Thu, Mar 25, 2010 page8

• [ LETTER ]

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  Chinese authoritarianism

  China’s conspiracy to annex Taiwan by 2012, as disclosed in Yuan Hongbing’s (袁紅冰) new book, Taiwan Disaster, and the accelerated pro-China activities of the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) regime pose an ominous danger to the survival of Taiwan’s democracy.

  The pretext for annexation is based on the rationale that Taiwan is an integral part of China.

  However, the Great Wall of China and the Taiwan Strait are the silent witnesses repudiating such a claim.

  Until as recently as the Ming Dynasty, the northern boundary of China was the Great Wall. Therefore, when the Mongol Empire in the 13th century and Manchu Empire in the 17th century crossed the Great Wall from the north and conquered China, it ceased to exist as a nation for a combined total of 364 years.

  It was during the occupation of the Manchu Empire, or the Qing Dynasty, that Taiwan was briefly occupied by the Manchus, before being ceded to Japan in 1895. Similarly, the Taiwan Strait had acted as a boundary that prevented previous Chinese dynasties from ruling Taiwan.

  After World War II, the KMT regime replaced Japan at the request of the UN Relief and Rehabilitation ­Administration, but neither the KMT nor the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) regimes signed the 1951 San Francisco Peace Treaty, in which Japan renounced its sovereignty over Taiwan. Therefore, Taiwan belongs to the people of Taiwan. It has never been a part of China.

  Taiwan Disaster has arrived at the most propitious time to support Taiwan’s democracy, which is at the forefront of the struggle against a new Chinese Empire.

  We call upon free netizens of the world to condemn China’s unjustified ambition of territorial expansion under the banner of a “Borderless United Front for Democracy (BUFFD).”

  China’s enactment of a new Military Mobilization Law last month, its 2005 “Anti-­Secession” Law, the ever-increasing number of missiles targeting Taiwan, its vastly modernized armed forces and persistent refusal to renounce the use of force all suggest China’s determination to annex Taiwan by 2012.

  Conquering Taiwan to eliminate its democracy, the best model for China’s political reform, will only perpetuate the centuries of human misery caused by its corrupt autocracies.

  Notable catastrophic miseries in China date back to the 13th century. During the initial 50 years of Mongol rule, the Chinese population was reduced by half because of a mass extermination.

  During the Manchu occupation, countless Chinese perished in resistance to the edict enforcing the Manchu queue hairstyle.

  After the fall of Manchu rule, for almost a century, China experienced internecine struggles between warlords, invasion from Japan, tragic civil wars between the KMT and CCP and failed implementations of communist policies in which tens of millions of innocent civilians perished.

  Both the KMT and CCP have used the humiliating unequal treaties, incurred in past wars against European imperialism and Japan, to foment hostilities against the free world and cover up their own wrongdoings.

  Legions of people are now demanding freedom and democracy; they are on the Internet and the streets of Tibet, Xinjiang, Inner Mongolia, Hong Kong and even within China proper.

  To China: Heed the pleas for democracy by former Chinese premier Zhao Ziyang (趙紫陽), for human rights by courageous dissidents such as Gao Zhisheng (高志晟) and numerous Falun Gong ­practitioners, and for autonomy and religious freedom by the Dalai Lama and Uighur leader Rebiya Kadeer.

  The recently released movie Formosa Betrayed, now showing in the US, will remind people of the past brutalities of KMT authoritarianism and prompt a rejection of President Ma Ying-jeou’s (馬英九) party, which is openly reverting to its past and actively participating in a Chinese united front strategy for annexing Taiwan.

  The BUFFD and its allies must also prevent ­­profit-­oriented international corporations from becoming the victims of China’s united front strategy, which jeopardizes the world’s economy and security, and convince China not to squander the opportunities presented by good intentions from the West and not to use its newfound wealth to undermine the free world.

  Let us all hope that freedom and democracy will eventually prevail from Tibet, the rooftop of the world, through to China, the world’s most populous country, and onward to Taiwan, the unsinkable carrier of democracy.

  SAMUEL YANG

  KUOCHIH HONG,

  BINDON CHANG,

  ANDREW CHANG

  ALLEN KUO
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