Since Beijing passed the "Anti-Secession" Law last month, the cross-strait mood has become increasingly bizarre. Despite repeated warnings from the government, Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Chairman Lien Chan (
By ignoring the government, Lien has compelled President Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁) and the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) to consider cooperating with the People First Party (PFP) and endorse a meeting between Chinese President Hu Jintao (胡錦濤) and PFP Chairman James Soong (宋楚瑜) early next month.
This strategy suggests Chen is attempting to lift Soong's status to undermine Lien and delegitimize anything he might achieve in Beijing.
So, even as two of the nation's most senior politicians prepare to cross the Strait, disputes between political parties are deteriorating into a sharper conflict.
The political parties involved have their own agendas, and plenty of dirty tricks have been used to get the upper hand.
But the KMT's decision to join forces with Beijing to derail DPP policy is both arrogant and short-sighted. Chen cannot afford to sit back and do nothing.
However, the tacit understanding between the DPP and the PFP to undermine Lien is not necessarily a good thing. Their actions may only serve to push Lien further into China's embrace, and will do nothing to make the KMT respect Taiwan or understand the need to oppose the Chinese Communist Party.
We should also bear in mind that the PFP is in total agreement with the KMT in regard to unification. How will Chen be able to face the people if Soong, in his talks in Beijing, says things that diverge from DPP policy?
In dealing with matters relating to national development and security such as cross-strait policies, it is inappropriate for the government to use short-term tactics to achieve political goals. It is far more important to build a consensus among the major parties, which is the reason why this newspaper has rebuked Lien so harshly for going it alone.
The major political parties must understand the importance of consensus-based action, otherwise it will be the Taiwanese people who will pay a heavy price for endless political squabbling.
Before Lien and Soong visit Beijing, it is crucial that the leaders of the three main parties hold a summit on national affairs.
Only if some level of consensus is reached will the KMT and PFP chairmen be able to engage in substantive negotiations with Beijing.
Otherwise, if cross-strait talks take place against a background of vicious inter-party strife, they will only lead to further political division and worsening confrontation.
To ensure that the Taiwanese people emerge as victors from these talks, the two party chairmen should demand legislators push through the long-delayed arms-procurement bill before arriving in China. We all know that peace is built on security, so Taiwan should first secure its position before entering into talks with China. Only then will the talks hold any meaning.
Taiwan stands at the epicenter of a seismic shift that will determine the Indo-Pacific’s future security architecture. Whether deterrence prevails or collapses will reverberate far beyond the Taiwan Strait, fundamentally reshaping global power dynamics. The stakes could not be higher. Today, Taipei confronts an unprecedented convergence of threats from an increasingly muscular China that has intensified its multidimensional pressure campaign. Beijing’s strategy is comprehensive: military intimidation, diplomatic isolation, economic coercion, and sophisticated influence operations designed to fracture Taiwan’s democratic society from within. This challenge is magnified by Taiwan’s internal political divisions, which extend to fundamental questions about the island’s identity and future
The narrative surrounding Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s attendance at last week’s Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) summit — where he held hands with Russian President Vladimir Putin and chatted amiably with Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) — was widely framed as a signal of Modi distancing himself from the US and edging closer to regional autocrats. It was depicted as Modi reacting to the levying of high US tariffs, burying the hatchet over border disputes with China, and heralding less engagement with the Quadrilateral Security dialogue (Quad) composed of the US, India, Japan and Australia. With Modi in China for the
The Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) has postponed its chairperson candidate registration for two weeks, and so far, nine people have announced their intention to run for chairperson, the most on record, with more expected to announce their campaign in the final days. On the evening of Aug. 23, shortly after seven KMT lawmakers survived recall votes, KMT Chairman Eric Chu (朱立倫) announced he would step down and urged Taichung Mayor Lu Shiow-yen (盧秀燕) to step in and lead the party back to power. Lu immediately ruled herself out the following day, leaving the subject in question. In the days that followed, several
The Jamestown Foundation last week published an article exposing Beijing’s oil rigs and other potential dual-use platforms in waters near Pratas Island (Dongsha Island, 東沙島). China’s activities there resembled what they did in the East China Sea, inside the exclusive economic zones of Japan and South Korea, as well as with other South China Sea claimants. However, the most surprising element of the report was that the authors’ government contacts and Jamestown’s own evinced little awareness of China’s activities. That Beijing’s testing of Taiwanese (and its allies) situational awareness seemingly went unnoticed strongly suggests the need for more intelligence. Taiwan’s naval
RSS