Would '08 Olympics be a good time to declare independence?

Politics Taiwan Politics
1

Let’s just say you are Frank Hsieh. And you’ve been semi-secretly been desiring to declare Taiwan is independent. (Or you’re pressured by the hardcores… or whatever)

Somehow, I don’t even know how, you win in March and become the president.

The olympics start in the summer. The opening ceremonies are over. The news media have descended upon Beijing and everyone’s watching … even the people who don’t know where Taiwan is.

Then, at some lull in the games, perhaps after Taiwan has just won the bronze in Ping-pong, you officially declare independence.

I’m not saying I predict this will happen. I’m just saying, will there be a better time in the next 10 years? or 50?

For the diehard independence activists, you gotta declare it sometime. The olympics could be a golden opportunity.

Pros:

  1. The world’s media would be paying attention to this area of the world. No violent offense has occured and you can declare independence in a way and at a time when you are likely to get some int’l support and sympathy.
  2. China would be unlikely to retaliate by force before the games are over. If they even started to mass various armies near port cities, the reporters would jump all over it … and there’d be a hell of a lot of them in the country at that time.
  3. Even 7 days would be enough time to ramp up local defenses like crazy and for the US to send a carrier or two in this direction.
  4. Even if you screw it up, you’ll be a hero to many diehards and will probly end up a martyr.
  5. Taiwan would gain the element of surprise, even if it only bought the island a week or so.

Cons:

  1. China might attack you, but if you’re a diehard, you must be willing to risk it. Plus, when are you going to get such a good chance?
  2. Your team will be kicked out of the olympics, but were you really going to do that well anyways?

It’s just an idea I had. I can’t imagine that China is going to drop the whole “reclaim taiwan” thing for at least 20 years. If it keeps up its pace as an exporter, it’s just going to get richer and the military budget is gonna get bigger. Japan just managed to shoot down a bullet with a bullet, after all, and the righties over there might want to get involved in Taiwan’s defense (if only because they want to annex taiwan again).

Personally, I am not an independence activist. But to put on my machiavellian hat for a moment, I just can’t project any better set of circumstances in the next couple decades that would be a better time to do it (if I wanted to do it).

2

Yes and No.
If Taiwan provoked China during the Olympics, nothing would happen “during” the Olympics. After the Olympics would be a different story; the games are going to raise nationalistic fervor to a boiling point and any patriotic heroics such as reclaiming the renegade province would have strong public support.

3

And what makes you believe the US will do that?

4

You know the ROC pays their medal winnings at the Olympics. So your saying that these athletes that might have bank their whole lives for this payout should suffer for some ill-conceived TI strategy.

The eternal problem of how does TI plan to sustain Taiwan Independence after the Olympics arises. I suspect by the 1 year anniversary of the Olympics the PRC will have notified the UN that it plans to invade Taiwan in search of WMD.

5

Or why even bother waiting until the Olympics? Why not just wait until Hu Jintao goes to the bathroom? That’ll give you a good 2-3 minutes head start.

This has go to be one of the more ridiculous ideas I’ve seen put out there.

Well, besides the fact that the US has explicitly said on nearly every occasion that they won’t send a carrier or two in the direction of Taiwan if Taiwan unilaterally does anything. Admittedly, though, a 7 day head-start would give plenty of time for dual passport-holders to try to escape the country, for there to be a run on the Taiwanese dollar, for military conscripts to desert their posts, for an attempted coup d’etat by KMT members to try to prevent a military takeover the island, for looting and general chaos to commence, etc. etc.

A far more interesting example of hypothetical thinking would be: supposing Frank Hsieh is elected in 2008 and he follows Chen’s example of doing diddly-squat while in power, what sort of BS referendum will he propose in 2012 to get re-elected? My guess is that he’ll go with the gramatically-challenged “Chien-Ming Wang ABOUT Taiwan! Sinkerballs Forever!”

6

Well it’d certainly raise interest in the closing ceremony.

HG

7

Depend if a 100 plum blossoms of missile explosions over Taipei is considered interesting.

For a number 1 or a number 2. One should really plan around a number 2 to maximize timing.
:laughing:

8

[quote=“almas john”]Yes and No.
If Taiwan provoked China during the Olympics, nothing would happen “during” the Olympics. After the Olympics would be a different story; the games are going to raise nationalistic fervor to a boiling point and any patriotic heroics such as reclaiming the renegade province would have strong public support.[/quote]

The nationalistic point is a good one.

It crossed my mind that in my theory above, any TW athletes that had a chance (and a death wish) might stage some kind of Smith/Carlos-style protest. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1968_Olymp … wer_Salute

My point was that the public support from the Chinese people would be strong no matter when independence was declared. but the international support for Taiwan would be drummed up if they declared indep. at this time. Reporters running wild both here and on the mainland would have many chances to interview average joes. Pro-democracy neocons in the US media (yes, they exist) would have a field day.

