Chinese Power Play Could Threaten Taiwan’s Energy Industry

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Chinese Power Play Could Threaten Taiwan’s Energy Industry

Jan 17, 2019, 12:00 PM CST

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Ever since Tsai Ing-wen was elected as Taiwan’s president in 2016 as head of the pro-independence ruling party, tensions between China and Taiwan have escalated to multi-decade extremes. Before her election, relations between the two sides had reached a new era of conciliation or, as Beijing would like to call it, reconciliation during the administration of President MaYing-jeou, a Beijing-leaning bureaucratic that seemed prepared to allow the merging of the two sides through economic cooperation.

Now that Tsai has been in office nearly three years, cross-strait relations can arguably be called the worst since 1979 when China stopped firing artillery barrages across the strait at Taiwanese outlaying islands. However, Beijing hasn’t been satisfied with just a war of words lately but it is backing up its oft-saber rattling by conducting naval war games close to the Taiwanese coast as well as sending bomber sorties near or even into Taiwanese air space.

This stepped-up tactic of using the stick instead of the carrot fits all too well with Chinese President Xi Jinping’s more muscular approach in the Asia-Pacific region. Soon after becoming president in 2012, Xi pledged to not militarize the numerous islands, reefs and formations that it occupied, or in the case of Scarborough Shoal in the Philippines’ own UN-mandated 200 natural mile Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ), it seized after a tense standoff between Chinese naval and maritime vessels and a less equipped Philippine navy. But in the ensuing years, Beijing has not only broken Xi’s promise, it has upped the ante to a dangerous level, by enforcing its ill-founded claim to around 90 percent of the South China Sea, based on historical claims, something that other rival claimants can also promulgate, particularly Vietnam which reportedly has ancient maps and documents backing its overlapping South China Sea claims.

Coming full circle

Now, Taiwan is stating that it will not bow to Chinese pressure for international support against what it calls Beijing’s “out-of-control actions”, a Taiwanese presidential spokesman said on Thursday, after Beijing urged companies to change the way they refer to the self-ruled island. Alex Huang, the spokesman for the Taiwanese president told reporters in Taipei that as for China’s related out-of-control actions, we need to remind the international community to face this squarely and to unite efforts to reduce and contain these actions.

The power of words

The Chinese state-run Legal Daily reported on Wednesday, citing a report released by Chinese government think tanks, that U.S. companies including tech heavyweights Apple and Google had erred and wrongly labeled Taiwan and should take immediate action to correct their mistake. This is not the first time that Beijing has lashed out at Western companies over how they refer to Taiwan. Last year, Beijing put considerable pressure on U.S. airlines on how they refer to Taiwan, asking them, actually forcing them, to refer to Taiwan as “China Taiwan.” Related: Oil May Never Return To The Triple-Digits

According to a Washington Post article in July, American Airlines wiped Taiwan from its website, and United Airlines said it was working to meet China’s requirements. The kowtow by the American-based airlines came three months after Beijing ordered dozens of foreign airlines to refer to the island (Taiwan) as a Chinese territory or face consequences in the world’s second-largest aviation market. The same week, the Post report added, Chinese users could no longer see the name “Taiwan” on a map of Asia on the American Airlines website, while China, Japan and the Koreas remained.

 

https://oilprice.com/Geopolitics/Asia/Chinese-Power-Play-Could-Threaten-Taiwans-Energy-Industry.html

[10 YEARS LATER]

In the Western world the power plays are a game of political Chess..... over on that side of the planet, it’s a political game of Chinese Checkers.

 

Off topic - why the hell cant people leave others alone in peace ???

Edited January 17, 2019 by 10 YEARS LATER