One of the great problems with China's repeated snubs to Taiwan and attempts to downgrade its international status is not that other nations are prepared to let Beijing get away with it but that Taiwan all to often is itself prepared to roll over and do nothing. It is high time this stopped.
Turning the other cheek might be a worthy example of Christian humility but it is not practical international politics. Taiwan's situation resembles that of an abused spouse who, no matter how many bones are broken, is too scared or weak to hit back or walk out of a terrible relationship. More backbone is needed. A slap in the face deserves a slap back. Only by such measures will China ever realize that it cannot get what it wants through aggression and bullying.
Recently we have seen two classic examples of China's disgusting behavior. The first was Beijing's efforts to stop Taiwan gaining even observer status at the World Health Organization (WHO), on top of its immoral and pernicious attempt to claim that it was in some way looking after this nation's medical needs in the now subsiding SARS outbreak -- helped in doing so by its agents in the PFP, by the way.
And then there is the ongoing dispute over Taiwan's status at the WTO. Beijing, through its "friend" WTO Secretary General Supachai Panitchpakdi is seeking to get the level of Taiwan's representation downgraded to that of Hong Kong and Macau -- as a province of China. The illegalities of Supachai's demand are dealt with elsewhere on this page. Our point here is that Taiwan must not take this lying down.
What, however, can Taiwan do to show its displeasure? Its leverage on China in the international community is, after all, not very large. One thing it can stop doing, however, is abetting China in its attempts to belittle the government of this country.
China will not address the government as an equal, though it has far more legitimacy than that of its Beijing counterpart. And Taiwan has for a decade been prepared to accommodate this idea -- that Beijing will deal with it but only on terms of insolent contempt. It is for this reason that we have the Straits Exchange Foundation with its fictional status as a private entity which talks to what Beijing refers to as the "Taiwanese authorities" and Beijing's own fictional private Association for Relations across the Taiwan Strait so that Beijing does not have to recognize those "authorities" itself.
Enough of this. The government is quite willing to talk to China's administration -- on the basis of equality and mutual respect. The foundation exists simply because Beijing is not prepared to grant that respect -- as is clearly manifested by its behavior elsewhere. If China has anything to say to Taiwan it can say it ministry-to-ministry as is the practice among other nations or simply not bother. We have no interest whatsoever is anything that Beijing might want to say to the "Taiwan authorities," only in what Beijing is prepared to say to Taiwan's government. Why then, should this country maintain an organization which effectively connives at its own belittling.
It is high time, then, that the foundation was abolished. It is to the credit of the Chen Shui-bian (
Chen earned a lot of respect when some years ago he said of the National Reunification Council that it was "as much use as an appendix." The foundation is not only of no use, its existence is deleterious to the nation's status. Get rid of it.
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