9

[quote=“Mick”][quote=“lurkky”]
3. Even 7 days would be enough time to ramp up local defenses like crazy and for the US to send a carrier or two in this direction.
[/quote]

And what makes you believe the US will do that?[/quote]

I didn’t say they’d start nailing Shanghai. But they’ve come here during elections, and they have that weird law about coming to TW’s defense (although I know that it’s the cause of much debate). All I’m saying is, they’d have time to prepare for it, no matter who is in power at the time in the US.

10

[quote=“alidarbac”]Or why even bother waiting until the Olympics? Why not just wait until Hu Jintao goes to the bathroom? That’ll give you a good 2-3 minutes head start.

This has go to be one of the more ridiculous ideas I’ve seen put out there.

Well, besides the fact that the US has explicitly said on nearly every occasion that they won’t send a carrier or two in the direction of Taiwan if Taiwan unilaterally does anything. [/quote]

Good points. I was trying to say that there would be pressure on the US to support Taiwan if the opinion of the world was focussed in this area. After all, the US has sacrificed a hell of a lot of young people for ‘democracy’ (not oil, right? certainly not the supression of the heroin trade) in Afghanistan and Iraq. It’d be hard to see them abandon Taiwan at this time. The anti-china hawks in the us are having their egos stroked by all the product recalls: what better way to stick it to the CCP than sending a carrier group to the TW strait? They could call it a routine, presecheduled redirect of their ships, and if one happened to be struck by a random missile, they could remember the alamo. My point about the growing chinese military budget in the coming years is just as pertinent in the minds of american hawks as it is in the minds of taiwanese hawks.

You can call it a ridiculous idea, sure. I guess what I’m trying to say is; that would be the least ridiculous time for taiwan to declare independence, from a hardline pro-independence activist’s point of view. I can’t imagine any better time in the next two decades. It’s not ideal; it’s just the lesser of most possible evils. Even 9/11 wouldn’t have been as good.

11

This is a great idea! Surely China will never have predicted this or made any plans in case this happens! And then afterwards, once independence has been declared, China will sit back and say “Oh, well, that’s over, we can’t do anything about it now or ever again!” because the US will build a Super Fun Wall down the middle of the Taiwan Strait that China can’t fly over or see through.

12

I guess they’ve made plans for what to do in the event of a declaration no matter when it is.

But you need to strike while the iron’s hot. Even a week or a month after the closing ceremony, public attention will still be on China. Sure, they could kick out the TW athletes and businessmen on the mainland, and start to mobilize their army and call up reserves. But they wouldn’t be able to move an inch without a cityful of international journalists asking questions about it. There must be many, many media outlets who’d love to discredit China during their moment in the sun. Asking questions about Tiananmen or Mattel recalls just won’t cut it.

To strike Taiwan within a month would throw away all the respect they hope to earn as an Olympic host — they’d be forced to fight two propaganda wars at once. To wait longer would mean interparty struggles, people losing their jobs because they lost Taiwan.

13

There is no claus in the ASL that exempts the CPP during the Olympics.

Uhm I believe there was also a city full of journalist during 6/4. That didn’t really deter the CCP from taking action either.

14

Speaking of independence, in the history of the world I believe it is always the case that the people in a given geographical entity declare their “independence” from some “mother country.” (Although I would not argue if someone chose to change this metaphor to “father country.”)

In the 18th, 19th, and 20th centuries, I believe that the above mentioned rule was followed without fail. In the often mentioned situation of the “United States of America,” I seem to recall that the people of the American colonies declared their independence from Great Britain. That independence was however only formally recognized in the Jan. 14, 1784 Treaty of Paris.

Why, praytell, did the people of the American colonies declare their independence from Great Britain, and not from the Netherlands, Germany, France, Peru, or Algeria???

The answer is (please pay attention) that it had been determined that Great Britain was holding the territorial sovereignty of the American colonies.

Hence in dealing with these independence issues, or transfer of territorial sovereignty issues, it is important to first determine what country is holding the territorial sovereignty. Thus, in the situation of the (presently so-called) US Virgin Islands, in 1917 the United States negotiated a purchase agreement with Denmark, and not with Bulgaria, Spain, Canada, Laos, India, or some other country.

The Louisiana Territory was purchased from France. The logic is similar to the above. California was ceded to the United States in the Mexican-American Peace Treaty of July 4, 1848. This was because Mexico formerly held the territorial sovereignty of California territory, and after the war the peace treaty specified these new arrangements, in addition to providing monetary reimbursement to Mexico.

In regard to California territory, why didn’t the United States negotiate a treaty with Spain? This is because Mexico’s independence from Spain had been recognized in 1821.

