Xi has thrown down the gauntlet and stated that Taiwan will return to the Peoples Republic of China by 2049, whether Taiwan wants it or not. So now a countdown timer has started, and Taiwan scrambles to prepare for what Beijing may throw at it. Should they build a large navy? Should they try and push the Chinese back into sea fighting on the beaches? Should the Taiwanese retreat to the jungles and fight a bloody insurgency from there? We ask our expert panel what strategy Taiwan is likely to take, and whether or not it is likely to be effective against the entire PLA. This weeks panel Eric Gomez (CATO Institute) Sheena Chestnut Greitens (University of Texas) Robert D Kaplan (Geopolitics Author) More info at - www.theredlinepodcast.com Follow the show on @TheRedLinePod Follow Michael on @MikeHilliardAus
23 February 2021
16 October 2020
Deutsche Welle: Opinion: China's ethnic socialism
Just a few weeks ago, Beijing introduced a new language policy for schools in Inner Mongolia, whereby instruction in Mongolian will be replaced with lessons in Mandarin in a number of subjects. Many fear that this will massively impact on Mongolian culture. [...]
Most of the inhabitants of Xinjiang, Inner Mongolia and Tibet are not Han Chinese, who constitute the majority in China. Until 2012, when Xi Jinping took office, all 56 recognized ethnic groups in China enjoyed equal rights. But Xi, who, if things go very wrong, will be able to let himself be chosen as president for life in 2023, put an end to that equality. [...]
The West did not understand why Beijing could not wait until 2047, when the "one country, two systems" policy would have expired anyway and China would have won. However, for China, this is not a question of rational politics but of ideology, one according to which the Han are considered superior to China's other ethnic groups. The people of Hong Kong, Tibet, Inner Mongolia and Xinjiang are not seen as equal partners, and this explains the Communist Party's inhumane treatment of certain groups, who are nonetheless all citizens of China.
14 September 2020
New Statesman: How China’s strategy of repression has led to decades of violence in Tibet
In the years following 1958, some 20 per cent of the Tibetan population were arrested and more than 300,000 died. Some committed suicide, others fled into exile. Gonpo and her family survived until the Cultural Revolution began in 1966, when they once again came under attack. Both her parents died: her father committed suicide in despair when her mother disappeared after being detained. Gonpo was sent to do hard labour in Xinjiang. [...]
Tibetans are now an underprivileged minority in a land transformed by Chinese roads, railways, big hydro and the inward migration of settlers from China’s poorest provinces, who enjoy the privileges of the coloniser. Many Tibetans are also materially better off than 50 years ago, and do not oppose modernisation, despite the West’s preconception of them as a rural, tradition-bound people. [...]
Demick attributes this phenomenon to intergenerational trauma: the young people setting fire to themselves were the actual or spiritual grandchildren of Tibetans who had fought the Red Army in the 1930s and 1950s. In response, Chinese police patrols began to carry fire extinguishers, and to arrest the families, the witnesses and suppliers of kerosene to the suicides. To avoid arrest, self-immolators took to drinking the kerosene as well as dousing themselves in it, and bound their padded clothing with wire so that it could not be easily removed.