China's Taiwan Affairs Office spokesperson, Li Weiyi (
Li is taking advantage of US Vice President Dick Cheney's visit to China to aim this very imaginative statement at the US while also threatening Taiwan. This statement hints that severe consequences will follow if the US does not apply pressure on Taiwan concerning the writing of a new constitution and a constitutional referendum, indicating that China will take action if that happens. It is also an attempt to reduce Chen's growing prestige and influence following his re-election.
The effect of China's military threat against Taiwan has gradually weakened in recent years and every repeated threat is dismissed by Taiwan's media, which no longer take such threats seriously. Instead, these threats have helped Chen's campaign efforts, and China therefore refrained from making further threats before this presidential election. Li's relatively indirect statement is also a step forward compared to China's stronger language in the past.
However, China's frequent and wanton criticism of Taiwan's democratic development and Chinese attempts at controlling events in Taiwan still continue, and that is regrettable. China's leaders must consider the sentiments of the international community when dealing with Taiwan. In the eyes of democratic observers, China's frequent interference in Taiwan's domestic political affairs is obviously a matter of an authoritarian country interfering in the political reform of a democratic country, and that is absurd and ridiculous in the extreme.
We also want to remind Beijing that Taiwan is not Hong Kong; it is neither a Chinese colony nor a "special administrative region." The way China dominates political developments in Hong Kong is not applicable to Taiwan. Especially in the recent presidential election, the people of Taiwan used their votes to reject the pro-China candidates, Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Chairman Lien Chan (
From former president Lee Teng-hui's (李登輝) electoral victory in 1996 to Chen's re-election this year, Taiwanese voters have demonstrated their will to choose their own path. Faced with such circumstances, China should adjust its ideology and speed up political reform in order to draw the two sides closer by diminishing the differences between their political systems and their democratic progress. Beijing will only spark revulsion among the Taiwanese people by intervening in Taiwan's domestic politics and employing dirty tricks to belittle Taiwan's status in the international community.
For this reason, the Ministry of Education has strictly forbidden local universities from downgrading themselves in their exchanges with China by adding the word "Taiwan" to or deleting the word "National" from their names. We know that such self-belittling actions have been taken in order to downgrade Taiwan to a Chinese region through its word games.
China must realize that exchanges with Taiwan have to be beneficial to cross-strait relations. If these exchanges are aimed only at satisfying China, they will become meaningless.
After more than 50 years of separation, the gap between the two sides' political and social development is obvious. As close neighbors with cultural,geographical and historical ties, it's certainly necessary to narrow this gap. Friendly interaction is the primary task. China's unification propaganda and tricks will only have an effect opposite from what it intended. When will Beijing understand this simple reasoning?
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