China: Resolving Taiwan Question of the Highest Priority

Separatist activities are doomed to failure, Wei said at the opening of the Xiangshan Forum in Beijing, which China styles as its answer to the annual Shangri-La Dialogue security forum in Singapore.

Tensions between China and Taiwan have ratcheted up ahead of the self-ruled island’s presidential election in January. Taiwan is China’s most sensitive territorial issue.

“China is the only major country in the world that is yet to be completely reunified,” Wei said.

“Resolving the Taiwan question so as to realise China’s full reunification is the irresistible trend of the times, China’s greatest national interest, the righteous path to follow and the longing of all Chinese people.”

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Scuffle in the South China Sea #67

A geographer claims China doesn't have much on stand on for the South China Sea dispute.

Some are saying the world needs to chill out over the Sino-Russian exercises in the South China Sea. 

The Sino-Russian exercises ended with an amphibious assault on islands.

Others are stating Chinese artificial islands are a bigger deal than advertised.  They have a strong antiship capability.

Some are advising a stronger stance against China in the South China Sea.

Indonesia may use American funding to build bases in the South China Sea.

US/Philippines military exercise will go forward.

Philippines President Duterte claims to want alliances with China and Russia.

The President of the Philippines has stated the exercises with the United States in the future will not be held.

Philippines DOD has shifted its procurements.

The US has stated its alliance with Philippines is iron clad.

Here are some recent developments in the South China Sea.

Taiwan wants Google to blur bases in the South China Sea.

Scuffle in the South China Sea #59

A long document on the Chinese response to the South China Sea ruling.

China's path forward is very unclear at this point to the rest of the world.  They may expand their claims.

However, the Chinese Ambassador to the US blasted ruling and laid out China's position.  China vowed a decisive response to the 'provocations' by other countries.

Chinese civilian airliners have begun landing at two of the reclaimed reefs. 

China and Taiwan are likely to increase patrols in the South China Sea.  Remember!  Taiwan has the same claims as China.  The difference is the ability to enforce them.

Taiwan is sending ships down to the South China Sea now.

A fourth Type 052D destroyer has joined China's South Seas fleet.

The Chinese flew H-6K bombers over Scarborough Shoal.

China protested an Australian comment on freedom of navigation acts in the South China Sea.

Some pertinent questions are asked about what the next US President will face in the South China Sea.

The US is pushing diplomacy, quietly, to keep the South China Sea from boiling up.

US & Chinese admirals are meeting to try to help with the situation.

A defense analyst POV on the Manila win over Beijing in the South China Sea arbitration.  

Manila celebrates. 

The Philippines will send an envoy to China to negotiate.

However, could the victory be hollow?

ASEAN will keep quiet over the ruling it seems.

Indonesia will now press its own claims with fishermen in a reflection of China's Little Blue Men.

Vietnam protested the Chinese actions after the ruling and China is seen as just going to defy the ruling.  

China has called on Vietnam to help keep the peace in the disputed waterways..

Silence by the EU about the decision is seen as due to internal divisions.

Scuffle in the South China Sea #57

The Hague has ruled in favor of the Philippines over the dispute in the South China Sea.

Beijing has rejected the ruling and then some..  Taiwan has also rejected the ruling.

Japan has stated the ruling is final and binding.

Vietnam has welcomed the ruling while pushing for their own claims.

The US has urged all sides to adhere to the ruling since the US considers it legally binding.

Some are calling for the US to not push hard on CHina after the ruling.  Others want increased sail-bys.

Even so, China claims it will maintain the peace in South China Sea.

China has continued to prep the civilian airports in the Spratley Islands.

Japan will be closely watching what China will do next.

Japan's coast guard cutter has arrived in the Philippines.

Here is a timeline of the events leading up to the decision and some background information.

Why The Hague case matters.

Scuffle in the South China Sea #55

China is sending strong but somewhat mixed signals: on the one hand, they are stating they ought to be ready to fight in the South China Sea.  On the other, China states they want peace.

China has a naval exercise underway just before the ruling from the tribunal.  Vietnam is protesting those Chinese naval drills in the South China Sea.

China and Russia may hold a joint naval exercise in the South China Sea.

The Taiwanese navy accidentally fired an antiship missile and destroyed a fishing boat.

