Make a choice — stop Ma
President Ma Ying-jeou’s (馬英九) thanks-but-no-thanks to future US military involvement in the Taiwan Strait promises to outlive all assurances his administration will be providing to Washington externally and Taiwanese internally. The simple reason is that the prime beneficiary of the deliberate remark is China, the nation toward which Ma is diligently prodding Taiwan.
That declaration went further than just punctuating a CNN interview, in which Ma went to some length to convince the West that the incorporation of Taiwan’s economy into China’s would advance both the causes of international trade and regional peace. It became difficult to resist the impression that Ma is promoting the myth of a peaceful and voluntary surrender of Taiwan to China.
Ma’s unification dream is shared by only a fraction of the Taiwanese population. This is evidenced by public polls, conducted by both pro-Taiwan and pro-China organizations, invariably showing that an overwhelming majority of Taiwanese favoring an indefinite separation of Taiwan from China.
Taiwanese consciousness, the sentiment that most succinctly reflects Taiwanese longing for formal sovereignty, actually rose in the last two years in spite of Ma and his Chinese National Party’s (KMT) constant attempt to ignore, if not suppress it. Democracy and freedom, both integral to sovereignty when Taiwan is facing an authoritarian China as its sole external enemy, are ingrained in Taiwanese daily life.
Therefore, any illusion that the absorption of Taiwan into China will be peaceful and painless should have evaporated the moment Beijing promulgated its “Anti-Secession” Law, the Chinese statute that outlaws Taiwan’s sovereignty and its advocacy as well as spelling out conditions necessitating China’s use of force against Taiwan.
Ma and the KMT have been trying to drive a wedge among Taiwanese by using economic bait with some success. However, the resulting and widening gulf between the haves and have-nots will only sow more seeds of instability.
It is unfortunate the collective memory of Taiwan’s last transfer of rule of similar magnitude at the end of World War II has all but faded away, even though the suffering lasted at least two generations for Taiwanese.
Taiwanese didn’t have a choice then, but Taiwanese have a choice now, albeit one that would require considerable sacrifices not unlike prices with which other societies pay for their freedom.
Significantly, the dynamics involved in Taiwan’s status are far more complex today than the time of the last “sky change” more than 60 years ago.
Ma’s push-away of the US may have negated the ambiguity of the Taiwan Relations’ Act that obviously helped to maintain tranquility in the region for decades. Yet, the strategic significance of Taiwan to the US-Japan alliance remains unchanged.
Simply put, peaceful annexation of Taiwan by China will never happen. Instead, the path of least resistance would dictate that Taiwan be put through an indefinite period of turmoil before — and if — all powers involved can forge a formula for the status of Taiwan that could guarantee regional stability.
Taiwanese are facing two clear options: Stop Ma and the KMT now or prepare to endure being a forsaken nation that is perpetuated by external forces.
HUANG JEI-HSUAN
California
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