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May 31st, 2021 
Awake Goy 
When it comes to the Taiwan issue today, one can’t help but picture the violent verbal skirmishes between Beijing and Washington, as well as the mutual displays of muscle around the “rebel island” (as the Chinese parlance puts it). All sorts of warships and warplanes are roaming around in the outskirts of Taiwan, and somewhere paratroopers practice disembarking from the sea.
But so far all of this only makes for a colorful theatrical backdrop (or a loud backstage ruckus) to the main action, which will involve real (and therefore genuinely important) issues of everyday life. For example, at the beginning of this year, the relevant Chinese customs control service suddenly discovered some kind of harmful bugs on Taiwanese pineapples, threatening the health of the Chinese people. So, on February 26, imports of this product from Taiwan were “temporarily” stopped.
Note that Taiwanese people mostly eat their own pineapples grown on the island. But of their total volume, only about 10% was still supplied to foreign markets, of which the largest one was the neighboring “Mainland”. Its loss is not catastrophic for Taiwan’s foreign trade as a whole, but it certainly poses trouble for some specific Taiwanese farmers.
The island’s leadership begun a search for other markets, and Japan, notably having strained relations with China, provided them with such a market. A certain Japanese distribution company will start buying (“at the end of the year“) almost two-thirds of Taiwanese pineapples intended for import. Despite the fact that it would cost it twice as much as pineapples currently sourced in the Philippines.
It is unlikely that the Japanese will bother to ask whose pineapple they will be eating for dessert, Filipino or Taiwanese. Nor will they consume it just to spoil the mood of the Chinese. It is merely a delicious food product, a piece of joy so limited in the current pandemic.
But for Japan’s political leadership, this is not “merely” a trivial product, but a welcome addition to the (usually rather) positive attitude of Taiwan’s people toward the Japanese. Not even Americans can keep up with them.
Note that Taiwan did try to fight back against “Mainland”: “You don’t want to buy our pineapples? – Well, then we won’t sell you our microchips either.” This was never voiced by official sources, but nevertheless, Beijing picked up on the hint and met it with a harsh response.
Let us explain that the words “microchip shortage” today cause almost magical horror in the circles of modern industrial production, in particular in the world’s auto and IT giants. The quality (and price) of advanced weapon systems is determined not by their formidable appearance, measured in tons and meters, but rather by the weightless and seemingly invisible equipment of all kinds. The very basic elements of which are modern microchips.
Meanwhile, Taiwan still accounts for half to two-thirds of the world’s microchip production, which has been severely affected by the effect indicated by following words: “A break in the supply chain of raw materials and components“. Many of the latter are brought to Taiwan from other countries through well-established transport and logistics operations. But the coronavirus pandemic has forced restrictions (e.g., at seaports) on the scale and extent of these operations.
It should be noted that until recently the pandemic affected Taiwan itself the least, which made its leadership’s position regarding the island’s right to participate in WHO as an observer particularly compelling. It does not aspire to become a full-fledged member of this esteemed organization, as since 1971, Taiwan has been outside the UN, under the auspices of which the WHO operates.
Moreover, by requesting support on this issue from its external sympathizers, the Taiwanese leadership engages in hardly subtle blackmail: “The sooner we defeat Covid-19 together using our expertise, the shorter the “chain-break” factor will be and the sooner we will recover microchip production. To everyone’s satisfaction.”
But there is no need to particularly agitate the mentioned “sympathizers”, because in the “struggle for Taiwan” they pursue their very obvious goals of creating all sorts of obstacles to the expansion of the main geopolitical opponent (China) of influence on world processes. The factor of making Taiwan a “regular” member is one of the main tools used.
Becoming a member (even as an observer) of the WHO would be an important step in this direction. That is why in all “joint-Western” platforms (such as the last G7 ministerial meeting, along with calls “not to escalate cross-strait tensions,” there is a constant demand for Beijing to remove obstacles to the accession of Taiwan to the WHO. The PRC possesses this power by the right of permanent membership in the UN Security Council.
But that is not to say that Beijing has an inherently negative stance on this issue. It all depends on his perception of Taipei’s political course toward the PRC at the moment. The current ruling Democratic Progressive Party of Taiwan, its leader and Taiwan’s charismatic president Tsai Ing-wen, according to Beijing, do not exhibit “good behavior”. This is why they have problems participating in the work of WHO. And bugs on pineapples are appearing more and more for whatever reason.
In addition to these artificial turmoil was added a factor (to which, however, Beijing has nothing to do with) the aggravation of the situation with the coronavirus. Taipei is therefore asking Washington to release the vaccine directly to Taiwan out of turn. Incidentally, again for reasons of microchip production recovery. This ignores Beijing’s proposal to urgently deliver a Chinese vaccine to the island.
Something similar was previously observed in one of Russia’s non-independent neighbors. The infection of political idiocy apparently is airborne as well. Sparing no soul.
The tragicomic situation, of which Taiwan was a willing participant, arose in connection with an episode in China’s deteriorating relations with Australia. One of the victims of Beijing’s “countermeasures” against Canberra, which has taken an entirely pro-American (that is, anti-Chinese) stance, was Australian wine. Last year, customs in China, which until then had been the main importer of Australian wine, began to notice some problems with its quality. The consequence was the refusal to purchase it. “Temporary” as well.
Australian farmers and winemakers in trouble decided to help politically friendly Taiwan. But there are less than 24 million Taiwanese. Including infants, teetotalers and the sick. It is simply physically impossible for them to stomach all the wine that was originally intended for a billion and a half Mainlanders.
As for Australia itself, the opposition is already making circling motions at their temples, mocking the general election next year: “You idiots! Who but the Chinese would buy our iron ore, coal, meat, and wine? Like sheep they followed Washington with this “COVID,” joined some stupid Quad. Now our ally will sell their own California wine to the Chinese. Our New Zealand brothers were smarter than you idiots.”
Lastly, it is worth noting that the signals from Beijing toward Taipei are completely transparent: “Don’t get excited like children about verbal support from the G7, that is, from our geopolitical opponents. Solve your problems together with us and everything will be OK: pineapples, microchips, coronavirus, WHO, and you won’t have to gorge yourself on Australian wine. And hurry up before we solve the microchip and pineapple problems ourselves.”
Meanwhile, the uniformed men, blind to all of this, continue to draw red and blue arrows on maps: die erste Kolonne marschiert, die zweite Kolonne… Well, let them carry on, sitting in their cool offices, alone, amusing themselves with their toys. With proper breaks for a visit to the buffet.
As long as they stay out of the way of the really important issues in contemporary global politics in general and in Taiwan in particular, the pineapple-wine-coronavirus problem, and the rest.
Vladimir Terekhov, expert on the issues of the Asia-Pacific region, exclusively for the online magazine “New Eastern Outlook”.
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