President Chen Shui-bian (
Interestingly, in a discussion regarding the US' hope that Chinese President Hu Jintao (
So, Chen is clear then that an ideal is one thing and reality is another, and that cross-strait relations are going nowhere in a hurry.
Lien's visit to China and meeting with Hu resulted in a joint communique, issued on April 29. One of the main clauses in that communique mentioned that the two parties would set up a platform for regular meetings between the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and the KMT. The clause also states that the first meeting will be held in Taipei before Lien steps down as chairman next month. A delegation of top KMT leaders and legislators is currently in Beijing to discuss the details of the meeting.
Chen -- who, full of wishful thinking, has been offering Beijing many goodwill gestures -- is finally waking up and is tasting the bitter fruit of his efforts. But it is surprising to see that the opposition leaders still cannot see the error of their ways. They remain full of hope that the CCP-KMT show will help improve their political prestige.
But it is just as Chen has pointed out. After Lien's, Soong's and New Party Chairman Yok Mu-ming's (郁慕明) visits to China, they are full of ideas for peaceful cross-strait development, but this simply does not meet the test of the current reality. Beijing continues to isolate Taiwan within the international community, and even in the few months since the opposition leaders visited China, it has not made the slightest concession in continuing to pursue this policy.
Because of China's pressure, Chen will not be able to attend the APEC meeting in South Korea at the end of the year. The US Congress on July 20 even passed a proposal to allow high-ranking Taiwanese officials to visit the US, and called on the US government to engage in direct talks with Taiwan's elected officials. This has also been met with violent opposition from the Chinese.
China continues to treat Taiwan as the enemy and, in pursuing its cross-strait policy, has sought every means to destroy it. Given this situation, any talks in Taipei between the KMT and the CCP are not likely to yield any result beyond a mass of propaganda applauding their achievements.
We hope that the KMT will realize its naivety in trying to "bargain with a tiger for its skin." As Chen pointed out at the videoconference, if China's "peaceful rising" is not accompanied by "discovering peace" and "developing democracy," then it is unlikely to ever have a government that loves peace.
Meanwhile, the "platform for communication" that the KMT thinks it has established with the CCP will simply become a stage on which China can perform, striving to divide Taiwan. It will certainly not forward the cause of cross-strait peace. How is it that the KMT cannot see something that is so blatantly obvious?
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