Sky Views: As threat of one war recedes, another rises

Tom Cheshire, Asia Correspondent

Less than six months ago, we were drawing up plans for how we'd cover a war on the Korean peninsula. It made for grim reading.

Now, we are racing towards a US-North Korean peace summit in Singapore, something that seemed unthinkable at the time.

As the threat of one war has thankfully receded, though, another hovers into view.

Singapore is front of everyone's mind but another island might prove more pivotal in the long run: Taiwan. Unlike North Korea, it could bring the US and China into direct conflict.

The island is a renegade province, in Beijing's view, and has been since 1949, when the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) defeated the nationalist Kuomintang (KMT) party that had previously ruled China.

The KMT fled to Taiwan, where they maintained the Republic of China - still Taiwan's official name. Both the CCP and the KMT agreed there was only one China - they just insisted that they, not the other side, were its legitimate rulers.

After years of authoritarian rule by the KMT, Taiwan has instead become an advertisement for what Chinese democracy might look like.

This week, Taiwan is carrying out its annual Han Kuang military live-fire exercises. Unlike previous years, this time the drill is specifically simulating an invasion by the Chinese People's Liberation Army.

They are drills but they are serious: a Taiwanese F-16 pilot died on Monday when his jet crashed. As well as military exercises, civilian organisations are taking part. Sirens have sounded around cities, practising air raids.

The step up in the drills is a response to increasing military and diplomatic pressure from mainland China.

Chinese bombers, fighters and reconnaissance planes have been dispatched in greater numbers to patrol the island. Live-fire exercises on the mainland have been stepped up. The Chinese navy's only operational aircraft carrier has sailed through the Taiwan strait. The Global Times, a state-owned newspaper, said that China should prepare for a "direct military clash in the Taiwan Straits".

Tensions between the US and China are increasing, whether in trade, technology competition or the militarisation of islands in the South China Sea. But the stakes are higher in Taiwan.

At the same time, China has been picking off Taiwan's last few remaining official allies, recently persuading Burkina Faso and Panama to break off diplomatic ties with the island. No state is too small to woo: the Vatican is said to be next on the list.

And China has been applying pressure in the business world, to an almost ludicrous degree.

The government ordered 36 foreign airlines to refer to Taiwan as part of China on their websites. Most have complied, understandably enough: it's not the job of private companies to stand up to nationalist bullying; Qantas was the latest to cave, just this week.

The clothing brand Gap was recently forced to apologise for selling a T-shirt showing a map of China that did not include Taiwan. The T-shirt wasn't even on sale in China.

In a statement, Gap said it "respects the sovereignty and territorial integrity of China". It was a strange statement for a fashion company to make, but these are strange times - and strange actions by the Chinese government.

The more powerful that China becomes, the more sensitive it seems about various subjects. This week's anniversary of the Tiananmen Square protests and their repression of course went unremarked, part of what the government calls a "no argument" policy. The reason, according to the Global Times again: "We don't mention the incident any more so that the whole Chinese society can get out the shadows."

The only clue for people living here in Beijing was that the subway lines for Tiananmen East and Tiananmen were shut with no reason.

The only one prepared to stand up to China in all this is the US.

Secretary of State Mike Pompeo urged Beijing on the anniversary "to make a full public accounting of those killed, detained or missing". On Taiwan, defence secretary James Mattis said last week that the US "remains steadfastly committed to working with Taiwan" to keep it safe from invasion. Now the US is said to be deciding whether to send its own aircraft carrier through the Taiwan strait for the first time since 2007.

A robust US response is the right one. The danger, though, is that contributes to China's sense of paranoia and victimhood, emotions which are never far away here. The editor of the Global Times was quick with a response on Twitter (a platform denied to normal Chinese citizens): "Pompeo's statement represents a wish of the Western world to meddle in China's political process."

Tensions between the US and China are increasing, whether in trade, technology competition or the militarisation of islands in the South China Sea. But the stakes are higher in Taiwan. Beijing treats it as a much more fundamental issue and has reiterated its "One China" policy.

So for Beijing, Taiwan is existential. Other topics might be up for negotiation or push back, but Taiwan is not. And invasion is not as unlikely as most believe.

Chinese President Xi Jinping began his second term by declaring: "It is a shared aspiration of all Chinese people and in their basic interests to safeguard China's sovereignty and territorial integrity and realise China's complete reunification."

It would be wise to take him at his word.

All eyes are rightly on Singapore next week. But we should keep Taiwan in view.

Sky Views is a series of comment pieces by Paste BN editors and correspondents, published every morning.

Previously on Sky Views: Faisal Islam - 'Grand compromise' is only option for Brexit