Why China has a P5 seat, and Japan is unlikely to!

Opinion: Why China is in the Security Council and Japan is Not

By Ian Williams
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Ian Williams is Senior Analyst, Foreign Policy in Focus and columnist for the Tribune, and who recently completed a new edition of The U.N. for Beginners

UNITED NATIONS, Sep 23 2015 (IPS) - Will Tokyo’s bid for a permanent seat on the U.N. Security Council be frustrated by its Foreign Ministry’s undiplomatic and uncalled for attack on U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki Moon?

Japan’s attempt certainly will not be helped by the Japanese Foreign Ministry official who complained sniffily that the world body “should take a neutral position on events that focus mostly on the past” and expressed “strong displeasure” at Ban’s attendance in Beijing for the 70th Anniversary of the end of the Second World War.

The churlish rebuff, with overtones of anti-Korean sentiment came just as the issue of reforming the Security Council is having a periodic upsurge of interest in this 70th session of the United Nations. It is of course no accident that the 70th Anniversary of the U.N. coincides with the 70th Anniversary of the end of the War. It was World War Two that gave birth to and shaped the United Nations, which is why China is on the Security Council and Japan is not.

But the U.N. Charter is about controlling inter-state aggression of the kind that the defeated nations in the Second World War indisputably started. Japan invaded its neighbors, not the other way round, and in general its occupations were brutal, despite the rhetoric about co-prosperity.

The U.N. is not neutral, it was an organization founded to defeat the Axis powers, particularly Germany and Japan and that is explicit in the U.N. Charter still. Although Poland moved a pious resolution in the General Assembly after the reunification of Germany declaring that the “enemy states” clause in the U.N. Charter no longer applies, the clause is still in the Charter – and the unrepentant attitude from the Abe administration is calculated to remind the Chinese, and indeed the Russians that because of the war they have a veto on all reform proposals.

Certainly, Poland realized that the reunified Germany was not the same country as in 1939 and was expediently magnanimous in its declaration. One can hardly imagine either of the Koreas emulating that with Japan, which had to be pressured by the other members of the Council to vote in the end for the Korean Secretary General to make it unanimous.

There is no end of skeptical comments one can make about the seventieth anniversary of Axis defeats. Historically, maybe Ban should have gone to the Chiang Kai Shek memorial in Taiwan – or the Republic of China as Beijing prefers they call themselves! It was after all the ROC not the PRC that was the official combatant and final victor in the war and which was accordingly granted a seat on the Security Council.

But then it was the USSR and not Russia that won a permanent seat and did so much to defeat the Nazis that we, as much as Moscow, tend to overlook the Stalin Hitler pact just before. Each of the victors has skeletons in their cupboards, from the massacre of Polish officers at Katyn Wood to Dresden and Hiroshima.

After 70 years, it is indisputably time to reform the Security Council, but it is also indisputable that the permanent five have a veto on that process and that many other members have mutually contradictory plans for how to reform it. It is highly likely that the Japanese comments have given ammunition to those hostile to its bid for a permanent seat.

There are in fact very good reasons, for justice and efficiency, not to expand the number of permanent seats on the council. Many countries have braved the displeasure of big neighbors who are candidates to say so, and to demand that at best the contestants be eligible for re-election or to have a longer mandate. The likely result is a stalemate in the reform process and Tokyo’s intemperate response has made that outcome even more likely. Chinese hostility and potential veto make the other reform proposals.

Speaking before the Beijing parade, Ban’s office said he “believes that it is important to reflect on the past, look at the lessons we have learned and how we can move ahead to a brighter future based on these lessons.” Shinzo Abe should have drawn some lessons. He would have been better accompanying his former colleague Tomiichi Murayama to Beijing and reinforcing his historic apology for the war in 1995 in Beijing.

The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily represent the views of, and should not be attributed to, IPS – Inter Press Service.

Happy Birthday Dear China.

Greater China
Oct 2, 2009 Asia Times


The night Zhou was drunk under the table
By Ian Williams (the one with the long hair and beard)

As we approached the 60th anniversary on Thursday of Mao Zedong's declaration that the "Chinese people have stood up," I trawled through the memories of my time in China straddling 1970 and 1971, and found, with all the accuracy of retrospective prophesy, that there were more auguries of the current China than one might suspect.

Although my putative memoirs would be called "I was a Teenage Maoist", by the time I landed in Beijing I was a callow 21-year-old, a month older than the People's Republic. In fact, Zhou Enlai, the first premier, from 1949 until his death in 1976, repeated to us his dictum that it was too early to tell whether or not the French Revolution had been a success, let alone China's. Forty years later, I wonder what Zhou, one of the more sophisticated and cosmopolitan of the Chinese leaders, but nonetheless a devoted communist, would have made of present-day China.



I was part of a delegation from an obscure British party that enjoyed unprecedented access to the Chinese leadership, including a drinking competition with Zhou - and a very risky argument about literature with Mao's wife, Jiang Qing, who had, after all, instituted the Cultural Revolution (1966-1976) by demonizing all but a tiny group of writers and artists. It was so long ago that even the Chinese used the old Wade-Giles Romanization system for the Mandarin language. We were in Peking (Beijing), and read the Peking Review every week. In fact, our visit featured in it.

Our sessions with the Chinese cadres were often like negotiations, conducted over innumerable cigarettes and a constant flow of tea. The idea was that whoever called for a bathroom break was conceding the field of battle. Sadly for Chinese pride, our side had been brought up on a diet of gallons of tea and bitter beer and had formidable resistance to such diuretics.

Even at the time, I had a sense of bewilderment at the relative isolation from the world outside, of the top leadership. They provided us with a daily English press summary of world affairs and the difficulties of a binary view of the world became apparent. For example, Pakistan was an ally of China, therefore it was socialist and progressive - which the Pakistanis themselves would hardly claim, while social-democratic governments, like the British Labour Party, were reactionary and capitalist to the core.

As for our visit: I suspect that Zhou had hoped that it would provide information and encouragement for his planned opening to the West. We were there before British premier Edward Heath, or former secretary of state Henry Kissinger and president Richard Nixon from the United States. Indeed, as almost the only gweilos (foreigners) in town, we could attract crowds just by peering in a shop window. In those far-off days, my hair was red, which was almost like having eyes on green stalks for some people. However, enlisting us as a resource for global realpolitik confirms the naivety of their approach.

We were a sectarian groupuscule with fewer members nationally than the Chinese Communist Party's Central Committee. Our contact with the working political system in Britain was minimal and our knowledge of other countries tended to be based on contacts with equally out-of-touch groups. It would be nice to think that we changed the course of history, but there is absolutely no basis for thinking so. Our input probably pointed in the opposite direction to what they did. When we asked why they did not walk in and take Hong Kong, which was then ruled by Britain, Zhou suggested it was better to lessen the economic disparities between the two sides first.

Despite their own sectarian squabbles, despite the Cultural Revolution, the Chinese were at least dealing with some aspects of the real world. For example, they had built a state-of-the-art metro system in Beijing. Even though it was as yet unopened, Zhou took us for a ride on it, which tangentially introduced yet another paradox.

