'BG' PM LEE ON CHINA-TAIWAN

In his national day speech yesterday, Singapore's new prime minister took a long detour from his largely domestic agenda to address the potential for war across the Taiwan straits:

PRIME Minister Lee Hsien Loong yesterday reiterated Singapore's commitment to the One China policy and said that Singapore could not support Taiwan if the latter provoked a cross-strait conflict.

'If a war breaks out across the straits, we will be forced to choose between the two sides. As a friend of both sides, any decision will be painful. But if the conflict is provoked by Taiwan, then Singapore cannot support Taiwan,' he said during his National Day Rally speech.

He devoted fully 20 minutes to Singapore's relations with China and Taiwan, a subject which has been a hot talking point since Mr Lee's visit to Taiwan from July 10-13, when he was still Deputy Prime Minister.

S'pore blogger Cicada thinks Lee was probably astute in his perception that war is on the horizon. My initial reaction, however, was that this was a sop to China, which had a typically hysterical reaction to Lee's visit to Taiwan last month.

I've largely believed that the growing financial links across the Taiwan Straits would be a bulwark against any nationalist moves by Taiwan, while China's increasing globalization of its economy (and the threat of war with the US) would prevent any hostile actions by the other side.

I still basically believe that. But I could be wrong . . .

TAIPEI - China is secretly mapping underwater terrain in the Pacific in preparation for an eventual conflict with the United States there, reports said yesterday, quoting the Taiwanese Premier.

Chinese surveillance ships sailed close to Japanese waters 14 times last year and seven times this year, and have also sailed 'numerous times' near the Pacific Ocean just east of Taiwan, the state-funded Central News Agency quoted Premier Yu Shyi-kun as saying during a transit stop in New York on his return from Latin America.

In the Asian Wall Street Journal last week, Michael Gonzalez argued that China may simply be biding its time for a proper opening to attack the island, and that John Kerry's 'nuanced' position on cross-strait affairs may make war more likely (AWSJ subscription only, link to partial article via Commentary Page):

As seasoned sinologists like former ambassador James Lilley explained at the time, China had forced the U.S. to end ambiguity. When Mr. Jiang lobbed missiles over the island in 1996, the Clinton administration reacted by sending the Seventh Fleet into the area, but did not articulate a new policy. To Mr. Yu, however, this is the most dangerous approach.

"Ambiguity," as he explains, has a very bad pedigree. It was ambiguity over whether the U.S. would defend South Korea from attack -- created when Secretary of State Dean Acheson left the Korean peninsula outside the U.S. "defense perimeter" he described in a 1950 speech -- that convinced Kim Il Sung he could act with impunity. And when Saddam Hussein in 1991 informed U.S. ambassador April Gillespie that Kuwait was in his sights, and she gave an ambiguous response, tragedy also ensued. By contrast, there was nothing ambiguous about mutual assured destruction; and it worked for decades.

As I said, I don't think there will be any major conflict between China and Taiwan. Taiwan's President Chen faces too much pressure to make any radical moves toward independence (from the US, trade partners like S'pore and Japan and local businesses).

Still, a Kerry victory would likely embolden the Communists to do something stupid.