War of Words

China, Taiwan spar over Chinese invasion threat
Reuters

BEIJING/TAIPEI -- A threat by a senior Chinese diplomat to invade Taiwan the instant any U.S. warship visits the self-ruled island has sparked a war of words, with Taipei accusing Beijing of failing to understand what democracy means.
China considers Taiwan to be a wayward province and has never renounced the use of force to bring it under its control. 

The United States has no formal ties with Taiwan but is bound by law to help it defend itself and is its main source of arms.
Beijing regularly calls Taiwan the most sensitive and important issue between it and the United States. 

In September, the U.S. Congress passed the National Defense Authorization Act for the 2018 fiscal year, which authorises mutual visits by navy vessels between Taiwan and the United States.
Diplomat Li Kexin said at a Chinese embassy event in Washington on Friday he had told U.S. officials that China would activate its Anti-Secession Law, which allows it to use force on Taiwan if deemed necessary to prevent the island from seceding, if the United States sent navy ships to Taiwan.
“The day that a U.S. Navy vessel arrives in Kaohsiung is the day that our People’s Liberation Army unifies Taiwan with military force,” Chinese media quoted Li as saying at the weekend, referring to Taiwan’s main port.
Taiwan’s Foreign Ministry said late on Saturday that, while Chinese officials seemed to want to try and win over hearts and minds in Taiwan, they also had been repeatedly using threats that hurt the feelings of Taiwan’s people.
“These methods show a lack of knowledge about the real meaning of the democratic system and how a democratic society works,” the ministry said.
China suspects Taiwan President Tsai Ing-wen, who leads the independence-leaning Democratic Progressive Party, wants to declare the island’s formal independence. 

Tsai says she wants to maintain peace with China but will defend Taiwan’s security.
Influential Chinese tabloid the Global Times, published by the ruling Communist Party’s official People’s Daily, said on Monday China would never back down over Taiwan.
“The Chinese mainland has never given up the option of Taiwan reunification by force, which is clear to people across the Taiwan Strait,” it said in an editorial.

China and India renew war of words over Tibet

India calls Arunachal an ‘integral’ part of its country after Beijing adjusts place names 
By Lucy Hornby in Beijing and Aliya Ram in New Delhi

The Dalai Lama waves to supporters at a Buddhist monastery in the Himalayan Indian state of Arunachal Pradesh this month

China and India have renewed a war of words over the north-eastern Indian state of Arunachal Pradesh, a Tibetan Himalayan region claimed by Beijing, after China said it would “standardise” six place names in the territory.
The announcement of the new romanised spellings for three towns and three mountain passes by China’s ministry of civil affairs is the country’s latest move to stake its claim over an area that came under formal Indian control in a series of 19th-century boundary agreements between the Manchu Qing empire and the British government in India. 
India responded on Thursday by insisting that Arunachal Pradesh was “an integral part” of India. “Nothing can change that,” the foreign ministry in New Delhi said.
“We have an established bilateral mechanism to discuss the boundary question with China and it has made progress. We seek a fair, reasonable and mutually acceptable solution to the boundary question.”
Beijing’s current claims over Arunachal Pradesh — which it calls South Tibet — rest on its control over the rest of Tibet, the vast mountain territory it invaded and seized in 1950.
The decision to release new names follows a dispute over a visit to a Buddhist monastery in Arunachal this month by the Dalai Lama, the Tibetan spiritual leader who lives in exile in India. Chinese foreign ministry spokesman Lu Kang said the “standardisation” was in line with Chinese regulations on the management of geographical names.
The Dalai Lama has lived in exile in India since 1959 when he fled Lhasa following a failed Tibetan uprising against Chinese rule.
The influential leader is reviled by Beijing, which views him as a threat to China’s control of Tibet. After a previous visit to the Tawang monastery in Arunachal Pradesh by the Dalai Lama in 2009, China stopped recognising the Indian passports of people born in the state.
Rather than normal visas, it issued travel permits stapled into their passports.
The dispute escalated as both countries included maps in newly issued passports showing the conflicting claims.
The ageing Dalai Lama has resisted attempts by Beijing to put forward its own candidate for his reincarnated successor.
He has said the reincarnated spiritual leader will not be born in Chinese territory.  
An alternative option of identifying his successor in Mongolia — which the Dalai Lama visited late last year — seems to be ruled out by China’s growing political and economic influence over its landlocked neighbour.
The place name “standardisation” adheres to a playbook China has followed in the case of other border territories it claims, for instance the Japanese Senkaku islands and atolls in the South China Sea.
According to the process, a first step is to have the territory in question recognised as “disputed” by an international audience.
“The motivation might be to show historical claim and historical ownership of the disputed territory,” said Jian Zhang, associate professor at the University of New South Wales.