The Blockades Of Taiwan

By A. M. ROSENTHAL
The New York Times, December 1, 1995

TAIPEI, Taiwan

They come almost every day now the military threats
to this island country from the Communist Government in
Beijing.

Chinese Army commanders order repeated amphibious
landings at the mainland coast nearest the island — the
precise kind of operation that would be needed to invade
Taiwan — and “tests” of missiles in the
straits dividing China and the island. In recent days
there has been a series of leaked reports that Beijing is
considering a naval blockade of Taiwan.

Nobody knows whether the threats are meant only to
frighten all Taiwanese into abandoning any thought of
independence, however distant, or whether Beijing is
readying its people and the world for an attack. If it
does take place it is likely to be in the spring of 1996
before or after Taiwan holds its first direct
presidential election.

But the evidence is that the military command is
beginning to operate and plan independently of the
civilian leadership in the Politburo.

This much seems clear from here: The West is
operating on the assumption that if it says and does
nothing, why, any dangers will vanish in a merciful blip.

The studious silence arises from the fundamental
China policy of the West: Rock no Chinese boat lest
Beijing throw easy Western access to the Chinese market
overboard.

The West manages to maintain its silence because a
Chinese blockade of Taiwan already exists: the political
and diplomatic blockade created by Beijing after it took
over the China seat in the U.N. in 1971.

The government on Taiwan was not only ousted from the
U.N. but from the international community. Taiwan, one of
the largest trading nations in the world, has been cut
off from normal diplomatic and political relations with
almost the whole world.

The U.S. maintains an “institute” in Taipei
headed by a “director.” But no flag is flown
outdoors to save Beijing a fit. In Washington,
representatives of Taiwan cannot sully the State
department or White House by their presence. So far,
separate drinking fountains for Taiwanese representatives
have not been set up.

Taiwan is not only barred from the U.N. but from all
its many specialized agencies, including those supposed
to deal with such universal subjects as health and
agriculture — say, AIDS or starvation.

The blockade is so obsessively enforced that it even
excludes aid to refugees. Last year the U.N. appealed for
funds for Rwandan refugees, among the most suffering of
God’s human creatures. Taiwan offered $2 million;
refused. The Taiwanese did manage to get their gift
accepted — by channeling it through an American
committee for Unicef.

Correspondents from Taiwan are not permitted to enter
the U.N. As a former reporter at the U.N., in its early
days, I have thought of slipping my pass to a
correspondent from Taiwan, to annoy U.N. authorities, but
I decided it wouldn’t work.

Before Beijing commanded the U.N., correspondents
from non-member peoples were allowed in. I learned more
about North Africa and Indonesia from
independence-movement reporters than I ever did from the
colonial French or Dutch.

North Korea and South Korea are members and so were
East and West Germany. The Palestine Liberation
Organization was given representation at the General
Assembly with only a vote lacking.

But when China decided that any dreams of
independence, sovereignty or even dignity that Taiwan
might harbor were too dangerous to tolerate, this special
apartheid was created for the island. The U.S. and most
other U.N. members meekly kissed Beijing’s iron slipper.

That means Taiwan cannot use the U.N. or any normal
diplomatic channel to raise an alarm that had to be
officially heard about the open military threats from
Beijing. If any other country had threatened another so
blatantly the case would immediately have been on the
U.N. agenda.

Now of course most U.N. members, including the U.S.,
would be paralyzed with economic terror at the very idea
of proposing that Taiwan as well as China be represented
at the U.N. But perhaps Washington, London, Paris and
Tokyo will dredge up enough courage to increase their own
diplomatic contacts with Taiwan as a warning to China.
Perhaps.

Until now the Chinese diplomatic blockade and Western
submission to it have been merely disgusting. Now they
are getting dangerous.