In the less than two months since President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) was inaugurated as the chief executive of Taiwan, the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) government has implemented or proposed to adopt numerous measures designed to tie Taiwan’s future to that of the People’s Republic of China (PRC).
Regular weekend direct flights between five cities in China and eight airports in Taiwan have already commenced. The eight airports under the plan include Hualien, Taitung and a few other dual use (military and civilian) airports, despite objections by the military authorities about the weakening of Taiwan’s national security.
While the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) keeps building up its capacity to overwhelm Taiwan’s defenses with a multi-pronged blitzkrieg, Minister of National Defense Chen Chao-min (陳肇敏) is reportedly considering cutting the military force by 40,000 to as little as 200,000 in six years.
While the US government has decided to freeze the sales of an arms package to Taiwan worth US$12 billion, including badly needed F-16C/D fighters and helicopters, the Ma administration has failed to press the US State Department for prompt notification to Congress, presumably in deference to Beijing’s sensibilities.
These actions and inactions are symptomatic of a deliberate policy of unilateral disarmament.
Measures to achieve rapid economic integration with the PRC — some are already in force, others on the horizon — include the following: lifting the ceiling on Taiwanese investments in China from the current 40 percent of net worth; welcoming Chinese investment in Taiwan’s real estate, industry and even media; listing China-based Taiwan corporate securities on Taipei’s stock exchange; opening branches of Taiwan banks in China; allowing mutual funds sold in Taiwan to invest as much as 10 percent of their assets directly in Chinese stocks, up from the current 0.4 percent limit; recognizing PRC university credentials; and admitting PRC tourists, up to 3,000 per day initially.
Such measures will facilitate the further exodus of Taiwan’s capital, technology and trained manpower to China. The cumulative effect is to hollow out Taiwan’s economy, reducing it to a satellite of the Chinese economy, make Taiwan vulnerable to attack by the PLA, thus creating a de facto “one China” by stealth.
There is another danger. Ma plans to negotiate a peace accord with the PRC based on the “1992 consensus.” Actually the “one China” principle that there is only “one China” and that Taiwan is part of China is the only substantive part of the “consensus.” Beijing has never acceded to the “different interpretation” notion, which is nothing but a diplomatic fig leaf and which has no effect.
Once a peace accord is signed, Taiwan will be annexed by the PRC in short order. So there are ample reasons for the people of Taiwan to ponder what life under the rule of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) may look like.
To assess how the Taiwanese will fare under communist rule, one only needs to look at the violation of human rights in the PRC. First, there will no longer be any free election of legislators and executive branch government officials, both at the central and local government levels. Freedom of speech, assembly and religion will disappear. Violent suppression of dissent, through execution, torture or incarceration in the laogai (勞改營) or gulag camps can be expected.
China also has significant levels of many infectious diseases such as HIV/AIDS, typhoid, malaria, hepatitis A, avian influenza, etc. Many of these contagious diseases will undoubtedly be imported into Taiwan. Crime rates may climb as China’s massive number of unemployed migrant workers sneak into Taiwan in search of better paying jobs.
In China, all land, whether rural or urban, belongs to the state.
While the Property Law of the PRC that took effect on Oct. 1 last year is not currently applied to the special administrative regions of Hong Kong and Macau, such exemption may well be terminated once Taiwan falls under Chinese Communist Party (CCP) control, since there will no longer be any plausible reason to continue more favorable treatment of the residents of Hong Kong, Macau and Taiwan. All people on Taiwan will then lose the ownership of their land holdings.
The economic lot of the Taiwanese will certainly deteriorate. Per capita income in China is less than US$2,500, compared with US$16,000 for Taiwan. Once the two economies are fully integrated, the income levels on both sides will gravitate toward the same amount.
While this will lift the income of the Chinese only slightly, the standard of living in Taiwan will fall precipitously. The population of the PRC is 60 times larger than Taiwan’s 23 million. Yet despite three decades of economic growth, China’s GDP of US$3.3 trillion is only about 8 times larger than Taiwan’s GDP of US$383 billion, last year’s IMF figures show. Obviously, Taiwan’s economy is much more productive.
