The Oil Drum

47 comments on A Glimpse of our Geopolitical Future -- The East and South China Seas

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kevinM on March 15, 2006 - 7:09pm

The other ingredient in this mess is Taiwan.
Do not forget that Japan occupied Taiwan for
50 years, then it had about 4 years of proper
independence before being invaded by the
Nationalist Chinese in 1949. According to
Taiwanese sources, locals were slaughtered
during the takeover. Communist China failed
to invade during the 1950s but has kept us a
war of words ever since. It is only in
relatively recent times that Taiwan has
escaped from the rule of the Kumintang.

An interestng development was the attempt by
the Japansese to reclaim an island just 35km
off the coast of coast of Taiwan in 2005. The
Taiwanese sent at patrol boat to repel the
invaders.

The key of course to all this is that if China
can incorporate Taiwan (and that island), it can
extend its economic zone a considerable distance
eastwards into what the Japanese regard as their
zone of influence.

It is also interesting that there is still a
very sytrong animosity toward Japan amongst
many Koreans, who were subjected to four decades
of subjugation and cruelty by the Japanese.
S Korea, like Japan and Taiwan, is critically
dependent on imported oil and other resources,
and really is stuck up a creek without a paddle
if an international sharing protocol cannot be
established.

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Quantoken on March 15, 2006 - 9:04pm

KevinM:

You needs to have a closer look at history. How can you say that the Nationalists of China "invaded" Taiwan at the end of WW II? There was a 1895 Sino-Japan sea war in which China, the then Ching Dynasty, lost and had to secede Taiwan to the Japanese. Near the end of WWII, the Allies agreed that upon conclusion of the war, all territories Japan grabbed from China shall rightfully be returned to China, and thus the Nationalist took Taiwan back in 1945. There was never an invasion, and Taiwan never had "4 years of independence" after WW II.

A piece of history that's often forgotten is that Although Taiwan was never an independent country, The Kindom of Ryukyu was. Japan invaded the island in 1879 and occupied the country ever since, which is now known as Okinawa. For political reasons the Americans did not choose to allow Ryukyu go independent post WWII, and let it remain part of Japan instead. Had Ryukyu go independent Japan would have no business in that area of the sea. See this wikipedia entry

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Jack Greene on March 16, 2006 - 1:06pm

From Wikipedia;

Chinese nationalist rule began in October 1945 after the end of World War II. During the immediate postwar period, the Nationalist Chinese Kuomintang (KMT) administration on Taiwan was repressive and extremely corrupt compared with the previous Japanese rule, leading to local discontent. Anti-mainlander violence flared on February 28, 1947, prompted by an incident in which a cigarette seller was injured and a passerby was accidently shot dead by Nationalist authorities.

For several weeks after the February 28 Incident the rebels held control of much of the island. Feigning negotiation the Nationalists assembled a large military force (carried on United States naval vessels) that attacked Taiwan massacring nearly 30,000 Taiwanese and imprisoning thousands of others.

The killings were both random and premeditated as local elites or educated Taiwanese were sought out and disposed of. Many of the Taiwanese who had formed home rule groups under the Japanese were the victims of 2-28. This was followed by the "White Terror" in which many thousands of Taiwanese were imprisoned or executed for their real or perceived opposition to the Kuomintang military regime, leaving many native Taiwanese with a deep-seated bitterness to the mainlanders. Until 1995, the KMT authorities suppressed accounts of this episode in Taiwan history. In 1995 a monument was dedicated to the victims of the "2-28 Incident", and for the first time the ROC President Lee Teng-hui publicly apologized for the Nationalists' brutality

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LeGorfou on March 15, 2006 - 11:14pm

When I took a short holiday in Taiwan a few years ago, several times Taiwanese I met would say, "I do not like Japan." (I worked then for a Japanese company and had told them so). Meeting spoken or written English was unusual and I had one conversation with a very old lady selling soft drink in Japanese, as out only common language - neither of us were very good.

I might add that the central mountain range of Taiwan is very beautiful - the cities are the ugliest on earth.