The Philipines is ready to talk to China after the tribunal makes its ruling over the South China Sea.  China has offered to negotiate if Philippines ignores the tribunal.

The Philippines has disqualified an Indian firm from its frigate procurement.

Taiwan Wants "Jeep" Aircraft Carrier, Aegis Destroyers

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Taiwan’s Deputy Defense Minister Pai Hunghui brief[ed] legislators on the Republic of China Navy’s ship building plans for the long-term on Jun. 20. He was questioned by lawmakers in the morning after the local media reported in advance the previous day on what the Navy plans to reveal at a press event later that afternoon.

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The Frustration From China's One-China Dream

THE “China dream” of the president, Xi Jinping, is of a rejuvenated, rich and strong country that will once again enjoy the respect and fealty in Asia commanded by the empires of old. That last part is not happening: from a recalcitrant young despot, North Korea’s Kim Jong Un, on its north-eastern border, to those ungrateful Vietnamese Communists to the south, flirting with America, insolent insubordination abounds. And perhaps most alarming of all, the people of “inalienable” territories wrested from the motherland by predatory imperialists—Hong Kong and Taiwan—show no enthusiasm at all for a return to its bosom.

Events in recent weeks have highlighted China’s difficulties in both places. In Hong Kong a visiting senior official from Beijing, Zhang Dejiang, had to scurry around under high security to avoid meeting protesters. Paving stones were glued down in case they became projectiles. And in Taiwan President Tsai Ing-wen, at her swearing-in on May 20th, rejected months of intense Chinese pressure to pay lip service to the notion that there is “one China”.

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Scuffle in the South China Sea #44

China conducted naval drills in the South China Sea.

The US Navy conducted another sail by of the artificial Chinese islands. China scrambled two J-11 fighters and an AWACS in response. 

China says building the islands is justified by the...US sail-bys?!

Taiwan has entered into the legal fray by intervening in the Philippines case against China.

Here's a new roundup as well.

Scuffle in the South China Sea #35

Jane's also says China has deployed antiship missiles to the disputed South China Sea islands.

China's 'nine dashed line' is the basis of its claims to the South China Sea.

Taiwan has started pushing its own claims to the South China Sea.

Taiwan is reaching out to the Philippines and the international tribunal to come visit the disputed islands.

The recent deal between America and Philippines is heavy on the air power support, but light on naval.

Is China trying to undermine Indonesia's aspirations with respect to the South China Sea?

The US may not allow China to participate in RIMPAC due to China's actions in the South China Sea.

Here's The Economist's take on the South China Sea conflict.

Scuffle in the South China Sea #30

China says the US media is smearing it and that other nations have been deploying weapons on islands in the South China Sea.

China also said it needs to base weapons in the South China Sea to defend itself from the US.

The commander of the Pacific Fleet warns of China's capabilities, states China is clearly militarizing the South China Sea as part of gearing up to dominate East Asia.  His blasting of China continued.  China retorted he's making those statements merely to get funding.

The US Navy will be conducting more Freedom of Navigation Acts (sail-bys) in the South China Sea's most contested areas.

Both sides are really at it.  A bit reminiscent of the Cold War, eh?

Here's a good one: the Chinese are stating the South China Sea belongs to China because it has 'China' in its name. With that logic, the Americas are going to have a lot of very unhappy countries shortly.

Whither Taiwan in the South China Sea mess?

Japan is becoming increasingly concerned about China's weapons deployments.

The Australians will be investing more in their navy, in no small part because of the confrontation in the South China Sea.

Scuffle in the South China Sea #21

Here is China's conceptualization, or so sayeth the Sinologists, of their strategy for the South China Sea. 

The head admiral of the People's Liberation Army Navy defended China's actions in the South China Sea to the US admirals in a teleconference.

China apparently warned a civilian plane will with officials from the Philippines away from some of the disputed islands, but the Chinese are claiming the claims are exaggerated.  China has also been flying aircraft to and from the disputed islands, some military, some civilian.  The Philippines protested those actions.

Taiwan's President Ma is visiting some of the disputed islands for the first time for a president of Taiwan.  Vietnam is protesting the visit.

The Australians are considering freedom of navigation operations in the South China Sea.