They told us, with almost schoolboyish glee at their boldness, that they were calling the metro station for Tiananmen Square "Zhuxi [Chairman] Station." It was a paradox even then, that in the midst of history's biggest-ever personality cult, no physical location was named after Mao, let alone any of the other revolutionary personalities. I can only presume that it was intended as a gesture of superiority to the Soviet proclivity for churning out city names in honor of top people.

This saved a lot of sign-painting during the various rectification campaigns, the Cultural Revolution and its aftermath. Not many of the leadership stayed in power throughout.

Apart from Zhou, we met the full Gang of Four - Jiang Qing and her close associates, Zhang Chunqiao, Yao Wenyuan and Wang Hongwen - but we noticed the omissions. Lin Biao, the powerful military commander who rose to political prominence in the Cultural Revolution and whose picture and introduction was at the front of hundreds of millions of Little Red Books, was absent in name and person. In a seamen's club in Shanghai, I noticed a book on sale by Chen Boda, Mao's personal secretary. Our minders immediately took it out the case and said it was too old and faded to sell.

Our party chairman, Reg Birch, an old communist trade unionist, asked to meet his old chum, Kang Sheng. They brought along his wife instead, explaining that the head of the security and intelligence apparatus was indisposed. In fact, along with Chen Boda, it now seems as if he, and indeed Lin Biao, were at that time in the process of being purged.

Lin shortly afterwards died in a plane crash. Kang resurfaced long enough to ensure that the People's Republic put its weight behind Pol Pot and the Khmer Rouge. In retrospect, I am glad I never had to shake his hand. Kang was posthumously accused of sharing responsibility (with the Gang of Four) for the Cultural Revolution. The Gang of Four had effectively controlled the power organs of the Communist Party through the latter stages of the Cultural Revolution.

In contrast with all the mass campaigns and circus antics of the Cultural Revolution, which resulted in widespread social and political upheaval and and economic disarray, these purges were being conducted in secrecy with no word of them leaking out from the leadership.

A case in point was a bizarre Christmas feast with an elderly American couple, old-style communists who had moved to China and taken up citizenship and party membership. They were brought out because they knew several of the delegation, who had asked about them.

The turkey dinner was odd in several ways. The couple were Jewish for a start, and although our Chinese hosts were trying to be hospitable with the seasonal bird, they obviously found something alien about the idea of cooking an intact animal: it came as a sort of turkey construction kit, disassembled, cooked and then reassembled. As for the couple, it was only many years later that I heard that their goose had been well and truly cooked. They were languishing in prison, brought out and dusted off for us, and then returned afterwards. But nothing they said gave any of us any grounds for suspicion.

The full Gang of Four came along to join Zhou for talks and a banquet on New Year's Eve. Jiang Qing stood out in a sea of nondescript cotton Mao suits. The still striking woman, who had reduced the repertoire of a huge nation to a handful of revolutionary Beijing operas, one ballet, the Red Detachment of Women, and pretty much one classical sonata, flounced in, every inch the imperial consort. The former actress' cotton greatcoat was draped around her shoulders like a cape, and she carried herself like an imperial consort.

When she discovered that I had been studying English literature, she immediately pronounced that Charlotte Bronte's Jane Eyre and Charles Dickens' Hard Times were the only two English proletarian novels. Even as I blurted out a negative, I was thinking hard. I saw the rest of the senior leadership of the party withdraw a little in expectation of the thunderbolt to come. Jane Eyre was clearly a bit too close to home. A governess who marries the boss had too much resonance with the career of a Shanghai starlet who married the chairman. I concentrated on Hard Times, pointing out that its hero was in fact a strikebreaker - a traitor to his class in Marxist terms.

Through narrowed eyes, Jiang delivered her ultimate riposte, "You have long hair. It makes you look like a girl." There was a barely concealed sigh of relief around the table. At least it was not "Off with his head!" or "Counter-revolutionary scum".

The evening, after a banquet fit for an emperor, ended with drinks for us and Zhou and his entourage. The Gang of Four did not, as I remember, hang around. It became a drinking match, with shots of mao tai, the ferocious-smelling sorghum-based overproof liquor that had become the official drink of the party.

As the youngest there, but already with a reputation as a determined drinker, I was moved forward as the champion on going glass-for-glass with Zhou, a man with an iron constitution. But I saw how he stayed ahead. He only drank half his, while I was drinking the lot. Even so, he gave up first, as I remember - allowing for the fact that after large amounts of the stuff, memories can be unreliable.

Despite the Moscow-style purges going on behind the wainscoting, economically, China's development was more balanced than that of the Soviets. We could go on a pub crawl through the streets of Beijing, pijui - beer, being one of the early accessions to our Mandarin vocabulary and although, for example, cotton was rationed, consumer goods seemed in adequate supply. In the covered market, locals looked superior as Aeroflot pilots came rushing through stocking up on things from soap to razor blades to tomatoes that the Soviets' heavy industrial base couldn't provide.

The variety of cigarettes, from coffin nails to the crush-proof packs of the most expensive brands, has always made me wonder about the role of tobacco in industrialization - selling the peasants highly profitable cigarettes was a financially painless way of raising state funds compared with expropriation. The other aspect was the amount of collective entrepreneurial activity that was taking place, even after years of disruption from the Cultural Revolution, which had not officially finished by then.

For example, in the countryside, communes were making cement boats for sale, while in Shanghai we visited a back-street factory that was etching silicon chips - almost state-of-the-art at the time. Even then, I remember wondering about the flue that vented the hydrofluoric acid fumes from the process onto the street. In a microchip, it encapsulated the future environmental problems of reckless development, even as it demonstrated the entrepreneurial urges that Deng Xiaoping was later to unleash.

I returned to Britain puzzled. The Cultural Revolution had not visibly destroyed the economy, as was sometimes claimed. But it was difficult to know what it was all about. It was bad enough when party leaders were denounced for esoteric sins of culture and ideology during the Cultural Revolution, but these silent purges and behind-the-scenes disappearances reduced the struggles to personalities and power-plays. Mao himself seems to have been playing off the leaders against each other.

So perhaps that was the twin legacy of the first 20 years. It developed the ground for the upsurge of economic activity in which China seems not only to have stood up but appears to be racing ahead. But it also has left the Communist Party totally committed to clinging onto power, without much in the way of ideology, while its leadership changes behind closed doors, with only the faintest pretence of consulting the masses. And by all accounts, party leaders at every level are still fond of banquets and mao tai.

Ian Williams is the author of Deserter: Bush's War on Military Families, Veterans and His Past, Nation Books, New York.

(Copyright 2009 Asia Times Online (Holdings) Ltd. All rights reserved. Please contact us about sales, syndication and republishing.)

Let's Make a Deal - PRC and the Dalai Lama

Comment is Free -the Guardian 11 April
Ian Williams

It's absurd to claim the Olympics are not political. They are clearly designed to showcase the host country - and its government. No one knows which party will be in government in Whitehall for the London Olympics, but very few doubted which regime would be in charge in Beijing when the international Olympic committee picked it as the venue for this year's games.

It was equally clear that there were many interest groups eager to use China's concern that no one rained on its big parade to get leverage. The Olympic committee itself secured commitments on freedom of expression for the press, and NGO pressure has already secured weakening of China's support for Sudan. Watch out for similar processes and protest if Beijing protégé Robert Mugabe tries to hang on in Harare.

