Gerhard Schröder, eager to give the German economy a boost by selling arms (or maybe a nuclear power plant) to China (if only those annoying EUrocrats would lift the Tiananmen-era embargo), is more than happy to make his potential customers happy.
Saying that Germany firmly supports China’s opposition to Taiwan’s independence, Chancellor Gerhard Schröder sided with Beijing on Wednesday as China threatened to invade Taiwan in case of a referendum on independence.
On the last day of a three-day visit to China, German Chancellor Schröder said he shared the country’s Communist leadership’s views on a united China. “I believe that China is one country and has to remain as such,” the chancellor told students in southern China’s Canton province.
Just like China had always supported German reunification, “it goes without saying that we will do the same,” Schröder said.
Except, of course, China would have preferred that East Germany “unified” West Germany into itself.
Granted that the US has (shamefully, if pragmatically) supported a “One China” policy, it has done so while continuing to promise military protection of Taiwan if China decides to implement such a policy unilaterally and militarily.
Schröder’s tacit support for Chinese saber-rattling, though, is an odd thing for the leader of a democracy to tout. And, as Daimnation points out:
Amazing, isn’t it? The international community makes such a big noise about the “inherent right of self-determination” in the context of the Israel/Palestine dispute. Even most Israelis and their supporters, except for the far-right fringe, concede that the Palestinians should have a state someday. This “right” is so fundamental, evidently, that the Palestinians are justfied in murdering Jewish children when it’s denied.
And half a world away, the Taiwanese have actually gone ahead and built a thriving, prosperous society, away from the claws of the Tiananmen Square murderers – and the world wants to take it away, even when the Chinese dictatorship threatens a brutal war.
It does make one wonder. At what point does a de facto territorial and political division — one that is 54 years old — become accepted as the Way Things Are? Granted, the PRC is never going to accept it, but that the rest of the world kowtows to that attitude, while accepting territorial divisions and realignments elsewhere (though not often — the post-WWII unwritten law is, “Thou Shallt Not Change Borders”), is both puzzling and sad.
If I remember correctly, the U.S. has had this same offcial position since Nixon. That of Taiwan being a “Rebel” Provence. This is going to be a “Thatcher” moment for the U.S. in many ways. Our promise of military support has always been a political dance with the PRC.
Stones…glass house.
As I said, US policy has been both shameful and pragmatic in the matter — but it’s also been repeatedly committed to both protecting Taiwan from attack and providing it with weapons to do so (to the perennial outrage of Beijing). Part of it has also been, I’m sure, pressuring the Taiwanese not to make too many waves.
That being said, if Taiwan does actually hold an indepedence referendum, how will the US jump? In many ways, that would be a much more profound foreign policy landmark than anything that’s been going on in the Middle East. It’s relatively easy to act unilaterally in your interests; it’s much more difficult to act in defense of your principles but against (many of) your interests.
What principles? 😉
And who are the Taiwanese anyway? Are they the one millioin Chinese that fled to the island on the tail end of the civil war that brought the Communists to power in the PRC? Or are they the people that were suppressed by the Japanese for roughly 50 years before that. Or the Dutch, French, and Spanish before them?
Jeez. They do sound like the Palestinians …
But in a good way. Well, maybe not for them.