The US Navy is planning on more freedom of navigation ops in the South China Sea.   Some are even spinning the planned ops as challenges to Chinese territorial claims.

The Philippines and the US have agreed to a basing arrangement allowing American aircraft and naval ships to use the facilities the US formerly had prior to the volcano blowing its top in the early 1990s.  This is pretty significant: the Filipino constitution explicitly bans foreign powers from basing in the country.  Yet, the Supreme Court of the Philippines has cleared the way for the use of the bases to take place.  The Chinese protested that arrangement.

Some are suggesting the US ought to deploy a fighter wing (26 aircraft +/-) to the Philippines on a regular basis.

Additionally, the Philippines' Navy is seeking joint patrols with the US Navy in the South China Sea.

By some accounts, the next administration is going to be tougher on China than the Obama or Bush administrations. 

Taiwan Presidential Candidate Tsai Ing-wen Hints at Possible Independence

The front-runner in Taiwan's presidential race said Sunday that she would seek stable relations with mainland China, but did not rule out revisiting the island's official stance on independence, leaving open questions about how China would respond to her probable victory in next month's elections.

Tsai Ing-wen, the opposition leader who has firmly held onto a sizeable lead in polls, used her platform during the first debate to warn against the political rapprochement and deepening economic ties with the mainland brought by the ruling Nationalist Party, or KMT, since the 2008 elections.

"We cannot simply be bound to China," Tsai said. "That's what worries us most about the past eight years — the sense that that's the only choice we have. That's not good for our economy or our security."

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Scuffle in the South China Sea #17

The US Navy has stated it will probably NOT do another sail by of the Chinese islands in the South China Sea by the end of the year. 

The US Navy is warning the rule of international law is at stake in the South China Sea.

Here's a closer examination of the China vs Philippines case over territory accepted by the Hague to settle.

China has started more drills in the South China Sea.

China's rise actually stabilizes the South China Sea, according to one.

Then there's the Japanese perspective of the South China Sea.

Taiwan has started building a harbor in the Spratley Islands.

Frustrated Taiwan Wants Promised Nonnuclear Submarines Promised by US

n 2001, President George W. Bush's administration released the largest arms package to Taiwan since the closing of US military bases on the island in 1979. The deal included four Kidd-class destroyers, 12 P-3C Orion maritime patrol aircraft and eight diesel-electric submarines.

Since then, the package has been completed except for the submarine offer. The many sticking points include the fact the US has not built diesel-electric attack submarines since the last Barbel-class was finished in 1959. But that has not stopped Taiwan's Navy from pushing forward on an official release via the Foreign Military Sales (FMS) office before beginning an indigenous build program.

Taiwan’s frustrations with the US FMS process it began 14 years ago are growing, leading it to pursue an indigenous construction effort that it hopes will provide some tactical and strategic leverage against China’s rapidly growing naval modernization efforts.

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US Preparing $1 Billion Arms Sale to Taiwan

The U.S. government is close to announcing that it will sell about $1 billion worth of military equipment to Taiwan, the first new sale in more than four years. The sale is likely to cause a rift in Washington’s relationship with Beijing, which opposes any military support for Taipei.

The Obama administration hasn't decided when to notify Congress about the pending sale, one U.S. official told me. The administration is bracing for a strong negative reaction from the Chinese Communist Party, which considers Taiwan a renegade province and has opposed U.S. arms sales to Taiwan for decades. Owing to that, the sale could be formally announced after mid-December, following the upcoming climate change conference in Paris, officials said. Also, the U.S. government wants to allow a sufficient interval before Taiwan’s upcoming election in mid-January.

On Capitol Hill, leaders in both parties have been prodding the administration to follow through with the sale, despite the risks of tension with China. Senate Foreign Relations Committee ranking Democrat Ben Cardin and Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman John McCain wrote to President Obama last week to press him on the issue.

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Taiwan's Taoyuan International Airport New Terminal Rendering

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Alternate History Crazy Thought: "Next Year in Nauvoo!"

James wrote a review of a book which in turn got me thinking because he mentioned the Utah War. This was the clash between Mormons in Utah under Brigham Young vs the Buchanan administration in DC, which little actual fighting took place and there were few deaths for something of an armed conflict of the time, save for the Mountain Meadows Massacre.