But over Tibet, Beijing is missing a serious opportunity. The Dalai Lama has made it clear all along that he would cut a deal with Beijing short of independence - which is not necessarily true of younger Tibetan activists suffering under Chinese occupation tactics. However, the Dalai Lama has enough clout to swing a compromise.

He is, after all, no longer young. In fact he is older than the People's Republic itself. Technically, when he dies, he enters the Celestial Olympic relay race. The monks in Tibet will go on their cross-country run to see into which newborn his soul has sprinted. At the risk of violating the new strictures from the UN human rights council on disrespecting religions, I may say that I doubt this myself.

Indeed even the Dalai Lama himself seems agnostic on the question, since he has been suggesting elections and similar un-heavenly ways of appointing a successor. The atheists in Beijing indignantly condemned any hint that reincarnation was not the way to go, waving the Book of the Dead with the fervour with which they once brandished Mao's Little Red Book.

Of course, some Chinese and their apologists claim that the Chinese occupation freed the Tibetans from religious obscurity and backwardness. They may even have a point. But then the British claimed to be rescuing Ireland from the backwardness of obscurantist papism - but forgot to ask the Irish about it. China is making the same mistake, and flooding the Himalayas with Han settlers is unlikely to help.

It is in the nature of totalitarian thought processes that they do not have to connect the dots between their dicta. If the Dalai Lama is a living, divine reincarnation, then they really should talk to the one they have now. He is urbane, reasonable and pragmatic by most quasi-divine standards,

When he dies, there will almost certainly be a schism: one effectively nominated by the Commissars, and another by the Tibetan Diaspora. The "Chinese" one will be rather young and inexperienced by definition, not to mention somewhat tainted by Beijing's hand in the selection, while the exterior one, if elected, would lack the traditional authority.

The existing Dalai Lama could accept a Hong Kong-style deal, albeit with real autonomy, in return for a Chinese flag and token garrison in Lhasa. Beijing allows Hong Kong to control the admission of other Chinese citizens, even though they share an ethnicity and languages. Tibet, and indeed the Uyghurs in Xinxiang should have the same privilege of controlling immigration. Hong Kong has its own representative offices around the world. Of course one presumes that the Tibetans want no sunset clause on their autonomy and democratic elections - which would give Beijing good reason to control the border to stop the infection spreading.

It would certainly be cheaper than the PRC's costs to maintain the occupation, which brings no economic return for the occupiers.

The alternative is that eventually China will have to accept that sovereignty is not a divine mandate from heaven, but derives from the consent of the government, and that Beijing's behaviour in Tibet is boosting the calls for independence. History proves that denying a people a say in their future reinforces their demands.

Time to talk to the Dalai Lama.

Ian Williams on the Taiwan elections

Interview on WBAI, AsiaPacific Forum

click to download

China and the Democracy Thing

This is my reply to Yu Bin, whose reply to me strikes me as somewhat evasive. The thousand Chinese Missiles and the explicit threat to invade if Taiwan does not do what it is told are what we commonly call an ultimatum in the rest of the world.

Taiwan's Right to a State

Ian Williams | November 8, 2007

Editor: John Feffer

www.fpif.org

Yu Bin takes as axiomatic that Taiwan has no right to independence, regardless of the views of its people, although he admits that they are overwhelmingly in favor of it. Indeed, in his view Taiwan appears to be a metaphysical construct sundered from its own people. "Ultimately, Taiwan is cheating Washington, as well as the rest of the world -- all, ironically, in the name of democracy. One wonders if a democracy should be held to a higher, not lower, ethical standard," he said. Since when has implementing what people probably want been "cheating"?

The analogy he makes between North Korea and Taiwan had some relevance 30 years but contemporary reality strains it to breaking point. The only serious threat to the Kim regime in North Korea is its own spectacular economic incompetence, which is a necessary consequence of its idiosyncratic totalitarianism. South Korea's worse nightmare would be to inherit responsibility for the bankrupt North, even though both sides express nominal aspiration for unification.

However the differences are more salient than the superficial similarities. While Beijing maintains official state relations with Pyongyang in as normal a fashion as possible for such a regime, Washington bows to Beijing's pressure and extremely limited inter-state relations with Taiwan. As I said, this does pose serious problems, by sending the wrong message to the hawks in the People’s Republic of China (PRC) and depriving Washington of influence in Taiwan.

Yu Bin claims that "North Korea strives for substance (survival and security), while Taiwan is obsessed with superficiality (self-identity and self-righteousness)." However, he also asserts, "Nor should it be interpreted that the Mainland is not prepared militarily in the event of crisis," which is clearly a matter of some objective substance compared with the paranoia of Pyongyang. A thousand PRC missiles pointing across the Straits toward its "compatriots" in Taiwan and the anti-secession Act "legalizing" military action against the island are hardly "superficial" issues.

Taiwan has abandoned the revanchist claims to the Mainland of the Republic of China (ROC). In the peculiar looking-glass view of the PRC, this means that the island's government is threatening stability in the region. History is generally more logical: it is the deliverer of ultimata rather than the recipient that threatens stability. In fact Taiwan's renunciation of the nuclear option is highly commendable and restrained in the circumstances.

It is not provocative to hold views different from the government of China, where even peaceful "secessionist activities," are treated as active treason. Just consider how unlikely it would be for a British or Canadian government to send troops to prevent a democratically mandated secession by Scotland or Quebec. In fact a British claim to Ireland based on a much longer occupation has more credibility than China's title to Taiwan but London wisely refrains from making it. In the modern world, countries do not annex territories against the will of the inhabitants.

Regardless, Yu Bin claims, "An independent Taiwan is unacceptable to any regime on the mainland, be it traditional, communist, or democratic." This is hypothetical since in stark contrast to Taiwan there is no mechanism to ascertain the views of the mainland Chinese. As I pointed out in my original piece, if Mao Zedong could envisage self-determination for Taiwan, and the Chinese Soviet Republic constitution could guarantee it for minorities, then so can any future regime in Beijing.

In contrast, while Taiwan's government is obviously playing to the gallery of public opinion with its referendum on the UN application, it will also unequivocally establish for the international community, not least that part of which professes democratic values and the right to self-determination, the will of the Taiwanese population, which Yu Bin admits is overwhelmingly against reunification.

He refers to desinification as a nefarious policy, which is a peculiarly PRC view. It is perfectly possible for countries to share languages and cultures but to form different polities, as the Austrians and the Germans, Spain and most of Latin America, and Britain, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, and even the United States so eloquently demonstrate. The Taiwanese government is certainly emphasizing the distinctive aspects of the island's life such as the indigenous tribes. In fact, one Kuomintang (KMT) official claimed that the emphasis on protecting and emphasizing tribal culture was the result of seeing the official policy toward minorities in the PRC. Singapore's overwhelmingly Chinese culture does not mandate annexation by Beijing.

"A more peaceful and mutually beneficial compromise on the Taiwan issue remains wide open," says Yu Bin. It takes two to compromise. Anything that does not leave Taiwan with effective recognition as a state will not be acceptable to the Taiwanese voters. If China could accept as a face-saver even as exiguous a relationship as, say the British queen as head of state of New Zealand, that could work. But the PRC's insistence on inheriting the mandate of heaven that the Manchus had is at odds with its own history and with modern democratic practice.