With all the discussion of “popular sovereignty” in Taiwan, most well-meaning persons tend to forget that the transfer of title of territory is an action between governments, and has always been interpreted as such.

Turning back to the situation of Taiwan, in July 2007 the Congressional Research Service published a report for the US Congress entitled “Evolution of the One China Policy.” In the Summary at the beginning of that report the following points were made –
(1) The United States did not explicitly state the sovereign status of Taiwan in the three U.S.-PRC Joint Communiques of 1972, 1979, and 1982.
(2) The United States “acknowledged” the “one China” position of both sides of the Taiwan Strait.
(3) U.S. policy has not recognized the PRC’s sovereignty over Taiwan;
(4) U.S. policy has not recognized Taiwan as a sovereign country; and
(5) U.S. policy has considered Taiwan’s status as undetermined.

On Aug. 30, 2007 Dennis Wilder, (White House) National Security Council Senior Director for Asian Affairs said: “Taiwan, or the Republic of China, is not at this point a state in the international community. The position of the United States government is that the ROC – Republic of China – is an issue undecided, and it has been left undecided, as you know, for many, many years.”

I would offer a summary of the above by noting that there are no international legal documents which can prove that the territorial sovereignty of Taiwan has ever been transferred to the ROC or the PRC. Japan’s sovereignty over Taiwan, as most people know, ended on April 28, 1952.

HENCE, I am most curious to ask the following question: From what country is Taiwan going to declare its independence?

In my humble opinion, at the present time the most urgent task facing Taiwan is an accurate clarification of its current international legal position. Without such a clarification, no declaration of “independence” would ever be recognized by the international community.

The question remains: From what country is Taiwan going to declare its independence?

15

So if CSB declares independence from the USA, then are we to assume TI is victorious.

16

We interrupt our coverage of the Olympics to join a White House press conference, now in progress, on the subject of developing tensions in the Taiwan Strait.

“…the United States does not regard Taiwan’s uni-literal declaration as helpful or conductive. Our ambassadors have expressed this view to President Chin [aid whispers] I mean, anyway, to Taiwan’s president, and urged him not to do anything else that the Republic of Communist China might consider provocacative. And we have expressed the same view to the Chinese.”

“Mr. President! Will you send an aircraft carrier group to the Strait!”

“I cain’t comment on that. But we’re watching the situation closely. Like I said, we don’t recognize this declaration as legal, and we believe that the Chinese think the same thing. So in the next few weeks, we’ll be watching the Taiwanese to make sure whether they do anything else provocacative. We’ve also been in communications with the Japanese about what to do if (whisper whisper) that’s all I have to say. Thank you, and God bless America.”

17

You have failed to consider the Three Noes of President Clinton. He said: “We don’t support independence for Taiwan; . . . . . or ‘two Chinas’; or ‘one Taiwan, one China’; . . . . . and we don’t believe that Taiwan should be a member in any organization for which statehood is a requirement.”

President Bush upholds a similar policy.

For the Taiwanese people, the [color=darkblue]solution[/color] is in the US Constitution. See –
[color=green]Taiwanese should seek US Constitutional rights[/color]
atimes.com/atimes/China/FA31Ad05.html

18

Wouldn’t work. TI would then focus their energy on de-Americanizing, stressing the difference between Taiwanese and Taiwanese-Americans.

The point of the localization movement has been to allow nativist to retain control of the political power on the island.

Whether or not the island has a nonmenclature of ROC, PRC, ROC-SAR, USA territory has always been besides the point, from TI point of view.

It is always been how to take power from those pesky outsiders that don’t speak Minnan. Whether it be Japan, China, or USA the core motivation is the same.

19

Oh, don’t be so bitter, ac. Can’t you just take a night class or something?

Here’s another way of looking at the shituation:

There’s people like Hitchens who take a look at Abu Ghraib and say, “Ok, sure, the US troops tortured some dudes there, but it’s nothing compared to how badly dudes were treated under Saddam.” this is the kind of reasoning that US right wing people use to justify the fact that Saddam had no nukes.

Ok. So let’s just pretend/assume that the iraq war wasn’t about oil, but about democracy. Would any president in the US feel obliged / pressured by world opinion to come to TW’s aid in my hypothetical situation? In my mind, it’s not so much about what they said before, but about the political situation as it stands.

followup topic: invading iraq had some quasi-measurable effect on the world’s oil supply. given that taiwan now manufactures certain electronics and components that are popular in US / EU markets, would an invasion from PRC have any effect on world markets? if conservatives are so worried that any kyoto-style arrangement would cripple the world’s economy, presumably they’d also be somewhat traumatized by an attack on a major consumer electronics supplier…

20

Given that South Korea and Japan also make those electronic goods. They might probably help in the invasion.

Taiwan is still a leader in OEM car parts and panels. I don’t think US auto industry will shed any tears when they are gone either.