Today is a day of great significance for cross-strait relations. Taiwan's first charter flight for the Lunar New Year heads for China, the first non-stop flight after more than fifty years of political stalemate across the Strait. Although this policy is beneficial only to Taiwanese businessmen in China, the decision made by the government is still of great symbolic significance at this juncture when the cross-strait relationship is still strained.
Additionally, marking the tenth anniversary of "Jiang's Eight Points," proposed by former Chinese President Jiang Zemin (江澤民) in 1995, Jia Qinglin (賈慶林), chairman of China's People's Political Consultative Conference, adopted a carrot and stick approach. He reiterated China's policy on Taiwan and pointed out that China is willing to negotiate with the DPP if it abandons the cause of Taiwan independence. However, Jia harshly criticized the idea of Taiwan independence, pointing out that China will not balk at going to war to prevent a permanent split.
Jiang declared his eight points a decade ago. Despite being the foundation of China's Taiwan policy, they have had little effect on Taiwan itself. This is because they only see the situation from China's own perspective, and fail to take into account the incontrovertible fact that Taiwan already is an independent, sovereign nation. They require Taiwan to deny its own existence in favor of the "one China" concept and to trust the Chinese government to bestow upon it some degree of freedom and autonomy. But that would lead to Taiwan being downgraded to the same status as Hong Kong under the "one country, two systems" principle. This is unacceptable to most Taiwanese. Given this, Jiang's Eight Points are not overly appealing.
A few months ago, China adopted the two-pronged approach of hardening its stance on some issues while softening it on others. On the one hand, China is reaching out to some Taiwanese, for example by allowing direct cross-strait flights for the Lunar New Year, which enables Taiwanese businesspeople in China to spend the holidays with their families. On the other hand, they are preparing for the worst, stepping up military purchases and getting ready for hostilities. They also plan an anti-secession law designed to provide a legal basis for an attack on Taiwan.
Both the US government and US academics believe this law is unwise and will change the cross-strait status quo. Taiwan's response has been even stronger, with some people suggesting that the response to China's law should be a defensive referendum or an anti-annexation law. Both sides of the Strait are building up their defenses in preparation for armed conflict. They also have plans for legal warfare, and the international propaganda war is ongoing. These actions are not at all beneficial to maintaining the cross-strait status quo.
Rather than loudly promoting Jiang's Eight Points, China should promote the spirit that led to the Lunar New Year charter flights across the Strait. To get that deal, both sides displayed flexibility and creativity by first establishing mutual credibility and consensus on economic and practical issues.
Following his re-election, President Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁) has on several occasions extended goodwill to China. The next premier, Frank Hsieh (謝長廷), has also made some concrete conciliatory measures. If China would let Wang Daohan (汪道涵) properly address the death of Koo Chen-fu (辜振甫) and delay the passage of the anti-secession legislation, a resolution of the cross-strait issue would no longer seem impossible.
Giving up fixed opinions, building mutual trust and creating beneficial conditions are all necessary to improve the cross-strait relationship. Will a window of opportunity for such improvement be opened soon? That will depend on China's leaders.
Two sets of economic data released last week by the Directorate-General of Budget, Accounting and Statistics (DGBAS) have drawn mixed reactions from the public: One on the nation’s economic performance in the first quarter of the year and the other on Taiwan’s household wealth distribution in 2021. GDP growth for the first quarter was faster than expected, at 6.51 percent year-on-year, an acceleration from the previous quarter’s 4.93 percent and higher than the agency’s February estimate of 5.92 percent. It was also the highest growth since the second quarter of 2021, when the economy expanded 8.07 percent, DGBAS data showed. The growth
In the intricate ballet of geopolitics, names signify more than mere identification: They embody history, culture and sovereignty. The recent decision by China to refer to Arunachal Pradesh as “Tsang Nan” or South Tibet, and to rename Tibet as “Xizang,” is a strategic move that extends beyond cartography into the realm of diplomatic signaling. This op-ed explores the implications of these actions and India’s potential response. Names are potent symbols in international relations, encapsulating the essence of a nation’s stance on territorial disputes. China’s choice to rename regions within Indian territory is not merely a linguistic exercise, but a symbolic assertion
More than seven months into the armed conflict in Gaza, the International Court of Justice ordered Israel to take “immediate and effective measures” to protect Palestinians in Gaza from the risk of genocide following a case brought by South Africa regarding Israel’s breaches of the 1948 Genocide Convention. The international community, including Amnesty International, called for an immediate ceasefire by all parties to prevent further loss of civilian lives and to ensure access to life-saving aid. Several protests have been organized around the world, including at the University of California Los Angeles (UCLA) and many other universities in the US.
In the 2022 book Danger Zone: The Coming Conflict with China, academics Hal Brands and Michael Beckley warned, against conventional wisdom, that it was not a rising China that the US and its allies had to fear, but a declining China. This is because “peaking powers” — nations at the peak of their relative power and staring over the precipice of decline — are particularly dangerous, as they might believe they only have a narrow window of opportunity to grab what they can before decline sets in, they said. The tailwinds that propelled China’s spectacular economic rise over the past