Sun, Jun 10, 2007 page8

• Letters: Independence gains support

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  Both China's military threats and Beijing's relentless efforts to compress Taiwan's international breathing room pale in comparison to the KMT's shenanigans, especially its fraternization with Beijing to pursue unification in the last couple of years. All these efforts have in turn stoked the steep rise the Taiwanese people's longing for an independent Taiwanese state.

  The explanation might be as simple as the fact that, although the Taiwanese fear Beijing, they haven't, by and large, suffered directly at Beijing's hands.

  In contrast, the KMT, by way of both the 228 Incident and the subsequent White Terror era, is still capable of scaring most Taiwanese who experienced one or both of these calamities.

  This fear, in conjunction with pan-blue leaders' propensity to intimidate, could constitute a daunting headwind for the KMT in any future election. In a democracy, no political party can prosper by coercion. While constantly torn between its head and its heart, the KMT worsens its standing among the Taiwanese public by embracing Taiwan's nemesis.

  Expectedly, the teaming up of the KMT -- the known bogeyman -- and Beijing "the looming monstrosity" is fueling an unprecedented urgency in a growing sector of the Taiwanese society that now sees the sovereignty of the nation in eminent danger without formal legality.

  Hence, the latest wave of Taiwan's independence stirring owed its onset to Beijing's "Anti-Secession" Law and Lien Chan's subsequent Beijing visits to form the infamous "united front" against Taiwanese independence. It then gathered steam in locked-step with exploding evidence of the pan-blue camp's colluding with Beijing and the mercurial rise of the import of Ma -- the China-at-core politician -- in Taiwan's political landscape.

  The Taiwanese independence movement, which was once laid to rest by US-based China observers with perhaps rudimentary understanding of Taiwanese history, is increasingly being viewed by Taiwanese collectively as the only route to a permanent solution for Taiwan.

  Evincing this are recent opinion polls showing the vast majority of Taiwanese favor an independent Taiwan. And, when the question of "independence in the face of military threats from Beijing" was posed in a polls taken some six months ago, 52 percent of the respondents said they would still prefer independence. That was a marked rise from any previous figures that usually hovered under 30 percent.

  This sentiment is actually being echoed among the US public, albeit indirectly and at a moderate rate of ascent.

  When responding to the question of whether "the US has a responsibility to defend Taiwan should it be attacked by China" in last month's Zogby Interactive poll, 53.5 percent was affirmative while 36 percent negative. By comparison, the figure was 42 percent for and 48 percent against on a similar set of questions raised in a Gallup poll conducted in May 2000.

  What's rendering this plurality extraordinary is the fact that the US military is caught in a nearly-inextricable quagmire in Iraq. The US public's expected aversion to and cynicism about future foreign entanglement appears to take an exception in the case of Taiwan.

  Seemingly, in the US, any fear of the Chinese military would still be dwarfed by affinity to democratic values.

  Given that self-determination for statehood is a tool espoused universally in the free world including the US, this US public opinion trend refuted the myth disseminated by both Beijing and the pan-blues that independence is against an international accord and that Taiwan would become a global pariah should it pursue independence.

  It shouldn't be a stretch to surmise that both President Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁) and Taiwan are exonerated again by this US trend of the "troublemaker" moniker long employed by Beijing's allies, including those residing in Taipei and Washington.

  0Either the vindication is true or else the US public is partial to "troublemakers" who yearn for democratization.

  Inspiration for independence feeds on forces that try to suppress it. The more an independence movement is being beaten down, the more energy it accumulates. The seemingly formidable united front of the KMT and Beijing might be exactly the sort of springboard the Taiwanese independence movement needs to catapult it to its ultimate goal.

  Huang Jei-hsuan

  California
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