Taiwan146;s missiles

At its national day military parade this week, Taiwan is expected to showcase a long range cruise missile...

At its national day military parade this week, Taiwan is expected to showcase a long range cruise missile that promises to undercut China8217;s overwhelming military superiority. Nick-named the 8220;Brave Wind8221;, Taiwan8217;s cruise missile Hsiung Feng 2E, with its range of 1000 km, is capable of hitting China8217;s coastal cities, including Shanghai. Taipei8217;s display of 8220;Brave Wind8221; is bound to anger Beijing and irritate Washington.

On the face of it, a few Taiwanese cruise missiles do not measure up to the hundreds of missiles that China has deployed against Taiwan. But in the topsy turvy world of weapons of mass destruction, numbers are not everything. Even a small missile armoury produces options for deterrence, especially if coupled with nuclear weapons. Taiwan seems to have learnt from Pakistan that you can trump the superior military power of a larger neighbour through a small nuclear force. In the 1970s, Washington pressured Taiwan to give up its military nuclear programme. In recent years, 8220;strategic autonomy8221; has once again become politically attractive for Taipei.

Since he took charge of Taiwan in 2000, President Chen Shu-bian has made life difficult for both Beijing and Washington, by promoting an independent identity for the territory and wanting to avoid a total security dependence on Washington. The decisions to hold the first ever military parade in sixteen years and show off the 8220;Brave Wind8221; mark the culmination of Chen8217;s controversial transformation of cross-straits relations and potentially the East Asian balance of power.

Chinese nationalism

Taiwan8217;s 8220;Brave Wind8221; comes at an inconvenient time for Beijing which is about to hold the 17th Congress of the Chinese Communist Party next week. Much like Indian leaders on Kashmir, Chinese communists cannot afford to look weak on Taiwan and allow rivals to outflank them on national security.

At the congress, Hu Jintao, the president of China and the boss of the CCP, is expected to step up the political tirade against Taiwan and its plans to hold a referendum on joining the United Nations. While there is no hope in hell that Taiwan would be admitted to the UN, Chen is using the referendum as a way to consolidate the separatist sentiment in the territory.

Hu8217;s theory

CCP leaders are more than mere managers of the party-state in China.

They are expected to be brilliant political theorists. Like the leaders of the three preceding generations of the CCP, Hu Jintao would like his ideas to be canonised and grafted on to the party constitution. There is speculation on which ideas of Hu might merit such honour. One view is that Hu8217;s thesis on 8220;scientific development8221;, which is the CCP version of the term 8220;sustainable development8221; commonly used around the world, might make the grade.

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Others point to the new phrase recently coined by Hu and subsumes the idea of scientific development. The tongue twister is called 8220;Four Steadfasts8221;. Hu insists that the CCP must hold 8220;steadfast8221; to the emancipation of the mind, the reform and opening policy, scientific development and social harmony.

The writer is a professor at the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore.