The anti-China rally on Saturday drew an unexpectedly large turnout of 600,000 people. This was a jaw-dropping number of protestors. The huge crowd also helped deliver an explicit message to the administration of President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) and Beijing, which was that they do not truly understand mainstream public opinion in Taiwan.
During the Beijing Olympics, the Chinese government blocked news that infants who had consumed melamine-tainted milk powder made by the Sanlu Group were diagnosed with kidney stones. Subsequently, other various tainted food products from China were discovered, which aroused even more apprehension and anger among Taiwanese. Nevertheless, Ma was not willing to express strong dissatisfaction with Beijing because he was afraid that doing so would have a negative impact on his pro-China policies.
This enraged many Taiwanese. Both sides of the Taiwan Strait had originally agreed that Association for Relations Across the Taiwan Strait (ARATS) Chairman Chen Yunlin (陳雲林) would visit Taiwan prior to the APEC summit. However, the toxic milk powder scandal made it impossible for both sides to finalize a date for the visit. Not long after, the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) decided to mobilize the public to take to the streets in protest against the Chinese government, which made finalizing a date for Chen’s visit even harder.
However, the DPP was put in a sticky situation when former president Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁) insisted on participating in the rally after he gained the support of people like former minister of foreign affairs Mark Chen (陳唐山). The DPP was anxious that the former president, who has appeared in media reports all around the world over his alleged money laundering, would become the focus of the rally and that this would severely damage the reputation of Taiwanese independence. This would provide China with an opportunity to discredit the demonstration.
The morale of the DPP plummeted and things were not going well in terms of mobilizing people for the rally from different parts of Taiwan. This situation greatly upset DPP Chairwoman Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文).
On Oct. 21, ARATS Vice Chairman Zhang Mingqing (張銘清), who is also the former spokesman of China’s Taiwan Affairs Office, was jostled and jeered by a pro-independence individual after making the remark: “There will never be war in the Strait if there is no Taiwan independence” during his visit to Tainan City.
As a result of the scuffle, Zhang decided to return to China ahead of schedule. This dealt an even more severe blow to the morale at DPP headquarters. The DPP was planning to urgently demand that China apologize for the tainted food product scandal, but after the pushing incident, the DPP and southern county commissioners and city mayors had to apologize for the incident and had to call on the public to show greater self-control. The scuffle played right into the hands of the pan-blue camp, who were quick to take advantage of the situation by lashing out at the DPP for using violence.
The Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) and the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) have been unable to decide on a date for Chen Yunlin’s visit to Taiwan. However these two incidents spurred the two parties to make a quick decision that he will visit Taiwan on Monday. The reasoning of the KMT and the CCP is very clear: They believe it is now safe for him to visit Taiwan. However, they should rethink this as there are other factors that could turn things around very quickly.
Physical violence is of course wrong and should be condemned. However, Zhang has criticized Taiwanese independence on many occasions. With the assistance of the KMT, Zhang was able to travel around the south of Taiwan and openly criticize the Taiwanese independence that mainstream public opinion supports.
Comments like “There will never be war in the Strait if there is no Taiwan independence” constitute verbal violence, which Zhang only had the audacity to express because of China’s power.
This is too much for anyone to take and it is impossible that such comments would be tolerated and not invoke a heated reaction from certain radical individuals.
It is a show either of pure arrogance or a total lack of insight into his post as a senior official from China that he would make such careless comments.
Zhang’s decision to visit Taiwan was a rash and careless one. It is also extremely careless for the KMT to believe or even imagine that it will be safe for Chen Yunlin to visit Taiwan on Monday and that his visit will create history for them and the CCP. The DPP is now planning to stage another large, three-day rally to coincide with the visit and there is no way the KMT and the CCP can dismiss or ignore these factors.
With the KMT trying to establish closer links with China at an ever-increasing pace, it desperately needs to learn something from the incident involving Zhang and the anti-China rally.
Lin Cho-shui is a former Democratic Progressive Party legislator.
TRANSLATED BY TED YANG AND DREW CAMERON
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