There is little doubt that many in the Bush administration would like to throw Taiwan to the wolves, in order to court China's cooperation in the way he suggests. But politically, at home and with its allies in the region, the administration cannot and in fact should not abandon its commitment to Taiwan.

Ian Williams contributes frequently to Foreign Policy In Focus (www.fpif.org) on UN and international affairs. More of his work is available on www.deadlinepundit.blogspot.com.


For More Information

This strategic dialogue consists of two original pieces -- Yu Bin's America's Rogue Ally and Ian Williams's Support Taiwan's Democracy -- and two responses, this one and Yu Bin's Making Democracy Safe for the World.

Nominal Imperialism

Guardian Comment is Free on the use and abuse of foreign names in English.

Chinese veto wrong - like the US's

A quote to put the Chinese veto in perspective... from IPS and the Asia Times

"Taking a different perspective, Ian William, w says that even though there is no justification for China to use its veto to protect a universally condemned regime, he sees a parallel in the United States using its own veto to protect its ally Israel over the last decades.

Since the fall of the Soviet Union, Williams told IPS, Washington has been adding annually to its veto total and will soon outrun the former USSR's tally of "Nyets".

China is doing itself no favors in using its vetoes for issues like Sudan and Burma, which are surely peripheral to its national interests, and Beijing seems to be realizing that it is getting close to calls for boycott of next year's Olympics, which would be an additional blow to its prestige.

"But it is understandable that it should want to emulate its number one debtor, the United States which has devalued the veto by using it for resolutions which often actually reflect longstanding U.S. policy on Israel, over settlements, Jerusalem and so on," noted Williams.

Ironically, it is that same support for Israel which has caused the United States to disregard its own innovation, the "Uniting For Peace" procedure by which issues stuck in the Security Council could be taken up by the General Assembly.

Williams said the United States invented it during the Korean War -- but declared it non-binding after Palestine invoked it to bypass "unreasonable" U.S. vetoes in the Council.

"In Kosovo, in Sudan, in Bosnia, the procedure could have been used to save lives, but Washington has effectively disarmed the United Nations in order to protect Israeli -- not U.S. -- interests," added Williams, who also writes for the Nation."

full article

ASEAN Backs Neither U.S. nor China over Burma
Sat, 2007-10-06 12:59

By Thalif Deen - Inter Press Service

United Nations, 06 Octeber, (IPS): The 10-member Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), of which Burma (Myanmar) is a member, is refusing to see eye-to-eye either with the United States or China on how the international community should deal with the ongoing crisis in the politically-troubled military-run country.

Speaking as chair of ASEAN, Ambassador Vanu Gopala Menon of Singapore told the Security Council Friday the military repression in Burma "cannot just be an internal matter" -- a view diametrically opposed to that of China.

At the same time, he said, he can understand the impulse to punish unacceptable behavior, even though ASEAN should not rule this out.

"But we have to pause to consider dispassionately what the real impact of additional sanctions will be?" he asked, expressing skepticism over a proposed move by the United States and Western nations to impose mandatory sanctions on Burma as a punishment for its repression.

"How will they affect a regime that is only tangentially connected to the rest of the world? Will they help or hinder the U.N.'s role?" he asked. "And what is their impact on the people of Myanmar?"

U.S. Ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad told delegates his country has already "imposed sanctions on the regime to encourage it to make further progress."

If there was no such progress, he warned, "the United States would call for Security Council sanctions. It was time for the Council to do more than simply listen to a briefing."

Last week, nine of the 10 foreign ministers of ASEAN -- representing Malaysia, Indonesia, Singapore, Thailand, the Philippines, Brunei, Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia -- expressed "revulsion over reports that the protests (in the streets of Burma) were being suppressed by violence."

Burma was the only ASEAN member to skip that meeting, which took place in the sidelines of the U.N. General Assembly sessions in New York.

Ambassador U Kyaw Tint Swe, the permanent representative of Burma to the United Nations, said he was made to understand that Menon's statement was "not on behalf of ASEAN" -- a claim denied by Singapore.

But he stressed that despite the "recent tragic events, the situation in Myanmar is not a threat to either regional or international peace or security."

He expressed his country's deep appreciation to members of the Security Council -- namely Russia and China, whom he did not name -- for taking that position.

"I would therefore like to call on the Security Council to refrain from any action that would be detrimental to the good offices role of the secretary-general mandated by the General Assembly," he added.

The U.N. secretary-general's special adviser on Myanmar, Ambassador Ibrahim Gambari, returned to New York Thursday after a brief visit to the country.

He said his visit was short, but ideally, the next time around he would like "stay as long as possible and meet all the people I want to meet."

Gambari said a return visit -- possibly in mid-November -- should help sustain the momentum and not allow it to slip by. He also told reporters that China and India, along with ASEAN, could be "critically important" in helping resolve the crisis in Burma.

"We are working closely with them," said Gambari, who called for a time-bound and serious dialogue for national reconciliation.

Last week, an unnamed Indian official was quoted as saying: "We are not the only democracy that works with generals," as he made a veiled criticism of the United States, which has been a close ally of General Pervez Musharraf of Pakistan.

India, which has close economic and military ties to Burma, has taken a less critical view of events in that country.

U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon told the Security Council he was "deeply concerned" about the recent events in Myanmar and the reports of continued human rights violations.

"I must reiterate that the use of force against peaceful demonstrators is abhorrent and unacceptable," he said.

"A united Security Council could play an important role in support of the ongoing efforts of the United Nations," he added.

The Security Council, however, remains divided, with China and Russia, two veto-wielding permanent members, taking the position that the events in Burma do not constitute a threat to international peace and security.

Last week, the Council was also unable to reach consensus on a proposed presidential statement expressing concerns over the killings in Burma because of opposition from China.

The traditional Chinese party line is that the demonstrations and killings in the military-run country were a "domestic" problem warranting no international condemnation or U.N. sanctions.

Yvonne Terlingen, head of Amnesty International's Office at the United Nations, said Friday the Security Council must press for drastic change in "Myanmar's appalling human rights policies and keep the human rights situation under close and constant review as resolving the human rights crisis is key to addressing peace and security and advancing national reconciliation in Myanmar."

"The Council must also ensure that those responsible for human rights violations are held accountable and that the Myanmar authorities deal with the country's longstanding human rights concerns, which have helped fuel the recent crisis," she added.

Last January, both China and Russia exercised their vetoes to block a U.S.-sponsored draft resolution calling for an end to political repression and human rights violations in Burma.

Ambassador Wang Guangya of China argued then -- as he did Friday -- that the problems facing Burma are "basically internal". "No international-imposed solution can help the situation," he told reporters. "We want the government there to handle this issue."

If the United States pushes for sanctions against Burma, China is expected to use its veto once again to protect a neighboring country with which it has strong political, economic and military interests.

A longstanding U.N. observer told IPS that Western oil companies such as Chevron and Total have a major stake in Burma's big gas fields, the financial mainstay of the military junta.

"So, the story is not just about brutal Chinese policy vs enlightened U.S. policy," he said. "The cynical maneuvers in these cases are revolting, as great powers seek their geopolitical interests, never the authentic defence of human rights."

