A short time ago, the Chinese government adjusted its Taiwan policy, from that of "big bad wolf" to "smiling tiger," prompting some Taiwan politicians to try to mislead the public by singing Beijing's praises. This, along with Taiwan's sluggish economy, apparently resulted in an increase in the number of people willing to accept the "one country, two systems" principle, according to recent public opinion polls. But such a friendly pose cannot be faked for long. Sooner or later the Chinese communists will show their true colors.
This year's APEC forum in Shanghai was a good chance for Beijing to erode Taiwan's psychological defenses. Angered by the ceremonious reception given President Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁) when he passed through the US, Beijing used the summit to take its anger out on Taiwan, since it didn't dare offend the US. At the summit, the longstanding tradition of calling Taiwan "Chinese Taipei" (中華臺北) was changed to "China Taipei" (中國臺北). Beijing thought that the move could somehow realize its propaganda objective, namely to make Taiwan a province of the PRC.
All this should be a lesson to the people of Taiwan never to believe China's fine-sounding rhetoric and to be constantly wary of her traps. Even entertaining offers to jointly host the Olympics or city-to-city forums could be dangerous.
China's current round of military exercises do even more to expose her savage and ruthless face. Because the Bush administration has adopted a tougher China policy, Beijing has been made to understand that military threats made toward the US, including firing missiles at Los Angeles, are ineffective. As a result, China has changed its tone to the outside world, calling the exercises "routine," announcing the details and stating that they do not target the US.
In the Hong Kong and domestic Chinese media, however, the exercises are played up as "anti-independence, anti-hegemonic," with references to large-scale military operations with state-of-the-art technology, and to the fact that various other exercises were being held in North, Northeast, and Southwest China, making use of the latest weaponry.
Evidently, the purpose of China's military exercises is still to intimidate Taiwan. The US doesn't seem to understand the duplicitousness of conflicting internal and external propaganda. It appears to think that a slightly more transparent China is at least equivalent to some progress and is therefore willing to accept China's "routine exercises" statement.
Yet even though Beijing is scaring Taiwan with military exercises, it is also extending the olive branch. Foreign Ministry spokesman Sun Yuxi (
Beijing clearly wants to appear positive to the US because Washington has repeatedly expressed concern over the missiles and even made them one of its considerations in deciding on its recent arms sales to Taiwan.
But it doesn't take a genius to see that Beijing is hardly being honest and that instead it is merely trying to stir up discord between Taiwan and the US.
If China was honest, it would announce that it will withdraw its missiles if Taiwan recognizes the one China principle, instead of needing talks on the issue.
Even if China promises to actually withdraw its missiles, should Taiwan recognize one China, the people of Taiwan would simply not be able to trust Beijing, given its past record of not honoring its word. The people of Taiwan should take some time to review the
RSS