Asians express concern over China-Taiwan crisis

Asians express concern over China-Taiwan crisis

HONG KONG (Reuter): Asian officials and political commentators voiced growing concerns yesterday over heightening China-Taiwan tensions and urged restraint on all sides.

While China increased its military threats and the United States sent more warships to the region, most commentators and officials still believed the crisis would end peacefully.

Some, however, felt the increasing aggressiveness was in danger of gaining unstoppable momentum.

A Tokyo official expressed concern that the antagonism might escalate to such an extent that "the two sides find an excuse for using their military strength".

Calls for restraint came from many sides, including Vietnam. Australia's new Deputy Prime Minister, Tim Fischer, told reporters: "You have to be concerned about the level of tension that has developed in recent days and recent weeks between China and Taiwan."

A.P. Venkateswaran, a former Indian foreign secretary who has also served as India's ambassador to China, questioned Washington's will to protect Taiwan.

Beijing said on Saturday that more war games would be staged from today to March 20 in the Taiwan Straits. Military sources on Sunday warned of further exercises to deter separatism in Taiwan after the island's March 23 presidential elections.

The United States on Sunday said it was beefing up a naval task force in the area, and the Washington Post reported yesterday a second naval force would join forces in the area.

In Tokyo, a defense ministry official told Reuters: "The Chinese action would certainly raise tension in East Asia. But we believe that China is not in a stage yet where it will resort to force. Fortunately Taiwan has remained calm so far."

But the official, who declined to be identified, was concerned "that China and Taiwan might escalate mutual antagonism to the level where the two sides find an excuse for using their military strength".

In Hanoi, a Foreign Ministry spokesman said: "Vietnam hopes that self control by all sides could help to avoid regrettable consequences. Peace and stability in the region should be maintained in line with the aspirations, and for the benefit of, the peoples of the countries in the region."

In New Delhi, former ambassador Venkateswaran told Reuters: "The Chinese always test the other person's will and in the last years they have found that the American will has more or less collapsed."

Citing the U.S. stand towards China's human rights record and its transfer of military technology and missiles to Pakistan, he said: "These are all signs that told the Chinese that America can be taken for a ride."

He said Taiwan was being abandoned. "When China shows the gumption to walk across the Straits of Taiwan, it will succeed.

"Taiwan will be left to fend for itself and the pressure from China will speed up till the day Taiwan will fall like a ripe fruit on the lap of the People's Republic of China.

In Jakarta, Dewi Fortuna Anwar, a political scientist with the government-run Indonesian Academy of Sciences (LIPI), said China seemed not to care about international opinion.

"It is very worrying because when we want to set up a rule of conduct among countries in the region, the first thing everyone should agree is to renounce the use of threat to use force," she said.

Anwar said China's actions had cast a cloud over the fate of the oil-rich Spratly islands, claimed wholly or in part by Brunei, China, Malaysia, the Philippines, Taiwan and Vietnam.

"China is quite restrained (over the Spratlys) at the moment but what if it feels it has to have absolute sovereignty... and what if there is oil and gas in the Spratlys?"

Singapore's Straits Times said the crisis would intensify but war was unlikely. "If China dispatched troops without a just cause, its economic development would be affected and both the mainland and Taiwan would stand to lose much."

In the Sydney Morning Herald, Asian Editor David Lague said China's actions were designed merely to intimidate. "Beijing will not invade as it does not have the military capacity to land sufficient troops on the island," he wrote. "But it may resort to missile strikes and air and naval blockade.