Taking a different perspective, Ian William, who covers the United Nations for several international publications including the London Guardian, says that even though there is no justification for China to use its veto to protect a universally condemned regime, he sees a parallel in the United States using its own veto to protect its ally Israel over the last decades.

Since the fall of the Soviet Union, Williams told IPS, Washington has been adding annually to its veto total and will soon outrun the former USSR's tally of "Nyets".

China is doing itself no favors in using its vetoes for issues like Sudan and Burma, which are surely peripheral to its national interests, and Beijing seems to be realizing that it is getting close to calls for boycott of next year's Olympics, which would be an additional blow to its prestige.

"But it is understandable that it should want to emulate its number one debtor, the United States which has devalued the veto by using it for resolutions which often actually reflect longstanding U.S. policy on Israel, over settlements, Jerusalem and so on," noted Williams.

Ironically, it is that same support for Israel which has caused the United States to disregard its own innovation, the "Uniting For Peace" procedure by which issues stuck in the Security Council could be taken up by the General Assembly.

Williams said the United States invented it during the Korean War -- but declared it non-binding after Palestine invoked it to bypass "unreasonable" U.S. vetoes in the Council.

"In Kosovo, in Sudan, in Bosnia, the procedure could have been used to save lives, but Washington has effectively disarmed the United Nations in order to protect Israeli -- not U.S. -- interests," added Williams, who also writes for the Nation.

- Inter Press Service (IPS) News Agency

Sporting Chances for Burma?

China's Olympic workout

The Beijing Games next year may prove to be China's Achilles heel - if human rights groups can hit it.

Full text of Comment is Free
October 1, 2007 11:00 AM | Printable version

The UN general assembly and the Olympics may not seem that connected, but there are similarities. The latter is an official occasion for global peace and harmony to which almost every country in the world sends its national team to compete ferociously with others and whip up varying degrees of nationalist fervour at home.

Last week's meeting of the general assembly was no different, although we did miss Hugo Chavez's attempt to expand President Bush's reading material beyond the Pet Goat. There was something quite athletic about how different delegations raced up the aisles in the competitive walkout stakes to make sure that a row of empty seats greeted whoever the demon of the day was as he took the rostrum. The sprint was definitely the race that the original Olympians, the Greeks, won to protest the omission of (Former Yugoslav Republic of) from Macedonia's title.

The Cuban foreign minister's articulate and, sad to say, factually based (if somewhat one-sided) verbal assault on Bush, in reply to the latter's attack on Castro, played a nice counterpart to the orotundly obscure style of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. In fact the puzzled expressions of the Iranian and American presidents almost had me thinking they were competing for the Mad Magazine Alfred E Neuman "What, Me Worry?" gold medal. (Bush wins on quotes.)

But the Iranian did actually put himself forward for the press - as long as they were not from the Israeli team. Bush may be somewhat challenged, but he knows his limitations enough to avoid unchoreographed and unscripted press conferences.

It may have been my early years as a conductor on football trains, but I've always been very dubious of the idea that sport and peace go hand in hand. Even apart from the personal experience of trying to fend off scores of rabid fans after someone's blood, sport's track record of promoting harmony does not impress. It is not just the fans - think of the football war of 1969. The Olympics has not been much better.

Indeed totalitarianism and the track seem much more closely related. From Hitler in 1936 - and it would have been held in Tokyo in 1940 if throwing javelins had not been overshadowed by firing shells - right on to Beijing, tough regimes love sport. Just look at the gymnastic splendour of a Kim Jong Il birthday party, the inhumane training regime of the East Germans.

At least one thing that can be said about the major American sports, baseball and the American version of football, is that since few other countries play them at a serious level, they are not really the occasions for xenophobic competitiveness on a grand scale. It seems like archetypal American isolationism that they have a baseball World Series just for themselves.

But the Beijing Olympics offers a genuine opportunity for peace. The Chinese are so concerned about urination on their 2008 parade that human rights organisations and governments that support human rights (and even those like Bush's that pretend to do so) have a rare but serious opportunity to get the Chinese onside. The Taiwanese know this - that's why they are staging their referendum on UN membership early in the New Year - not long before the Olympics.

From Darfur to Rangoon, there are definite signals that roguish states that have benefited from Chinese diplomatic protection are feeling a little chilly. The more calls there are for boycotts, the less likely Beijing is to go out on a limb for its mass murdering friends.

Human rights supporters should keep talking boycotts, and they may even put some truth in the rumours of a responsibility to protect that the UN general assembly voted for in 2005, with none against. China seems to have forgotten that principle - that mass murders by governments are a threat to international peace and security that demand United Nations action.

Catch a cadre by the toe: Olympic opportunities for dealing with China

Olympic possibilities for Burma? in Comment is Free

China, Taiwan, Penguins and Munich - full text

Bullying and diplomacy - full text

By giving in to China's aggression towards Taiwan, the US risks repeating Margaret Thatcher's mistakes over the Falklands - with far more at stake than sheep and penguins.
Ian Williams

September 17, 2007 8:30 PM

Last week I got a personal taste of Beijing's diplomacy. Their mission to the United Nations called me up and warned at the beginning and end of a 20 minute impromptu telephone debate that if I appeared on a panel with Taiwan's "so-called" President Chen Shui-bian they would "take it very seriously."

Around the world, most governments seem to quail in the face of such implied threats. In contrast, seeing no sign of Chinese gunboats in the East River, and reckoning that the worst that could happen was my missing the 2008 Olympics, the bluster reinforced my determination.

On Friday I appeared not only with President Chen on a video link but with John Bolton, the former US ambassador to the UN, in person, and on Saturday on a platform with the Taiwanese sea-goddess Matsu, flown over on her own seat to New York.

I was thinking that if Bolton and I could agree on any issue, Matsu may have been working hard on the miracle front. She will have to work even harder to get Beijing in a reasonable mode.

China's diplomat told me that Chen was a trouble-maker, and took even more umbrage when I pointed out that in fact it was the mainland that was pointing almost a thousand missiles at Taiwan, and not the other way round. "We will consider that you support Taiwanese independence," she accused ominously. Actually, I pointed out that I was neutral on that question, which was up to the Taiwanese to decide, but that I did strongly support their right to decide, just as I had vociferously supported the right to self determination of the Timorese, the Sahrawis of the Western Sahara, Palestinians and Kosovans.

"That is in violation of international law," she snapped. Well, no, I pointed out. Self-determination for former colonial territories was a basic principle of the United Nations, and indeed Mao told Edgar Snow, as reported in Red Star Over China, that Formosa - as Taiwan was then known - would be able to choose its own destiny when Japan was defeated.

The PRC is more used to an attitude of "whatever you say, comrade," than being argued with, and it all just seemed to make her angrier. However, as often, the discussion made me think. Possibly the worst way to dissuade people who are determined to secede is to try to bully them. I pointed out that if forty years ago Spain had made nice with the Gibraltarians, then by now the people on the Rock would be petitioning to join Spain and buy all those giveaway fincas along the coast.

If the British had given Ireland dominion status before the first world war, Mrs Windsor would likely be making annual visits to open the Irish parliament. In contrast , much later in the century, London had conceded bilingualism, and Welsh radio and TV and in the end almost had to force the Welsh to accept devolution.

The negative examples, from Timor to Kosovo are quite clear. Battering people into loyalty is a highly ineffective strategy.

