JAKARTA (THE JAKARTA POST/ASIA NEWS NETWORK) - On the surface, aerial incursions by China into the Aerial Defence 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 defence 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 behaviour 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 Defence 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 Jinping, 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.

       With the exception of Russia, these leaders spoke in unison to tell China to behave accordingly toward Taiwan and not to provoke it. One should remember that Chinese diplomacy harnessed in Beijing, and thousands of years of history, is both Westphalian in character and predominantly Han in outlook.

       This is the case granted that 93 per cent of China's 1.5 billion-strong population are of the ethnic stock. To them, regardless of the extent to which more and more Taiwanese see themselves as distinct and different from mainland China, especially when Taiwan is a multiparty democracy while the current China is not, regime difference matters little to the highest leadership of all government, party instrument and military services of China.

       This includes the mainland Chinese intellectuals too. Taiwan is an inseparable part of China. Together with Tibet and the nine-dash line in the South China Sea, Taiwan forms the national interest of the fatherland.

       The numbers and hybridisation with Western statecraft, which began at the Bandung Conference in 1955, are telling. China may increasingly have the sharp power to conduct its campaign to swing one party over to Beijing at the expense of President Tsai Ing-wen's outreach to get more countries to recognise it, such as the Solomon Islands and Honduras.

       But when it comes to all things Taiwan, Beijing takes a hard line on non-interference in its domestic affairs; just as it did with Hong Kong by introducing the Comprehensive Security Law in March 2020.

       Beijing has its surveillance and stealth campaign to return hundreds of Taiwanese supporters back to the mainland, even though these supporters have no more family in the mainland.

       The member states of Asean may espouse noninterference in their domestic affairs. The implicit understanding written into this principle is that no member state shall actively or covertly support an opposition movement against another country. This is why Senior General Min Aung Hlang of the military junta in Nyapidaw is not the least worried about Asean's attempt to exclude it from any major summitry with the major powers.

       Beyond that, Asean member states shall not openly oppose military base agreements concluded with other major powers. All of the above suggests Asean's confirmation bias toward China's concept of international relations vis-a-vis Taiwan.

       Thus, even when Indonesia triggered a conflict with China recently by drilling in its North Natuna Sea, the overall sentiment among the elites in Asean remained consistent with the view of the three Shanghai communiqués, that there should be one China, and both sides are free to interpret what that means short of resorting to any acts of aggression to bring Taiwan back into its fold.

       Chinese Foreign Minister Joseph Wu claimed, not without embellishment, that if Taiwan was left alone, "it could become the fate of the fall of Kabul."

       No Asean ministers or leaders took the statement seriously, for almost none of Asean wants to antagonise Beijing, especially President Xi.

       The writer is the founder and CEO of Strategic Pan Indo-Pacific Arena. The Jakarta Post is a member of The Straits Times media partner Asia News Network, an alliance of 23 news media organisations.

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