In an interview with the Straits Times earlier this month, President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) said Taiwan and China would hold political talks in future. He later said his government would not discuss unification with China during his term in office. His apparent inconsistency is baffling not only for Taiwanese, but probably for China.
Unification must be the last topic on the cross-strait talks agenda. This is what Ma meant by his campaign proposal of “eventual unification.” Talks on unification must be preceded by negotiations on a whole range of economic and political issues.
It is the uncertainty over what will be discussed in these preparatory talks that the public finds worrying. After all, when all the preparations are done, discussing unification will be easy, regardless of who the negotiators are. At that point, it could be too late to change course.
Although Taiwan attended the World Health Assembly under the name “Chinese Taipei,” swine flu cases in this country are listed under China on the WHO Web site. The signs are there but Ma’s government fails to understand the danger it is facing.
Ma could finish integrating Taiwan’s economy with China’s while he is president. He may persuade China to stop aiming missiles at Taiwan and to sign a cross-strait peace accord. But as time goes by, the title of “Chinese Taipei” risks becoming the norm when referring to Taiwan. Beijing would regulate Taiwan’s diplomacy and the terms under which it can join international organizations.
Taiwan’s status would shift to from sovereign nation to that of Hong Kong and Macau. Taiwan’s relations with the US and Japan would become distant. Within Taiwan, the notion of “Greater China” would become customary. Taiwanese consciousness would gradually be eroded through changes in textbooks, the media, entertainment and the arts. After this course is firmly set, Ma would be able to retire from the scene, his job done. It will not matter who finally declares Taiwan’s unification with China, because it will be a fait accompli.
If former US president Richard Nixon and Henry Kissinger had not first opened the door to China and set up the framework for US-China relations, it would have been hard for former US president Jimmy Carter to extend diplomatic recognition to Beijing. Carter trod the path laid out by his predecessors.
Similarly, no matter whether unification is completed under Ma or later, history will remember Ma as the one who paved the way. The question is, will he be praised or damned for it?
If Taiwan’s unification with China makes China more democratic and diverse, Ma will enjoy the praise and the credit. If Taiwan is absorbed into a China where the Chinese Communist Party retains its monopoly on power and human rights are routinely restricted or trampled then Ma’s name will live in infamy.
Whatever happens, Taiwanese must keep a close watch on Ma and his government and keep them in check. Only then can we be sure that Taiwan will not be served up as a dish of frogs legs for the Beijing leadership.
Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) caucus whip Fu Kun-chi (傅?萁) has caused havoc with his attempts to overturn the democratic and constitutional order in the legislature. If we look at this devolution from the context of a transition to democracy from authoritarianism in a culturally Chinese sense — that of zhonghua (中華) — then we are playing witness to a servile spirit from a millennia-old form of totalitarianism that is intent on damaging the nation’s hard-won democracy. This servile spirit is ingrained in Chinese culture. About a century ago, Chinese satirist and author Lu Xun (魯迅) saw through the servile nature of
In their New York Times bestseller How Democracies Die, Harvard political scientists Steven Levitsky and Daniel Ziblatt said that democracies today “may die at the hands not of generals but of elected leaders. Many government efforts to subvert democracy are ‘legal,’ in the sense that they are approved by the legislature or accepted by the courts. They may even be portrayed as efforts to improve democracy — making the judiciary more efficient, combating corruption, or cleaning up the electoral process.” Moreover, the two authors observe that those who denounce such legal threats to democracy are often “dismissed as exaggerating or
Monday was the 37th anniversary of former president Chiang Ching-kuo’s (蔣經國) death. Chiang — a son of former president Chiang Kai-shek (蔣介石), who had implemented party-state rule and martial law in Taiwan — has a complicated legacy. Whether one looks at his time in power in a positive or negative light depends very much on who they are, and what their relationship with the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) is. Although toward the end of his life Chiang Ching-kuo lifted martial law and steered Taiwan onto the path of democratization, these changes were forced upon him by internal and external pressures,
The Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) caucus in the Legislative Yuan has made an internal decision to freeze NT$1.8 billion (US$54.7 million) of the indigenous submarine project’s NT$2 billion budget. This means that up to 90 percent of the budget cannot be utilized. It would only be accessible if the legislature agrees to lift the freeze sometime in the future. However, for Taiwan to construct its own submarines, it must rely on foreign support for several key pieces of equipment and technology. These foreign supporters would also be forced to endure significant pressure, infiltration and influence from Beijing. In other words,
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