One of the contingencies Young planned was to move the Mormon community north on yet another exodus.  In this case, the plan was actually for the island of Vancouver.  For the moment, let's assume the US government has decided to rid themselves of these troublesome missionaries and Young triggers the exodus.  

Young showing up in British Columbia with more people than would have been in Vancouver until the 1900 would have really alarmed the Brits.  There would be three different possibilities here.  

The first is the least likely, IMO, and the border gets scarier in the late 1850s.  However, that's tempered in a big way by the fact the American Civil War was about to go boom.  On the other hand, it might not be after the Civil War since the President Grant tried to exploit the Red River Rebellion and Louis Riel to try to take Manitoba for the US.  On the gripping hand, if the Mormons had been harried out of Utah to Vancouver,  they are not likely to be big fans of America.

The next most likely event is the Mormons becoming fervent Canadians.  The Mormons get the spin of the Loyalist being persecuted by the damned Yanks and get used to anchor the western seaboard from American encroachment.  Vancouver becomes a Canadian Utah and Mormon Zion.  

Honestly though, with the reputation the Mormons had and their particular doctrines of the time, its more than likely the Brits are going to see them off.  I'm sorry, chaps, time to move along.  But where to?  After all, the Go West, Young Mormon!  Go West! kinda runs into the end of the continent.  They could go north, but...

Historically, Mormons when proselytizing in Polynesia and the Pacific Ocean islands.  Hawaii is probably the most noted of those missions.  So, harried from Missouri, harried from Utah, harried from Vancouver, the Mormons go West again...to Polynesia, but especially to Micronesia during the American Civil War while the Brits feel they can uproot the weird Americans with less chance of something going wrong.

Missonary work still goes on in Europe and elsewhere, but Zion is now the atolls and islands of Micronesia.  Guam would get a coral block temple and there they would stay for 30 years.  The world would not be done with our ATL Mormons.

The Spanish American War and the Imperial expansion of the Japanese would bring more misery to the ATL Mormons.  The Mormons would attempt to help the Spanish hold off the Americans, and it would have consequences.  The Americans would chase the Mormons from Guam and the Mormons would set up in the surrounding islands.  While already present in many places, they ended up concentrating in the Northern Mariana Islands. 

When the Japanese took them in 1914, things did not go well.  Increasingly wondering whether or not the Mormons were a 5th Column for the Americans, the Japanese packed up the lot of them and deported the Mormons to Taiwan at first, emptying the South Pacific Mandate of the potential guerilla army threat.  This is declared a success in 1925.  Once in Taiwan, the Japanese kept them apart in separate, dedicated colonies.  When the Kominka Movement kicked off, it was decided the Mormons were unredeemable and could not be remade into Japanese citizens.  The 60,000 of them were deported to Manchuria to work camps.

They would suffer through the deprivations of WW2 and come out the other side.  Unfortunately, the Chinese Communists, Mao especially, were not overly fond of them.  They were then moved to the Chinese West, Xinjiang, in the early 1950s.  Their numbers were now 50,000.  There they would stay and slow grow over the next 15 years.  Unfortunately, the Cultural Revolution would strike and being the most western (albeit very mixed at this point) group, the Mormons would suffer again.

However, this time the Mormons would make their own move.  The Prophet, Hyriam Hattig, would organize the exodus of the majority of members across the Chinese border into Afghanistan.  In 1968, the Mormons left China.  They would take up farming for a time in the mountains of Afghanistan.  The Afghanis were suspicious but also sympathetic.  At least until 1978.

The Soviet invasion of Afghanistan was a disaster.  For the Afghanis, the Soviets and now for the Mormons.  It would kill a number of Mormons.  It would also cause the Great Schism.  The Mormons had finally broken through 100,000 people at the start of the war in their settlements in their valleys.  However, Mormons had become very apolitical and only out for their own survival rather than to change or convert the world.  Most followed the 'render unto Caesar...'  When the communists took over, they rendered until caesar, or at least 75% of them did.  The rest, sick of their being the narrator of the world's dog, moved south, across the Hindu Kush and became the partisans everyone feared they would.  They would even spawn rival Prophets.  Those who moved south became the Abandoned (the Fallen as called by the Wanderers), in the Mormon terminology, and those who remained, the Wanderers (the Lost as called by the Abandoned).  

