Dragon Fire

Presidential Palace, Taipei, Taiwan

President Lin Chung-ling of Taiwan was born in the United States while his father was the Ambassador there in the 1960s. He was given the best American education and even held a United States passport, which he had to give up when he entered politics. He considered himself as much American as Chinese and certainly was more at home in the corridors of the State Department and the White House than he would be in Zhongnanhai and the Great Hall of the People.

The events of the past few days had thrown up an opportunity which Lin was convinced he could not let pass. For sixty years Taiwan had struggled in isolation, risen to the challenges and created one of the most modern Asian societies. Even the poorest Taiwanese were generations ahead of the Chinese peasants and right now a vulnerable China posed an enormous opportunity for Taiwan.

Lin had to strike while China was weak. It was pinned down in Tibet. The incursion into Arunachal Pradesh was as foolhardy as its invasion of Vietnam in 1979. International support had already been slipping from it. The decision to sink the Indian destroyer would bring condemnation from every quarter. Very rarely did such a succession of events come together in such a way.

President Lin Chung-ling had been elected with a landslide majority after he said he would attempt to see himself a citizen of Taiwan as a recognized independent country within his lifetime. Never had he dreamt the opportunity would come so quickly. He desk-topped his personal secretary to bring in the BBC film crew which was waiting outside to interview him. He had decided to make his announcement of Taiwan’s independence on BBC rather than CNN to distance himself from his American benefactors. But it would be in the contemporary manner, announcing it to the world on live television.