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Taiwan could irritate Southeast Asia if not careful
When it comes to all things Taiwan, Beijing takes a hard line on noninterference in its domestic affairs; just as it did with Hong Kong by introducing the Comprehensive Security Law in 2020.
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Uninviting beachfront: Anti-landing spikes stand along the coast of Taiwan's Kinmen Islands on Nov. 4, 2020, with Mainland China visible in the background. (AFP/Sam Yeh)
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n the surface, aerial incursions by China into the Aerial Defense Identification Zone (ADIZ) have ranged in the hundreds since President Joe Biden took office on Jan. 20. Just days ago, a United States satellite also spotted a Chinese nuclear submarine in the Taiwan Strait, as reported by the South China Morning Post on Nov. 30.
Meanwhile, Japan has affirmed that if Taiwan is attacked, Japan and the US will not sit idly by. They would have to come to Taiwan's aid. Superficially, this is an example of the Sanskrit proverb: "The enemy of my enemy is my friend."
This is why the Arab world, especially the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, and to a lesser degree Kuwait and Jordan, see Turkey becoming stronger and stronger and independent of any anchor chained to a collective defense pact such as NATO. Potentially, Turkey is no longer making an active effort to join the European Union. These Arab countries, except Qatar, develop a schizophrenic complex, where they love to spend their time in Istanbul, perhaps even Izmir, deep down they see shadows of their old past of being ruled harshly by the Ottoman Empire until it collapsed in 1922.
An Arab insurrection was stirred and provoked by Lawrence of Arabia, a British agent, coupled with the rebellion led by Mustafa Kemal Attaturk, who grew increasingly impatient with the Ottoman Empire holding on to the coattails of the history of the Islamic empire, which in his view, had long diminished in glory in Andalusia, or present day Valencia.
As fate would have it, Attaturk, so named because he saw himself as a father of the Turks, staged a rebellion with like-minded military cadres – though not without some help from the Kurds from within the Ottoman Empire in the Anatolian area that constitutes what is known as Asia, which has often felt discriminated against by the Turkish upper-class in Istanbul, who were increasingly trying their best to mimic the behavior of the Europeans too to end the caliphate of Sultan Abdulhamid II.
While the narrative above may seem irrelevant and unnecessary, even obsequious, the latter is precisely why the Taiwan story needs to be put in that context. Take Singapore, for example, a city state that can punch above its weight, geopolitically and geoeconomically, unless it is weighed down by a pandemic that has gone not endemic but polydemic, with new dominant strains of the coronavirus making decision-makers, used to a neat and orderly world, suddenly all unruly.
Singapore may not be the chair of ASEAN, this role went to Cambodia after Brunei completed its term hosting the ASEAN Leaders Summit, ASEAN Regional Forum (ARF), ASEAN Defense Ministerial Meeting (ADMM) and finally the year-end ASEAN-related summit that is held back to back with the East Asian Summit (EAS), where United States President Joe Biden, Chinese President Xi Jin Ping, United Kingdom Prime Minister Boris Johnson, Japanese Prime Minister Kishida Fumio, Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison, South Korean President Moon Jae-in, Russian President Vladimir Putin and New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Arden had all shown up albeit virtually.