When the Soviet Union began withdrawing from Afghanistan, the Wanderer Mormons pleaded with the Soviets.  Gorbachev took them in and placed them in Crimea.  It did not make them popular with their new neighbors.  However, when the coup came in August 1991, Mormons took it on themselves to free and hide Gorbachev.  It would not stop the fall of the Soviet Union, but it would make the Ukrainians even less fond of them.  

They would cross into Europe and Wanderers would become a traveling people in the 1990s making their name a reality.  They would wander in their RVs there for another 24 years.  They would reunite once every three years for 'General Conference.'  Each band of Wanderer's is called a Ward.  Given how few Wanderers there are, each country has a Stake.  All of them report to the Prophet and Quorums.  The biggest change to the church and people would be they took up missionary work again.  Unfortunately, this didn't help their image.  A wandering group seeking converts.  Great.

Back in Pakistan, the Abandoned would slowly evolve their own way.  Their own revelations would state that Christ visited the Kashmir like he had the Americas.  They migrated to Kashmir and integrated, albeit roughly into society.  However, they were far, far more rough than their Wanderer cousins.  If someone knocked heads with them, they knocked them right back.  They built their own temple up in the glaciers.  It's been blown up twice.  But each time rebuilt.

In 2016, Jackson Tanner, an aspiring politician, would begin, successfully, to lobby for bringing the Mormons back to the US.  He succeeded in 2024 having argued the Mormons were US citizens by birth.  The genealogical records the Mormons kept were key.  

The Wanderers had always had the saying, "Next Year in Nauvoo" and in 2024, it came true.

Penghu 1: An Archaic, Robust, Late Surviving Hominin From Ionian (Late) Pleistocene Quaternary Taiwan

The first archaic Homo from Taiwan

Authors:

Chang et al

Abstract:

Recent studies of an increasing number of hominin fossils highlight regional and chronological diversities of archaic Homo in the Pleistocene of eastern Asia. However, such a realization is still based on limited geographical occurrences mainly from Indonesia, China and Russian Altai. Here we describe a newly discovered archaic Homo mandible from Taiwan (Penghu 1), which further increases the diversity of Pleistocene Asian hominins. Penghu 1 revealed an unexpectedly late survival (younger than 450 but most likely 190–10 thousand years ago) of robust, apparently primitive dentognathic morphology in the periphery of the continent, which is unknown among the penecontemporaneous fossil records from other regions of Asia except for the mid-Middle Pleistocene Homo from Hexian, Eastern China. Such patterns of geographic trait distribution cannot be simply explained by clinal geographic variation of Homo erectus between northern China and Java, and suggests survival of multiple evolutionary lineages among archaic hominins before the arrival of modern humans in the region.

Taiwan Kicks off Conventional Attack Submarine Program After US Failure to Deliver

After waiting on the U.S. to make good on plans to develop a diesel electric attack submarine (SSK) for almost 15 years, Taiwan’s Ministry of National Defence announced it was kicking off its own domestic attack submarine construction program this week, the agency told Taiwan’s Legislative Yuan.

Defense officials told the legislative body preparation work would begin this year starting with a modest $315,000 start into a $94.46 million four-year effort, beginning in earnest in 2016.

The planned result would be around four SSKs to replace the island’s current boats — two Dutch-built, 1980s vintage 2,600-ton Hai-lang-class SSKs and two World War II era U.S. Guppy-class boats used for training.

“At present the navy’s demand is submarines ranging from 1,200-3,000 tons,” Vice Adm. Hsiao Wei-min with the Republic of China Navy (RoCN) told the legislator on Monday.

The new boats are a long awaited hedge against the expansion of China’s People’s Liberation Army Navy (PLAN) and the looming threat of an amphibious assault from the mainland.

“After Taiwan has lost air and sea control, it’s the subs that will still be able to attack groups of amphibious landing aircraft,” Wang Jyh-perng, RoCN reserve captain told the Asia Times in 2011.

In 2001, the Bush administration promised Taiwan eight U.S.-built SSKs but the boats never materialized for several reasons.

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Taiwan's new Corvette (warship)

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