With closer, more frequent and open cultural and academic exchanges across the Taiwan Strait, the administration of President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) may hope to foster an image of rapprochement, if not understanding. While such contact is not new and happened, albeit in a low-profile fashion, during the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) administration, the seniority of the Chinese officials and academics invited to speak at forums in Taiwan and the coverage the meetings have received is unprecedented in 60 years of cross-strait diplomacy.
If this weekend’s series of forums are any indication of the shape of academic debate to come, however, the Ma administration could be in for a surprise, for the Chinese officials who spoke in Taipei made it very clear that they are in Taiwan to dictate and to threaten — not to listen or learn.
When Chinese President Hu Jintao’s (胡錦濤) confidant and alleged ghostwriter Zheng Bijian (鄭必堅) tells an audience in Taipei that the Taiwanese independence movement is doomed to fail, or retired People’s Liberation Army general Li Jijun (李際均) threatens Taiwanese with a choice between war and accepting Beijing’s “one China” policy, they are not here to build consensus. Not only that, they underscore the antiquated groupthink that characterizes Chinese officials’ view of Taiwan.
There is no doubt that Chinese political thinking has matured in the past decades and is no longer a communist monolith. Chinese Communist Party (CCP) cadres today are better educated, better traveled and increasingly refined in their view of the world. One core issue that has remained frozen in time, however, is that of Taiwan, which has not lost its nationalistic and emotional value to Chinese. As a consequence, where Chinese officials are willing to listen, learn, adapt and build consensus on matters of less importance to Beijing, Taiwan and “one China” remain exceptions — taboo subjects that brook no opposition or divergence of opinion. Even the newer generation of Chinese thinkers, such as Fudan University’s Jian Junbo (簡軍波), perpetuates the language of intolerance and war in its discourse on Taiwan.
This explains why the Zhengs and Lis who spoke over the weekend sounded so ideological and implacable — like old textbooks that failed to evolve with the circumstances.
For the Taiwanese independence movement, this is a good thing, and more CCP officials should be allowed to speak in Taiwan. If they’re willing to crucify themselves in public by putting their intolerance and ignorance on display, then so be it. More Taiwanese will realize that Ma’s sweet talk about peace and warmer ties is nothing more than wishful thinking. This will make it increasingly difficult for the Ma administration to ignore the opposition — both political and, increasingly, in the business sector — as it forges ahead with less-than-transparent negotiations with Beijing, because an increasing number of Taiwanese will see that Chinese goodwill is a mirage, a facade that its emissaries cannot be bothered to keep up on Taiwanese shores.
The DPP’s International Affairs Department director, Hsiao Bi-khim (蕭美琴), understood that perfectly when she put Chinese Consulate-General in Fukuoka Wu Shumin (武樹民) on the spot in June by translating his threats to Taiwan into English — comments that were then picked up by news outlets, revealing the wolf in the diplomat’s suit.
Chinese officials are more than welcome to come to Taiwan and learn about its democracy, tolerance and way of life. If, however, they come to dictate and threaten, we’ll be doing more than listening.
US aerospace company Boeing Co has in recent years been involved in numerous safety incidents, including crashes of its 737 Max airliners, which have caused widespread concern about the company’s safety record. It has recently come to light that titanium jet engine parts used by Boeing and its European competitor Airbus SE were sold with falsified documentation. The source of the titanium used in these parts has been traced back to an unknown Chinese company. It is clear that China is trying to sneak questionable titanium materials into the supply chain and use any ensuing problems as an opportunity to
It’s not every month that the US Department of State sends two deputy assistant secretary-level officials to Taiwan, together. Its rarer still that such senior State Department policy officers, once on the ground in Taipei, make a point of huddling with fellow diplomats from “like-minded” NATO, ANZUS and Japanese governments to coordinate their multilateral Taiwan policies. The State Department issued a press release on June 22 admitting that the two American “representatives” had “hosted consultations in Taipei” with their counterparts from the “Taiwan Ministry of Foreign Affairs.” The consultations were blandly dubbed the “US-Taiwan Working Group on International Organizations.” The State
The Chinese Supreme People’s Court and other government agencies released new legal guidelines criminalizing “Taiwan independence diehard separatists.” While mostly symbolic — the People’s Republic of China (PRC) has never had jurisdiction over Taiwan — Tamkang University Graduate Institute of China Studies associate professor Chang Wu-ueh (張五岳), an expert on cross-strait relations, said: “They aim to explain domestically how they are countering ‘Taiwan independence,’ they aim to declare internationally their claimed jurisdiction over Taiwan and they aim to deter Taiwanese.” Analysts do not know for sure why Beijing is propagating these guidelines now. Under Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平), deciphering the
Many local news media last week reported that COVID-19 is back, citing doctors’ observations and the Centers for Disease Control’s (CDC) statistics. The CDC said that cases would peak this month and urged people to take preventive measures. Although COVID-19 has never been eliminated, it has become more manageable, and restrictions were dropped, enabling people to return to their normal way of life due to decreasing hospitalizations and deaths. In Taiwan, mandatory reporting of confirmed cases and home isolation ended in March last year, while the mask mandate at hospitals and healthcare facilities stopped in May. However, the CDC last week said the number