The TSU said yesterday that it will make pushing a plebiscite law through the Legislative Yuan its major policy objective. This should hardly come as a surprise to anybody. What does come as a puzzle, if not a surprise, is that the other parties, including the DPP, are unlikely to support the TSU's initiative. What, if they have the courage of their convictions, are they afraid of?
The Legislative Yuan is split roughly between the blue camp, which wants unification with China, and the green camp which eschews this. Each side claims to be the voice of the mainstream among the Taiwanese people. And yet nobody, particularly the blue camp, wants to put this to the test. The blue camp obviously does not want to put it to the test because it knows that if Taiwanese have the choice of freedom or becoming a part of China they will never opt for unification. Blue-camp strategists, however, think they might be cajoled to do so if, having regained power, the blue camp, which in effect means the KMT, can persuade them that there simply is no alternative. The argument which the KMT has worked out with its friends in Beijing is that Taiwan will become part of China's economic area, so for the sake of having influence in major decisions that affect its economy, it should rejoin China politically as well. This it believes it can, in time, make the Taiwanese accept, without even taking a vote on the matter.
That the KMT thinks it can, on the strength of winning the presidential election, decide such things for the people of Taiwan without consulting them through a referendum is plainly a travesty of democracy. The KMT's amazing inability to predict the reaction of people in Taiwan to its dubious overtures is well known. Taiwanese are quite likely to be far more reluctant to dance to the "unification is inevitable" tune than the KMT expects, the result being massive civil unrest, and all because the blue camp claims to represent a majority of public opinion but is absolutely unwilling to put that claim to the test.
As for the DPP, last year we saw Chen Shui-bian (
Just as importantly, with war about to break out in the Middle East perhaps this week, leaving the world's post-1945 institutional architecture in ruins, one of the interesting facets of the debate in Taiwan about whom and what it supports and where the nation's interests lie is the revelation that there simply is no agreement on what the nation's interests are. This lack of agreement is, of course, a product of the dispute over the fate of Taiwan's de facto sovereign status. The interests of a province of China might well be different from those of an independent state. To clarify where Taiwan should be going we have to clarify what Taiwan is. And the way to do that is to ask the people of Taiwan what they want it to be.
Recently, China launched another diplomatic offensive against Taiwan, improperly linking its “one China principle” with UN General Assembly Resolution 2758 to constrain Taiwan’s diplomatic space. After Taiwan’s presidential election on Jan. 13, China persuaded Nauru to sever diplomatic ties with Taiwan. Nauru cited Resolution 2758 in its declaration of the diplomatic break. Subsequently, during the WHO Executive Board meeting that month, Beijing rallied countries including Venezuela, Zimbabwe, Belarus, Egypt, Nicaragua, Sri Lanka, Laos, Russia, Syria and Pakistan to reiterate the “one China principle” in their statements, and assert that “Resolution 2758 has settled the status of Taiwan” to hinder Taiwan’s
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Can US dialogue and cooperation with the communist dictatorship in Beijing help avert a Taiwan Strait crisis? Or is US President Joe Biden playing into Chinese President Xi Jinping’s (習近平) hands? With America preoccupied with the wars in Europe and the Middle East, Biden is seeking better relations with Xi’s regime. The goal is to responsibly manage US-China competition and prevent unintended conflict, thereby hoping to create greater space for the two countries to work together in areas where their interests align. The existing wars have already stretched US military resources thin, and the last thing Biden wants is yet another war.
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