Forty years ago, dictator Chiang Kai-shek (蔣介石) called on Taiwanese to fight communism and recover China.
Today, President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) is urging them to trade with China and welcome Chinese investment in Taiwan.
On Monday, Taiwan opened direct sea and postal links with China and began daily charter flights. As Taiwanese TV reporters craned their necks to count the Chinese planes landing at Taipei’s two airports, some wondered whether Taiwan would be able to maintain its autonomy and not be swallowed by China.
“At this speed of cross-strait exchange, I am worried Taiwan-China unification may happen before Ma’s four-year term ends,” said Liu Hsiao-ping, a 54-year-old teacher in Taipei.
The Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) was concerned that opening the doors to China could endanger national security.
“The opening of the links are illegal because they have not been approved by the legislature,” DPP Spokesman Cheng Wen-tsang (鄭文燦) said. “Ma is pinning his hopes for reviving Taiwan’s economy on China, but the result might be China controlling Taiwan’s economy and turning Taiwan into another Hong Kong or Macau.”
But some analysts argue that such a possibility is remote.
George Tsai (蔡瑋), a professor from Chinese Culture University, said that times have changed and Taiwan-China ties have entered a new phase. For the time being, the two sides should focus on economic cooperation, he said, adding that he was not worried about China possibly forcing unification on Taiwan.
“In the next couple of years, there are many things to discuss, such as signing investment protection pacts and cooperation in fighting crime,” he said. “Unification is a very remote thing.”
Sea, air and trade links were banned for national security reasons when Chiang and his Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) lost the Chinese Civil War in 1949 and fled to Taiwan.
Cross-strait tension has thawed since the 1980s, but bilateral ties remained strained from 1988 until earlier this year during the terms of former presidents Lee Teng-hui (李登輝) and Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁), who asserted Taiwan’s independence.
The situation changed when Ma took office in May and announced moves to improve ties with China that included resuming dialogue with Beijing and launching weekend charter flights to bring Chinese tour groups.
Chen Wei-lu, an economics analyst, said people’s thinking should change with the times.
“Those who worry about China attacking Taiwan are living in the Cold War days,” he said. “I think the launch of the links is a good start and can promote mutual understanding and economic cooperation.”
In an attempt to mitigate public fear that Taiwan is moving too close to China, Ma said on Tuesday that opening transport links symbolized that both Taipei and Beijing want to pursue peace and said it had nothing to do with unification.
“Avoiding the use of non-peaceful means to resolve conflicts is a global trend,” he told Hakka Television. “The opening of the three links is consistent with such a trend.”
The Coast Guard Administration (CGA) and Chunghwa Telecom yesterday confirmed that an international undersea cable near Keelung Harbor had been cut by a Chinese ship, the Shunxin-39, a freighter registered in Cameroon. Chunghwa Telecom said the cable had its own backup equipment, and the incident would not affect telecommunications within Taiwan. The CGA said it dispatched a ship under its first fleet after receiving word of the incident and located the Shunxin-39 7 nautical miles (13km) north of Yehliu (野柳) at about 4:40pm on Friday. The CGA demanded that the Shunxin-39 return to seas closer to Keelung Harbor for investigation over the
National Kaohsiung University of Science and Technology (NKUST) yesterday promised it would increase oversight of use of Chinese in course materials, following a social media outcry over instances of simplified Chinese characters being used, including in a final exam. People on Threads wrote that simplified Chinese characters were used on a final exam and in a textbook for a translation course at the university, while the business card of a professor bore the words: “Taiwan Province, China.” Photographs of the exam, the textbook and the business card were posted with the comments. NKUST said that other members of the faculty did not see
The Taipei City Government yesterday said contractors organizing its New Year’s Eve celebrations would be held responsible after a jumbo screen played a Beijing-ran television channel near the event’s end. An image showing China Central Television (CCTV) Channel 3 being displayed was posted on the social media platform Threads, sparking an outcry on the Internet over Beijing’s alleged political infiltration of the municipal government. A Taipei Department of Information and Tourism spokesman said event workers had made a “grave mistake” and that the Television Broadcasts Satellite (TVBS) group had the contract to operate the screens. The city would apply contractual penalties on TVBS
An apartment building in New Taipei City’s Sanchong District (三重) collapsed last night after a nearby construction project earlier in the day allegedly caused it to tilt. Shortly after work began at 9am on an ongoing excavation of a construction site on Liuzhang Street (六張街), two neighboring apartment buildings tilted and cracked, leading to exterior tiles peeling off, city officials said. The fire department then dispatched personnel to help evacuate 22 residents from nine households. After the incident, the city government first filled the building at No. 190, which appeared to be more badly affected, with water to stabilize the
RSS