So why should anyone worry about a small faraway island of which we know little? Well of course, there is the little matter that Taiwan is a democracy, whose people want to choose their own fate, but experience teaches us that defending democracy usually only works politically in conjunction with less altruistic motives.

Well, there is one serious matter of self-interest for much of the globe. Of course it is a bit much to expect a joined-up foreign policy from the Bush administration but even so I was shocked to discover that Washington, kowtowing to Beijing, has almost no official contacts with Taiwan - even though the US is committed to defending the island against Chinese attacks. They restricted President Chen to a 15 minute stopover in Alaska on his last trip back from central America. They do not allow him to visit Washington.

That is seriously worrying. US should keep its word to Taiwan. But the signals it is currently sending to China, of acquiescence to its policies towards the island, are reminiscent of those Margaret Thatcher sent to Galtieri of Argentina over the Falklands. But any conflict resulting would be far, far bigger than a side show in semi-arctic islands full of sheep and penguins.

Oh Islands in the UN, bought for me by China's Yuan

My latest in the Asia Times,
Islands in the Beijing-Taipei storm
By Ian Williams

NEW YORK - This week the newly elected United Workers Party (UWP) government in St Lucia finally put truth to the rumors that have been spreading since it took office. It has reopened diplomatic ties with Taiwan.

China has been blustering for several weeks in anticipation of the event, which was heralded by several high-level visits from Taipei. St Lucia had switched from Taiwan to China in 1997 when St Lucian Labour Party leader Anthony Kenny won the election.

The Caribbean is rich in music, rums, beaches - and United Nations envoys. Most of the small islands are sovereign members of the UN, and each has the same vote as mighty China in the General Assembly. Indeed, each of them also has one more vote than medium-sized Taiwan, which has led to a war of attrition over several decades between Beijing and Taipei, with each wooing the governments of the small states for recognition. In fact, 12 of the 25 states recognizing Taiwan are Central American or Caribbean.

The Caribbean states have few assets, and their sovereignty is one of them, which is why their votes are courted on such issues as the whaling ban - and China. Many of them also are prickly on their independence and have maintained strong stands on such issues as the International Criminal Court and relations with Cuba, despite heavy pressure from the United States. They can be bought, but they do not like bullying, which is why Beijing's blustering can be counterproductive.

The competition benefits the Caribbean as a whole, since the chosen weapon of the two contending parties is aid: roads, conference centers, sports stadiums and gymnasiums. In the case of St Lucia, the People's Republic of China's current projects include a psychiatric hospital and schools. The massive International World Cricket Cup that climaxed with an Australian victory in Barbados last Saturday was played on several of the islands, in stadiums paid for with the fruits of competitive aid.

But St Lucian External Affairs Minister Rufus Bousquet complained after a recent visit by his Taiwanese counterpart James Huang that "the Chinese have essentially given us very large and expensive buildings which are rather difficult to maintain. Thus far St Lucian citizens have asked themselves questions as to both the usability and viability of the stadium built by the Chinese. We as a government are grateful for the fact that the Chinese have shown a willingness to assist, but I think in terms of assisting, the general concept with which the UWP operates [is] one of sustainable development, an area in which the Taiwanese are very proficient."

Sometimes there are echoes of the Cold War, in that the parties that were resolutely anti-communist such as the UWP of Sir John Compton, elected prime minister of St Lucia in December, recognized Taiwan while the more leftist, Third Worldist governments went with Beijing. But with the blurring of ideology from China, those influences are usually less crucial. For example, Kenny's close political friend Prime Minister Ralph Gonsalves of St Vincent and the Grenadines maintained the Taiwan connection when he took office in 2001, despite a youthful fling with Maoism. Taiwan is rebuilding the airport, essential to expanding tourism.

The island nation of Dominica was facing bankruptcy and then was faced with an offer from Beijing that it could not refuse - more than US$100 million over six years. It switched from Taipei to Beijing in 2004.

One of the few that have had to pay a price has been Haiti, where China, despite having personnel in the UN mission there, has often threatened to veto its continuation in protest at the continuing recognition of Taiwan by successive administrations in Port-au-Prince. It has so far bowed to diplomatic pressure from Latin American and Caribbean states not to do so.

The new pro-independence government in Taiwan stopped the former policy of insisting that states recognize it as the sole government of all of China (indeed, the Kuomintang had insisted on including Mongolia as well) and, as now with St Lucia, encouraged countries to maintain relations with Beijing. Of course Beijing actually wants Taipei to claim the whole of China, rather than restrict its claims to the territory it actually claims.

It is highly unlikely that China will continue relations with St Lucia past the few weeks or months it takes before it abandons its hopes of persuading the UWP government to reverse its stand yet again.

On many issues, the Caribbean nations like to take a united stand. It is unlikely that they would on recognition of either Beijing or Taiwan. Whichever they recognize, it is to the advantage of all of them to be able to play off one against the other, so an occasional churning of envoys reminds both Taipei and Beijing that they should not take loyalties for granted.

Ian Williams is author of Deserter: Bush's War on Military Families, Veterans and His Past, Nation Books, New York.

(Copyright 2007 Asia Times Online Ltd. All rights reserved. Please contact us about sales, syndication and republishing.)

A Bush in the China shop

Guardian Comment is free piece, full text.

The United States and China have issued competing human rights reports. Which one is actually worse?
Ian Williams



The US State Department annual human rights report came out last week and, to counter it, so did the annual Chinese report on the USA.

At first glance it looks like a mudslinging session between the pot and the kettle, but under the circumstances, the US State Department does a surprisingly objective job - its reports on Israel and the Occupied Territories, for example, are unparalleled in official Washington discourse. Sadly however, like those on several other expedient allies, these reports are rarely cited in White House policy formation. Human Rights are what we hector enemies about.

We shouldn't be too surprised at that. Former British Foreign Secretary Robin Cook
is often misquoted as calling for an "ethical foreign policy". What he actually said was that foreign policy should have an "ethical dimension". That is not just slippery expediency. For example, all of us non-herrenvolk should be glad that Churchill and Roosevelt did not, from any over-refined sense of ethics, scorn alliance with Stalin in 1941.

The problem with Washington is its preachiness - do as we say, not as we do - as epitomized by Newt Gingrich's sermons on Clinton's semen even as he was breaching several of the Commandments himself. As Mark Twain said, from the early days of the Republic, Americans have been proud of liberty and democracy - and prepared to dunk anyone who disagrees in horse trough. They either bridle at criticism or ignore it.

The reason for Chinese sensitivity is obvious. They have much to be sensitive about. Nowadays, their cover is the pseudo-principle of national sovereignty, which, to them, means "'tain't no ones business what I do". Their report urges the U.S. government "to acknowledge its own human rights problems and stop interfering in other countries' internal affairs under the pretext of human rights".

There is of course some truth in this, and the substance of the report is a useful corrective to American Panglossianism. As Rabbie Burns said:

Oh wad some power the giftie gie us
To see oursel's as others see us!
It wad frae monie a blunder free us,
And foolish notion.

For example, the damning Chinese counter survey of American societal development on everything from health care to prisoners' rights points out that the United States is alone - or, rather, with Lesotho, Liberia, Swaziland and Papua New Guinea - in not having paid maternity leave. Of course, no one will ever look good defending the US's abysmal lack of labour protection, but one cannot help thinking that if there were one country less qualified than the US to lecture the world on prisoner's rights, it is China.

