of its 47 prefectures under a state of emergency in January as a third wave of the COVID-19 pandemic swept the nation. One of those prefectures, Tochigi, has already emerged early from the emergency restrictions.
Coronavirus infections have fallen significantly since peaking in early January, including in the capital, Tokyo, which is due to host the Summer Olympic Games from late July. The government is hoping to lift the state of emergency in the remaining four prefectures as planned on Mar 7.
"We are at a stage where we cannot let the state of emergency drag on in the Greater Tokyo metropolitan area," Economy Minister Yasutoshi Nishimura, who oversees the government's coronavirus response, said at the start of the meeting with the advisory panel.
Japan has recorded about 426,000 coronavirus cases and 7,645 deaths as of Feb 24, according to the health ministry.
