Taiwan’s crisis is that it may fall under Chinese Communist Party rule by 2012, the year both President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) and Chinese President Hu Jintao’s (胡錦濤) terms of office end. Such a crisis can be discussed from three perspectives. These events are already happening and not necessarily in stages.
First, there is erosion of civil liberties and the return of White Terror as evidenced by the persecution of former and current Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) officials and the police manhandling of people protesting the visit of Association for Relations Across the Taiwan Strait (ARATS) Chairman Chen Yunlin (陳雲林).
The media is under pressure to refrain from criticism of the Ma government and to support its efforts to surrender Taiwan. Editors and reporters who resist are being laid off. Blatant suppression of freedom of speech and assembly has already started.
The recent indictment of Tainan City Councilor Wang Ting-yu (王定宇) is another example of this trend. The judiciary has abandoned any pretense of independence and is now a willing political tool of the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) government. The KMT is progressively dictating policy to the government, especially on its rapid unification agenda. Most likely there will be no presidential election in 2012, unless the KMT can manipulate and dictate the outcome.
Second, Ma is moving toward unification by stealth. This is being done in many ways: through the dismantling of Taiwan’s national defense, the deliberate weakening of Taiwan’s economy via outflow to China of capital, the export of technology and trained manpower, expanding infusions of Chinese immigrants into Taiwan, degrading of Taiwan’s status into a region of the People’s Republic of China (PRC), and intimidation of pro-Taiwan activists with threats of imprisonment, fines and bodily harm.
On the day Chen arrived in Taipei, the police forced demonstrators to discard Republic of China flags while protecting those waving the PRC five star flags. It is obvious Ma regards himself as the leader of the Taiwan region, not the president of the ROC or Taiwan.
The Mainland Affairs Council estimates that the population of Chinese living in Taiwan will reach 1,500,000 by 2013. The Ma government is already taking orders from Beijing and its goal is to turn Taiwan into a special administrative region of the PRC by 2012, either legally or de facto.
Finally, to make Taiwan legally a part of China a peace accord will need to be signed. Negotiation of such an accord may actually be secretly in progress. This is a capitulation agreement whereby the KMT government will accept the PRC claim that Taiwan is an integral part of the PRC’s territory, leaving the details of when the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) will land in Taiwan and when Chinese officials will take over the land and properties of Taiwanese.
Ma has claimed that the Taiwanese may enjoy 20 to 30 years of peace under a peace accord. In reality the CCP can always violate the terms of the accord and decide to occupy the nation in short order.
Once the accord is executed, the US’ Taiwan Relations Act (TRA) will automatically be abrogated since Taiwan will formally become a part of the PRC and the US and the Taiwanese will not have a chance to object through a referendum since the current referendum law is designed to prevent a bona fide referendum. This is why professor Tsai Ting-kuei (蔡丁貴) is fasting in front of the Legislative Yuan to demand lowering the high thresholds in the Referendum Law (公投法).
Ma promised four years of peace in a recent speech. This may indicate that he has agreed with Beijing to sign a peace accord before 2012. The Taiwanese may revolt against Ma’s attempt to sign a peace accord. To suppress the rebellion, Ma could then ask the PLA to invade, thus recreating the massacre of 1947, although the scale will be much greater this time.
How can the Taiwanese resist the KMT selling out of Taiwan? Any resistance movement should be nonviolent. The DPP’s regaining of power in 2012 or 2016 is no longer feasible. The resistance may have to be conducted outside the ROC framework. The methods include massive street demonstrations, boycott of pro-unification media and KMT owned businesses and peaceful non-cooperation with the Ma government.
The Taiwanese-American community needs to monitor the evolving situation in Taiwan and help pro-democracy activists in the frontline of the struggle. We should keep the US informed of the rapidly developing crisis in Taiwan and ask Washington to help preserve Taiwan’s freedom in accordance with the spirit of the TRA. At the very least, the US should take measures to prevent a massacre from taking place on Taiwan.
Li Thian-hok is a freelance commentator based in Pennsylvania.
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