It is quite likely that the CCP will regard Taiwan as rich booty of the Chinese Civil War. So just as what took place in 1945 to 1947 when the KMT took over Taiwan, it would be difficult for the CCP leaders and princelings to resist the temptation to plunder Taiwan’s economy for their own profit.
Taiwan has a lot of publicly owned land and enterprises, fruits of centuries of toil by the Taiwanese and their ancestors. These will be the first to be expropriated by the Chinese. Taiwanese businesspeople with investments in China may face new hardships without a Taiwanese government to look after their welfare, such as confiscation of their properties and imprisonment for failure to meet new CCP regulations.
Beijing may initiate a policy of massive, forcible transfer of Taiwan’s residents to less developed peripheries of China, and move favored CCP members and their families to Taiwan. The PLA will also set up extensive air and naval bases on the island, to serve as a springboard for China’s projection of power into the Pacific and South Asia, and to pressure Japan and South Korea into China’s sphere of influence.
Taiwan has operated a democratic form of government for roughly two decades during 12 years of Lee Teng-hui’s presidency and the last eight years under former president Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁). A majority of Taiwan’s citizens are imbued with democratic values and a distinct sense of Taiwanese national identity. They are also accustomed to a relaxed lifestyle free from PRC control.
The CCP leadership, on the other hand, abhors democracy. In the Tiananmen papers, one of the eight CCP elders who decided to slaughter the thousands of protesting students was quoted as saying that those who believe in democracy should all die with no burial. In Chinese folklore, to die with one’s remains abandoned to the elements is the height of ignominy. So mass expulsion of the Taiwanese who have been tainted with democratic values or Taiwanese consciousness will help consolidate the CCP’s grip on Taiwan.
There is another advantage to such policy. Taiwan is rich in medical doctors, engineers, teachers and other professionals. Dispersing such skilled manpower to China’s hinterland such as Heilongjiang, Xinjiang and Tibet will help in the economic development of such areas.
Under CCP rule, millions of Chinese perished during the ill-conceived Great Leap Forward and the Cultural Revolution. In 1989, several thousand students and citizens were slaughtered at Tiananmen Square. Since the invasion of Tibet in the early 1950s, scholars generally agree that Beijing has caused the death of 1.25 million Tibetans though massacres and starvation, or about one quarter of the population.
There is no assurance that the Chinese annexation of Taiwan will be peaceful and without a large number of deaths among the people of Taiwan. The PLA could launch a massive assault on Taiwan and inflict large casualties. Even if the KMT government attempts to surrender Taiwan’s sovereignty peacefully, the armed forces now dominated by the native Taiwanese in the rank and file may put up resistance.
Another scenario is Ma Ying-jeou requesting PLA reinforcements in the face of massive street demonstrations against his move to sign a peace (read capitulation) accord. The result will be a repetition of the March massacre of 1947 by Chiang Kai-shek’s (蔣介石) troops, although in this instance the number of deaths will be much greater.
All of the disadvantages and potential calamities outlined above will apply equally to the pan-blue pro-unification Mainlanders who, deluded by a wrong-headed idea of Chinese nationalism, believe that unification will either improve their fortune or contribute to the rise of China as the dominant world power. Neither outcome is likely to pass. The CCP will suspect Mainlanders of being contaminated by democratic values and habits.
Once Taiwan falls, Beijing will have little reason to treat their former enemy — the KMT and its cohorts — with kid gloves. China’s expansionist ambitions could falter under the weight of its numerous domestic problems: rampant official corruption, grave environmental degradation, glaring income inequality, poverty in the rural areas, a rapidly aging population and a growing number of violent demonstrations against the government.
Most leaders of the KMT all have permanent residency and assets in the US or other countries. They can escape and enjoy a life of comfort after surrendering Taiwan. But the rank and file KMT members, military officers, bureaucrats and ordinary citizens will have to stay and endure the CCP’s harsh rule.
It is high time for the people on Taiwan to ponder what life under communist rule would be like and whether this is the future they choose for themselves and their offspring.
Freedom is like air. You may not appreciate its importance until you lose it.
The day of reckoning is near. Will the Taiwanese people wake up in time to put a brake on the KMT’s suicidal dash to disaster to preserve their life, liberty, property and dignity?
Li Thian-hok is a freelance commentator based in Pennsylvania.
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