From
my morning dialogs:
The Taiwanese
activists shipping out to the Senkaku Islands are by themselves a relatively
harmless sideshow. However, the Chinese response to it might not be. The
Chinese authorities may exert authority over it by 1) apprehending it or 2)
protecting it from the Japanese authorities. Protection is the more likely
of the two, since (according to my recollection) the Chinese government has
been encouraging towards such Taiwanese efforts. Either way, such action would
be a new step in Chinese escalation.
6 comments:
2 possibilities? replace (1) by do nothing.
your (1) is an imagination by someone who has no idea of how the Chinese think. :)
Anon:
I’ll explain a couple of things to you. First, the do-nothing option is actually the default Chinese position that has been in place for third country vessels in the contested waters. I implied it in my text but did not spell it out explicitly because I thought that most everyone reading my blog who had any interest in this particular subject would have that in his/her mind already. Second, the Chinese have been quite aggressive in the South China Sea against local fishing boats in the contested waters there, so it’s not a stretch of the imagination or beyond the boundaries of “how the Chinese think” that it could decide to apprehend the Taiwanese vessel to impose its authority in the area and dare the Japanese authorities to respond. I think that this is less likely than the “protect” option, partly because it would be faced with the question of what to do with a private South Korean (or even Japanese) vessel in the same situation but largely by the reason that I iterated in my post. In any case, I have accounted in my text for the difference in my assessments of the two possible actions that the Chinese authorities may take.
In passing, I have a piece of advice for you, advice that I honor in the breach myself more often than I like (which is never). Do not think in terms of “How the Chinese think”, or how any nation thinks for that matter. Institutions vary in principles and policies and individuals have different mindsets and values; the Chinese are no different in that respect. As Kent Calder says about China, disaggregate. That’s good advice with regard to any nation, but it’s particularly useful with regard to China, to which some people still ascribe, consciously or unconsciously, a hive mind.
except, that, in China's view, Taiwan is part of China, and that Taiwanese fishing boat is helping China's cause in challenging the 'status quo'. it makes no sense to any Chinese person if they arrest the Taiwanese fishmen. this is so impossible that no one who is familiar with the Taiwan strait situation could contemplate.
Anon:
Let me know if China (or any sovereign state with a functional government for that matter) allows unlicensed commercial fishing within its claimed jurisdiction. Otherwise, you’ve failed to make your case, in which case it’s a good thing for you that you choose to remain anonymous.
a) Read possibility (2) which you wrote in your original blog post, which is in contradiction with your comment right above.
b) What actually happened proved my view. Though I might be lucky, we could test with future incidences.
I m not here to argue or advocate any view, I just state my opinion based on mu understanding of the Taiwan situation.
Folks:
Point A) in the previous comment doesn’t make any sense to me. How about you? Point B) is wrong as a matter of logic and also reveals a close-mindedness that would be harmful in the real world. If anyone has a comment on either of the two, please comment with an ID or drop me an email and I’ll be happy to respond or explain. Otherwise, I’m declaring victory and moving on.
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