On 21 June 2024, China issued alarming new guiding opinions under the 2005 Anti-Secession Law.
The guidelines threaten to impose a maximum potential death penalty for a range of vaguely defined supporting ‘Taiwan independence’ activities. They allow Chinese courts to conduct trials in absentia and appear to apply to both Taiwanese nationals and foreigners alike, in an unacceptable escalation in Beijing’s assault on the freedom of expression of the people of Taiwan and the international community.
Michael Caster, Asia Digital Program Manager at ARTICLE 19, commented:
“In these new guidelines, Beijing is seeking to wield the maximum threat of in absentia death sentences to instill fear and gag independent expression on all things Taiwan. Make no mistake, this has nothing to do with preserving cross-straits peace, as Beijing would have it. This development serves to further bully the international community into isolating Taiwan. The only acceptable response is to redouble solidarity and accelerate coordination and cooperation with Taiwan.
@[email protected] The “American aligned entities” seek alliances because of China’s aggression, and they do so by collaborating not just with America but also with each other, e.g., Japan, the Philipines, Australia, and others. These countries collaborates voluntarily with each other because of China’s imperialistic behaviour in the region, not because China is “boxed in” by any Western “entity”.
Beijing has been disputing a lot of its neighbours’ sovereignty on land and at sea, including India’s and Russia’s, and neither India nor Russia are exactly what I would call “American aligned entities”. As @Buffalox already said, even the single-party communist country Vietnam with a similar authoritarian system seeks stronger ties with the USA rather China.
China has been accessing the Pacific Ocean unimpeded for decades now, no one questions that. The reasons why China wants control over Taiwan are manifold, one being Taiwan’s prominent role in the global supply chain, another is that it would give China better access to the South China Sea and its estimated reserves of 190 trillion cubic feet of natural gas and 11 billion barrels of oil.