(Though, interestingly, the Chinese report does not take the US to task for its continued barbaric use of capital punishment.)

Perhaps the most amusing jibe is the reports quotation of the NY Times in saying that the USA "has the worst record in the 'free world' when it comes to stripping convicted felons of the right to vote. In contrast, most European countries hold that right so dear that they bring ballot boxes into prisons". And in China, that right is of course, so dear that Chinese who ask for it pay with an immediate trip to prison. For all the manifold failures of the US, Americans can complain about their government's behaviour without getting a bullet in the back of neck.

In this pot and kettle game, there is no doubt that China's record is far grubbier, even if it is legitimate to hold the Bush administration to the same standards it measures others by. It would just better if Beijing, the defender of Uzbekistan, Burma, Sudan and so many other regimes kept a tactful silence and let someone else better qualified do the critique.

Bush in a China Shop

Here is my comparative reading in the Guardian's Comment is Free of the US State Department Annual Human Rights report, and the Chinese counter-report.

Feel free to join in!

Lost in Space - Full Text

Lost in space

The US reprimand to China over its successful anti-satellite test has all the sincerity of King Herod leading a Unicef fund-raiser.
Ian Williams

Here's the full text of the Guardian Comment is Free piece for those who were too lazy or technologically challenged to click on the link.
January 19, 2007

The US reprimand to China over its successful anti-satellite test has all the sincerity of King Herod leading a Unicef fund-raiser. As inventors of the rocket, the Chinese have every bit as much tenure in orbit as the country that belatedly followed Sputnik into space.

Of course no sensible person can be happy at Beijing's action, not least if you look at the 900-plus missiles aimed at Taiwan. But test was entirely legal - and it is so because the United States has consistently blocked any international convention to "limit its freedom of manoeuvre" in space.

Restated only last year, US military doctrine is that it should control beyond earth orbit, and make sure nobody else can challenge it, which is why it will not accept any treaty demilitarizing space.

This has been yet another of those remarkable obsessions of the Republican right and neocons, going back to the Reagan administration.

One of the Bush administration's first reactions to the distinctly sub-orbital airliners smashing into the World Trade Center was to boost spending on the "Strategic Defence Initiative" - Star Wars. The US has spent well over $100 billion so far on it. And so far it has fairly consistently failed to hit the missile equivalent of a brightly painted fish glued in a barrel.

MIT professor Theodore A Postol has over the years unveiled the outright deceptions perpetrated by the Pentagon to claim success from abject failure in the hugely expensive anti-missile programme. Now, since it all depends on US spy satellites, the Chinese test threatens to bring the whole faith-based programme tumbling out of orbit to impact on solid reality.

Indeed, for a hugely expensive military failure, its only competition in costliness has been the Iraq War itself - which is of course one of the reasons that the Chinese could persuade themselves that the test was necessary.

This obsession with outer space, shown in his decision to invade Mars, is almost as mysterious as George W Bush's fixation on Iraq. Ironically his Yale Transcript gave him his very lowest score in Astronomy with 69, even lower than his 71 in political science classes.

Even so, if you sometimes suspect that Darth Vader is stalking the corridors of a reality-challenged White House and Pentagon, you may not be so far wrong. Along with the "Strategic Defence Initiative," Bush's Moon and Mars projects are an almost certainly motivated by an attempt to ensure that the Force is always with US.

And the genesis of the Star Wars programme was indeed science fiction. Hard-right hard-SF writer Larry Niven boasted: "The scheme that drove the Soviet Union bankrupt was first-drafted at my house in Tarzana, by about fifty good people invited and led by Jerry Pournelle (another SF writer of similar views). We were gathered to build a space program, with costs and schedules, to submit to Ronald Reagan via his science adviser. We generated the Space Defense Initiative (or 'Star Wars' if you didn't like it.)"

Niven recounted that other SF writers, like Robert A Heinlein (Starship Troopers!) and Poul Anderson, along with retired general Daniel Graham and the astronaut Buzz Aldrin, joined lobbyists from companies like Boeing in the "Citizens' Advisory Council on National Space Policy", which he credits with Reagan's 1983 Star Wars speech.

As Frances FitzGerald author of Way Out There in the Blue: Reagan, Star Wars and the End of the Cold War, put it laconically about the myth of Star Wars crashing the Evil Empire: "The evidence for this proposition is wanting." She explains, "Soviet spending on strategic weapons was a very small fraction of the overall Soviet military budget."

The people who invented Iraqi WMD's had a dry run on this one. FitzGerald noted that the analysts who actually looked at the data concluded that Moscow's weapons procurement programs were flat, while its spending on strategic missile systems had actually dropped by 40% from 1976 to 1983. The administration suppressed those reports in favour of more threatening and politically correct estimates, just as later Star Wars test failures were rewritten as successes.

Other countries have every right to protest the Chinese test, which presumably has showered yet more debris to threaten satellites in orbit. But until they turn on Washington and demand that it supports effective demilitarization of space, they are allies in hypocrisy and fantasy with the Bush administration.

Christmas Carol

A Merry Christmas, Carefree Kwanzaa, Eid Mubarak, Happy New Year, and Happy Hannuka to all our readers. In our ecumenical mode we are happy to celebrate everyone's festivals, but will pass on the fasts.

Can there be a better way to celebrate than by buying the most aptly seasonal book since Christmas Carol "Rum: A Social and Sociable History" for your friends. One click and your last minute gift-buying conundrum is solved.


And in seasonal mode, check this link to see me on Democracy Now holding forth on Annan, Ban and Rum.



And here is my Christmas Carol, commissioned and then rejected by a business magazine that thought (can't think why!) that its Chinese advertisers may be upset by it. I was accused of China-bashing for my piece on Taiwan, so I thought I may as well put some truth in the rumours.


We three sharks of Orient are
Bearing stocks we travel afar
Field and roadshow, selling an IPO
Extolling yonder share


O share of wonder, share of might
Share of rosy prospects bright
Upward trending, never bending
Guide us to thy dizzy height


Born state-owned on the Yangtse plain
Golden prospects down the lane
Rising forever, dropping never
Over us all to rain

O share of wonder, share of might, etc.


Mind ye not the dodgy loan book
With Chinese banks, best not to look
Stock brokers are such jokers
Keep accounts in a Little Red Book

O share of wonder, share of might, etc.


A prospectus offered have I
The SEC cannot come nigh
Privatizing, launch price rising
Send your cash to Shanghai

O share of wonder, share of might etc.


Your few shares outvoted are
Beijing owns more stock by far
Minor holder gets cold shoulder
Even more than Delaware

O share of wonder, share of might etc.


Beijing rules, so best presume
The Comrades run the board-room
Party blundering, bleeding, plundering
Sealing your stake's doom

O share of wonder, share of might, etc.

Taiwan's Independence

Here's is my latest for Foreign Policy in Focus
to which you should subscribe for its eminently rational look at foreign affairs.

Self Determination - It's the Law!

China's arguments against Taiwanese self-determination are not particularly legal or ethical. They boil down to the fact that Beijing has over a billion people, a huge economy, and over 900 missiles pointing at the nearby island.

