On March 14 the National People’s Congress, the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) rubber-stamp parliamentary body, passed the Anti-secession Law. The law gives China the right to attack Taiwan should Taiwan declare, or move definitely toward, independence.

China watchers are scratching their heads and asking why the CCP passed the Anti-secession Law now. The Anti-secession Law was first conceived as a response to the Referendum Law, passed in Taiwan in December 2003. The Referendum Law assures that no deal to unify Taiwan and China will be valid unless first approved by a popular referendum. It was passed by Chen Shui-ban’s Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) in order to put restraints on the opposition, limiting their freedom of action in negotiating reunification with China.

After the passage of the Referendum Law events seemed to go China’s way, and there had been a mild warming of relations with Taiwan. Chen won re-election by the narrowest of margins, the DPP suffered a setback in the December 2004 parliamentary elections, and the opposition has thwarted his desire to purchase new armaments. During the Chinese New Year there had been direct flights between Taiwan and the mainland, long negotiated and greeted as a sign of more normal relations.

Passing the Anti-secession law has now deeply angered the people of Taiwan, which will likely bring Chen the arms purchases he had wanted. It has surely breathed new life into the pro-independence forces in Taiwan, and created new obstacles for Beijing’s allies on the island.

Could this all have been a disastrous miscalculation by the CCP, a clumsy failure to understand Taiwan?

Jiang’s Advice to Hu

Hong Kong’s Sing Pao Daily recently quoted sources inside the CCP as to the advice Jiang Zemin gave to Hu Jintao, before Jiang resigned as Chairman of China’s State Central Military Commission on March 4: “if you have to attack Taiwan, the earlier the better.”

The Chinese-language edition of The Epoch Times quoted a high level CCP official in more detail as to Jiang’s and Hu’s meeting. Jiang explained to Hu the detailed plan he had developed for attacking Taiwan, and gave Hu some advice. Attacking Taiwan is a good “smokescreen.” Making the decision to attack Taiwan does not depend on whether Taiwan in fact claims its independence. Such an attack will help relieve pressure on the CCP from all kinds of issues inside China, and maintain the CCP’s power.

In other words, Jiang’s policy toward Taiwan is not about Taiwan at all, it is about the survival of the CCP.

Jiang’s Taiwan policy is in fact just one instance of the policy he has followed since he was brought in from Shanghai to finish the suppression of the democracy activists in 1989. Jiang realized in the wake of the Tiananmen Square massacre that the CCP needed a new basis for its claim to rule China. That basis has been an ever more strident nationalism that aims to convince the Chinese people that love of China means love of the CCP. This strategy has been described by various observers as “hypernationalism” or a turn to fascism.

In this strategy, Taiwan plays an indispensable role, as the CCP presents itself as the vehicle of all Chinese patriotism in its desire finally to unite all of China, even if it must fight a war to do so. The Anti-secession Law is just the latest expression of Jiang’s long-term strategy for assuring the rule of the CCP in the face of whatever crises it may face. What crisis is the Anti-secession Law aimed to counter?

The CCP’s Biggest Crisis

	PUBLIC POSTING: A statement declaring withdrawal from the CCP, posted near the county government building in Nongan County. (Epoch Times)

The first stirrings toward adoption of the Anti-secession Law began in December. On November 19, 2004 the “Nine Commentaries on the Communist Party” had been published.

This book-length series of editorials by The Epoch Times explain in detail how the CCP has always placed its own survival above all other considerations, especially including China’s own well-being. The ability of the “Nine Commentaries” to explain the true reasons for the CCP’s behavior, on the basis of a careful exposition of the history of the CCP, helps account for the “Nine Commentaries” skyrocketing popularity among Chinese.

The “Nine Commentaries” are the crisis threatening the CCP’s survival that makes even the drastic remedy of the Anti-secession Law seem attractive.

Since the “Nine Commentaries” were published something entirely unprecedented has happened. On December 4, 2004 a few hundred Chinese e-mailed statements to a website set up by The Epoch Times. In those statements those few hundred resigned from the CCP.

Since then, the number of those sending in their resignations from the CCP and its affiliated organizations has doubled and redoubled until, by March 7, a week before the passage of the Anti-secession law, the rate had topped 20,000 per day. The bulk of these were sent over the internet, but individuals also called and faxed Epoch Times offices.

A few days ago a couple of hardy souls in Nongan County in Jilin Province did something that has surely caused sleepless nights in Zhongnanhai, the residences and offices of the men who rule in China. These individuals posted in public, on bulletin boards outside a county government building, their resignations from the Party. Until now, only those Chinese who were savvy enough to use the Internet, or lucky enough to be told by a friend or family member, knew of the groundswell among Chinese to reject the CCP. Soon, in villages, towns and cities throughout China notices like those posted in Nongan County will begin to appear.

March 26- Taiwan Asks for the World’s Support

The CCP has found no way to check the increasing popularity of the “Nine Commentaries” or the wave of resignations they have inspired. The CCP has tried to do so, through acts of intimidation and harassment, and through a heavy-handed campaign called “Maintaining the Advancement of the Party.” But that campaign reveals the problem faced by the CCP. As soon as the cadres are brought together to study the CCP charter and retake their CCP loyalty oath, they figure out this campaign is a response to the “Nine Commentaries.” Their desire to read the Commentaries then only increases.

On March 26 in Taiwan, the DPP will hold a rally. 500,000 are expected to attend. This muscular people power reminds one of the half-million strong rallies held in Hong Kong, when the Hong Kongers forced the tyrants of Beijing to back down from their plans to enact Article 23 (a set of anti-sedition laws that would have gravely threatened Hong Kong’s civil liberties). The world supported the people of Hong Kong because those people stood up and demanded their rights be protected. Expect the world now to support the people of Taiwan, as they stand up and demand that they not suffer conquest by the CCP.

Any effort the CCP makes to respond to the “Nine Commentaries” calls attention to them. The Anti-secession law gives birth to a mass rejection of the CCP. The CCP is twisting back and forth in an ever narrower space, with no way out.