14.03.1996

Choosing sides?

China and Taiwan

Ever since losing the Chinese Civil War in 1949, Taiwan has been the last redoubt of the anti-communist nationalists, the Kuomintang. There they have been propped up by the USA. The Taiwan authorities have maintained the fiction that they are the legitimate government over all China.

The authorities in Beijing consider Taiwan to be just another part of China. The exact status of Taiwan has remained as some unfinished business from the Cold War.

Tension has recently surfaced again, with the People’s Republic of China carrying out military exercises off Taiwan. The Guardian on March l2 carried an article by China specialist John Gittings, who said that Beijing feared Taiwan might slip out of reach. There has been speculation that the island might declare itself formally independent. Meanwhile, Beijing is looking forward to regaining Hong Kong from Britain and treats Taiwan as a similar case.

Internal strains within China may be encouraging Beijing to put pressure on Taiwan. Gittings said that “patriotism has become increasingly a substitute for previous ideals - like socialism”.

The situation will bear close watching, but there is no reason to support China. Beijing’s ‘socialism with Chinese characteristics’ is quite compatible with capitalist exploitation, especially in places like the Shenzhen economic zone. If it invades Taiwan, it will not bring it socialism, not even on the point of a sword.

John Craig