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Home The News News China may ‘overreact’ at Tsai win: US expert

China may ‘overreact’ at Tsai win: US expert

Beijing might overreact if Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) Chairperson Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) wins next year’s presidential election, a US expert said on Friday.

Richard Bush, director of the Center for East Asia Policy Studies at the Brookings Institution, was speaking at a Brookings panel discussion on the implications of China’s “rise” for US national security.

He said it was “way too early” to make a sound judgement about the upcoming elections.

“We do not know who the candidates will be, although people think they know,” Bush said.

He also said that neither candidates’ cross-strait policies nor the potential victor were known.

“A lot of things are in play,” Bush said. “I do fear there may be an overreaction on Beijing’s part if Tsai Ing-wen should win and become Taiwan’s next president. I hope they will not overreact, remain restrained and see how the situation develops.”

Earlier in the panel, US National War College professor Bernard Cole said that China’s military modernization focuses on specific strategic situations: Taiwan and the East and South China seas.

He said the Chinese military did not see Taiwan’s military as a significant problem, but that it remained concerned about US intervention in the case of a conflict.

“I do not mean to [imply] that Taiwan’s importance in China’s strategic thinking has been reduced,” he said.

Cole said that calculations by the Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA) were not always very accurate and that the PLA had “grossly underestimated” the capability of Japan’s Self-Defense Forces.

“For strategic importance, I think Taiwan remains at the head of the list,” he said.

Bush said that Chinese development of ballistic and cruise missiles and fighters had changed the “military calculus” across the Taiwan Strait and created a formidable deterrent to separatism.

“The improvement of China’s air and naval capabilities is such that some experts believe it would be difficult for Taiwan to defend itself with the traditional strategy of trying to establish air and sea control over the Taiwan Strait,” Bush said. “We may have ... a challenge coming up because Taiwan is having an election about this time next year.”

Bush said it was not known how China would perceive election results or what it might do.

“We have the capacity to play the kind of role we have played in the past — and that would be a good thing — but whether we have the will to do so, and the political system to express that will, is another question,” he said.


Source: Taipei Times - 2015/02/09



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Newsflash

Dolma Kyab, 32, was sentenced to death by a Chinese court for allegedly killing his wife on March 11 but exile Tibetans say his wife immolated self on March 13, 2013, in protest against Chinese rule

DHARAMSHALA, AUGUST 17: An Intermediate court in Tibet’s Ngaba region has sentenced a Tibetan man to death for allegedly killing his wife who the exile Tibetans say had died five months back after setting herself on fire in protest Chinese rule.

The Chinese state run media cited a court ruling that says Dolma Kyab, 32, from Zoege County had strangled his wife, Kunchok Wangmo to death on March 11 this year following an argument over “drinking problem”. However, reports
published earlier in March on this site indicate that Kunchok Wangmo, 31, set herself on fire on the eve of Xi Jinping’s formal selection as the new President of China to protest Chinese rule in Tibet and to call for the return of the exiled Tibetan leader the Dalai Lama to Tibet.