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Beware Beijing's direct links trap - II

President Chen Shui-bian's (陳水扁) comment about possibly "entrusting civil society" to negotiate direct links with Beijing was met by suggestions from the director of China's Taiwan Affairs Office about just who should represent Taipei. While it is absurd for anyone in Beijing to be suggesting who should represent Taiwan, the idea of "civilian representatives" has raised several issues.

I commented on several of these issues in part one of this article including: the meaning of "entrust," the need for representatives of high integrity and credibility, the question of possible conflicts of interest, the need for Taiwan to ensure it is treated with equality and dignity and the need for to focus on the substance of what China offers, not its slogans.

The sixth and final issue I would like to raise concerns the hundreds of missiles China has aimed at Taiwan. Somehow the fact that it is these missiles -- not direct links -- that is the most important cross-strait subject has been ignored in the frenzied debate over links.

Actually, President Chen said recently that the hundreds of missiles aimed at Taiwan -- which will soon exceed a thousand with the dozens of new missiles that are added each year -- constitute a serious threat to Taiwan, and that this is the greatest obstacle in the cross-strait relationship.

Beijing, however, shows no sign of embarrassment as it tells the world that the missiles are only meant to deal with "Taiwan independence advocates" and "imperialists supporting Taiwan indepen-dence." China insists that the missiles are not aimed at its "Taiwan compatriots."

The simple explanation for this Chinese logic is that, when these hundreds of missiles aimed at Taiwan are fired, each of them will be equipped with an eye of wisdom so that they will all be able to avoid killing the poor "Taiwanese compatriots" and only go after those despicable and damned "Taiwan independence advocates" and their supporters, blowing them all to pieces.

When China's military leaders visited the US, they assured the Washington that "China has no intention of attacking Taiwan," although they immediately added that they "do not rule out the use of military force against Taiwan." A simple paraphrasing of this logic is, "We guarantee that we will not attack Taiwan, but we may do so anyway." This chimes nicely with the eloquence of the recent words of Beijing's representative to the WHO that, "China will look after the health of the people of Taiwan."

This beats even the stuff of third-rate talk-show comics. We could laugh and forget about it, but then one cannot really laugh away a thousand missiles threatening the lives and wealth of 23 million people in Taiwan. We should call on everyone in the world (including in China and Taiwan) who likes to discuss the cross-strait issue -- be they officials, scholars, politicians, industrialists or just concerned citizens -- first to discuss how to deal with these missiles before discussing anything else.

It does make one laugh, albeit bitterly, that the persons named by China as their preferred choices to represent Taiwan have been given the kiss of death by the Taiwanese people -- but these "preferred choices" don't realize how little they are regarded and remain overcome by Bei-jing's flattery, losing themselves in their moment of pride. One of them said that "honor forbids denying such a duty;" another said that it is "an unavoidable duty."

One of these "honorees" said during the last presidential election that if Chen were elected, the stock market would crash, shares would be just waste paper and he would not want to live in Taiwan anymore.

Since Chen did win, everyone thought that this gentleman would have left Taiwan ages ago. Who would have thought that he would turn up again, beating his chest and saying that, if direct links are established, the stock market and national income will certainly take off and everyone will become rich.

He also said that out of 100 Taiwanese businessmen polled, 100 approve of establishing direct links -- only for Day Sheng-tong (戴勝通), president of the National Association of Small and Medium-Size Enterprises (中小企業協會), to issue a rebuttal saying that there are between 1,070,000 to 1,080,000 small-to-medium-sized companies that oppose direct links.

When someone with such erudition and such etiquette is seen as a captain of industry and mooted as a possible representative of Taiwan, what hope is there for the country? May God save us.

Peng Ming-min is a senior advisor to the president. This is the second part of a two-part article. Part one appeared in Wednesday's edition.

Translated by Perry Svensson
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