Much has been made over the past few months of Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) presidential candidate Ma Ying-jeou's (
The two candidates, however, have been relatively quiet over the past month about Siew's "cross-strait common market," a policy proposal that he has been working on for the past few years and which is based on the EU common market.
When it was first implemented, the goal of the EU common market, more formally known as the European Economic Union, was to promote economic integration, leading to the eventual political union of the member nations, based on democratic principles.
President Chen Shui-bian (
There is no evidence over the past decade to suggest that China is willing to negotiate with Taiwan unless it accepts the "one China" principle. In other words, for China, there will be no negotiation on Taiwan's terms.
Nation-states negotiate on terms that are in the best interests of their citizens. At least democratic societies do. Negotiating a common market with China might be viable if it were not ruled by a communist dictatorship with an arbitrary legal system and a questionable human rights record. But this isn't so and the fact that the majority of the international community continues to toe Beijing's line suggests that they too are playing the game on China's terms.
From a domestic perspective, this makes a cross-strait common market ridiculous. Using the EU common market as an example, if one state in the Union disputes the trade practices of another state, they can expect reasonable arbitration to resolve the problem because the mechanism has a number of checks and balances that are transparent and open to all members. Can the same be expected if Taiwan has a trade dispute with China? Who is going to arbitrate on Taiwan's behalf? Lien Chan (
Ma said recently on his trip to Japan that Taiwan could have already broadened its international space if it had gone along with Lien's so-called five-point plan for cross-strait peace. Again, this is laughable and naive in the context of the 1,000 missiles pointed at Taiwan.
It isn't too difficult to see that on important issues, pandering to China across the international community works against Taiwan's interests. The cross-strait common market, or any other measure that is agreed upon by both sides, is obviously going to favor China, which will not allow Taiwan to bargain on its own terms.
Taiwan's sovereignty continues to be the greatest issue affecting the nation's ability to negotiate and exist in the global community. The government has to move the dialogue back in this direction for it to come out on top in next year's presidential election.
In their recent op-ed “Trump Should Rein In Taiwan” in Foreign Policy magazine, Christopher Chivvis and Stephen Wertheim argued that the US should pressure President William Lai (賴清德) to “tone it down” to de-escalate tensions in the Taiwan Strait — as if Taiwan’s words are more of a threat to peace than Beijing’s actions. It is an old argument dressed up in new concern: that Washington must rein in Taipei to avoid war. However, this narrative gets it backward. Taiwan is not the problem; China is. Calls for a so-called “grand bargain” with Beijing — where the US pressures Taiwan into concessions
The term “assassin’s mace” originates from Chinese folklore, describing a concealed weapon used by a weaker hero to defeat a stronger adversary with an unexpected strike. In more general military parlance, the concept refers to an asymmetric capability that targets a critical vulnerability of an adversary. China has found its modern equivalent of the assassin’s mace with its high-altitude electromagnetic pulse (HEMP) weapons, which are nuclear warheads detonated at a high altitude, emitting intense electromagnetic radiation capable of disabling and destroying electronics. An assassin’s mace weapon possesses two essential characteristics: strategic surprise and the ability to neutralize a core dependency.
Chinese President and Chinese Communist Party (CCP) Chairman Xi Jinping (習近平) said in a politburo speech late last month that his party must protect the “bottom line” to prevent systemic threats. The tone of his address was grave, revealing deep anxieties about China’s current state of affairs. Essentially, what he worries most about is systemic threats to China’s normal development as a country. The US-China trade war has turned white hot: China’s export orders have plummeted, Chinese firms and enterprises are shutting up shop, and local debt risks are mounting daily, causing China’s economy to flag externally and hemorrhage internally. China’s
During the “426 rally” organized by the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) and the Taiwan People’s Party under the slogan “fight green communism, resist dictatorship,” leaders from the two opposition parties framed it as a battle against an allegedly authoritarian administration led by President William Lai (賴清德). While criticism of the government can be a healthy expression of a vibrant, pluralistic society, and protests are quite common in Taiwan, the discourse of the 426 rally nonetheless betrayed troubling signs of collective amnesia. Specifically, the KMT, which imposed 38 years of martial law in Taiwan from 1949 to 1987, has never fully faced its
RSS