The latter figure, growing by 50 rockets a year, should give a clue to the weakness of Beijing's arguments. In the modern world, few governments can pledge with a straight face to “liberate” an island full of people it pretends are compatriots by blowing them off the map. Equally, while China's “one nation—two systems” transition period for Hong Kong has not been a total failure, Beijing's clumsy interference in Hong Kong's politics and refusal to allow democratic reforms have not done much to reassure the Taiwanese.

There is scope for wrangling on historical and legal claims. But the real question is what status the people of the territory themselves want. Do the people of Taiwan and their democratically elected government have a right to decide their own fate? And will they use that right to get politically closer or more distant from the mainland?

According to modern international practice and the principles of democracy, the Taiwanese do indeed have the right to “declare” what is manifestly already true: that they are an independent, sovereign state. It is also clear that the Taiwanese, on the political level, do not want to be ruled by Beijing. If the threat to the island's (and the islanders') existence were removed, a very strong majority would support outright independence.

This is not just romantic nationalism. The Taiwanese pragmatically believe that falling under Beijing's thumb would be a major step backward for a prosperous democracy of 23 million people, with its developed economy, developed social democracy, and amenities such as a national health system.

Taiwan at the UN

Taiwan has long been trying to shore up its global position by joining international bodies, notably the UN. For the first decade or so of the UN's existence, the “universality” of membership was not at all evident. But now UN membership is generally regarded as a sort of certificate of sovereign statehood. Indeed, after the invasion of Kuwait in 1990, every last microstate came rushing for membership precisely to get anti-annexation insurance. Some members barely qualify for sovereignty. For instance, the former U.S. trust territories in the Pacific, such as Palau, the Marshal Islands, and Micronesia, have constitutions that entrust the United States with their defense and with consultation over foreign policy. Such contingent sovereignty is reflected in their lonely UN votes supporting Washington over Israel. Indeed, at the time of their admission to the UN, British diplomats, for the record, queried the degree of the islands' sovereignty.

Add economic autonomy, and Taiwan clearly has more attributes of sovereignty than many UN members. If not for the continuing threat from the PRC, Taiwan's leaders might realistically accept their anomalous status. One only has to think of avian flu to realize that it is not in the global interest for Taiwan to be outside the World Health Organization or any of the other institutions of international standard-setting.

By blocking Taiwan's entry to the UN, China is ignoring the same right to self-determination it proclaimed in its more revolutionary days of anti-colonial struggle. This hypocrisy explains in part why the nagging consciences of the non-aligned at the UN impel them to ensure that the admission of Taiwan is not even on the agenda for discussion, despite clear rules to the contrary. In any debate they would have to acknowledge that Beijing's obdurate stand contravenes not only of the right to self-determination but also of the inviolability of colonial boundaries that most African countries accept.

It is worth considering why the Chinese are so unbendable on this issue. Perhaps the biggest problem is that the Communist Party of China has all but abandoned any social agenda other than the maintenance of power, and that leaves only nationalism as a ruling ideology. The “reunification” with Taiwan is a token over which the cadres in Beijing can jostle for leadership by out-shouting each other.

However, Beijing's claim to sovereignty over the island is not well founded at all, unless you accept it as the successor state to the Middle Kingdom that claimed to rule the world. In historical terms, the mainland's one unquestioned period of control over Taiwan lasted between the end of the Second World War and the ouster of Chiang Kai-shek from the mainland. The islanders were never consulted, and Chiang's Kuo Min Tang (KMT) made sure that their views went unheard by massacring some 30,000 of them beginning February 28, 1947. Even when driven from the mainland in 1949, Chiang's regime maintained its increasingly tenuous claim to be the legitimate government of China, which included Mongolia as well.

Only after Chiang's death did the island move toward democracy and into the real world, by dissolving the all-China shadow government structures maintained by the KMT. Strangely, the comrades in Beijing were happier with an island claiming to represent the whole of China than they are with one that currently purports only to represent itself.

Definitions of Imperialism

In the modern world, with a few notable and messy exceptions such as in the Balfour declaration, irredentist claims based on ancient history have been unsuccessful in the face of popular sovereignty. There is more to a nation state than a shared language, common ethnicity, or certainly former imperial sovereignty.

According to its arguments based on former control, Beijing could seize Vietnam or parts of Korea. Indeed, if reunification of the former Chinese empire is the issue, then China should really consider the examples of Canada, Australia, New Zealand, and the United States. Luckily, there has been no British call for reunification. Austria and a large part of Switzerland speak German, but Germany has not revived calls for anschluss. Spain has learned to live with the absence of most of Latin America.

Historical claims are essentially worthless. In a modern, civilized world, the views of the people themselves matter most. For example, no British government, not even one as control-minded as Tony Blair's, could force Scotland to stay in the United Kingdom if a clear majority of its people wished otherwise. The Chinese leadership, on the other hand, often confuses “terrorism” with “secessionist activities,” which includes simple advocacy of autonomy and independence. As such, the Chinese equivalent of the Scottish Nationalist Party in Beijing would serve time in jail, not in parliament.

Potential Compromises

Although it is not helpful in the adjudication of modern sovereignty claims, history does offer some examples of pragmatic solutions that could produce a degree of mutual satisfaction. For example, if the PRC had demonstrated more trustworthiness over Hong Kong, then something like the “compacts of association” between the Pacific trust territories and the United States would have been conceivable. But it would be a foolhardy Taiwanese leader who would accept even a token garrison from the People's Liberation Army in view of Beijing's recent threats.

Perhaps a more exiguous form of association could be developed on the model of the dominions of the British Commonwealth, where the British head of state is also head of state of Australia, Jamaica, Canada, and New Zealand. For the last half century at least, this arrangement didn't imply any degree of British control and left the various parties harmoniously linked but independent.

However, for all these imaginative solutions, the Taiwanese need reassurance that some powerful members of the global community have the spine to argue with Beijing, to educate its leaders that their eccentrically Sinocentric view of the world is wrong, and to persuade those same leaders that threats of military action are completely counterproductive as well as unacceptable.

Why should the rest of the world care? Last year, the “Responsibility to Protect” accepted by the UN heads of state codified the instinctive feelings of many. The world should not stand by and watch military action crush a vibrant, successful democracy. And in terms of self-interest, Taiwan has wisely and morally eschewed the nuclear option. Faced with a United States in economic thrall to China and increasingly unlikely to back up its security guarantee against China's developing military capacity, Taiwan certainly has a case for pursuing such a deterrent. But the world is dealing with enough threats to the current arms control regimes and does not need another nuclear power.

Taiwan should take the initiative and propose some such pragmatic solutions to the mainland. Although rejected, such proposals would at least have the effect of putting the onus on Beijing. In fact Taiwan could learn some lessons from Cyprus, where the leaders have for years suggested reasonable-sounding solutions they know are, for some obscure reason often barely discernible to outsiders, completely unacceptable to the other side. At the same time, Taiwan should abandon some of the more ritualistic restrictions on trade and travel across the Strait. And Taipei should make plain that it does not hold a “Two China” policy but rather a “one China, one Taiwan” policy. Like Austria and Germany, or Australia and Britain, Taiwan is close to China—but separate.

Ian Williams contributes frequently to Foreign Policy In Focus (online at www.fpif.org) on UN and international affairs.