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Editorial: More exchanges will build trust

Those who are concerned about the cross-strait issue should keep in mind that since Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) Chairman Joseph Wu (吳釗燮) and Vice Chairman Chiu Tai-san (邱太三) took their posts the country has loosened its restrictions on cultural exchanges.

For example, the council plans to allow Chinese actors and actresses to take part in Taiwanese movies. Late last month it announced that it would allow five major Chinese media outlets -- including the state-controlled Xinhua News Agency (新華社) -- to open offices in Taiwan. It is also considering allowing a certain number of Chinese students to enroll at Taiwan's colleges.

Due to competition from popular Chinese, Japanese, and South Korean movies and TV dramas, the number of outlets for local artists has shrunk significantly in the past few years. In practical terms, this openness would seem then to have few direct benefits. But it is a case of insisting on openness as a matter of principle.

This newspaper praises the council's insistence on openness, which proves that the goodwill of President Chen Shui-bian's (陳水扁) administration towards China was not just lip service. The actions of Wu and Chiu -- who have followed Chen for years and won his trust -- are the expression of this goodwill.

However, now that Taiwan has shown its goodwill, how has China responded?

Wang Zaixi (王在希), the vice minister of China's Taiwan Affairs Office (TAO), said Thursday that Beijing was "seriously considering creating a unification law" to make Taiwan a special administrative region of China. This makes us think of Beijing's attempt to use Article 23 of the Basic Law (基本法) to tighten freedom of speech in Hong Kong -- a move which sparked a 500,000-person demonstration in that city.

Putting aside the retrograde nature of any unification law, China is providing the pan-green camp with ammunition for propaganda. China should remember that in this year's presidential election, Chen was elected for a second term, defeating the pan-blue forces, despite a lackluster performance by his administration over the previous four years. Credit for this victory should be given to an awakening Taiwan consciousness.

China's actions at this time only serve to consolidate Taiwan awareness and increase the chances that the pan-greens will be able to obtain a legislative majority at the end of the year. The pan-greens must therefore be taking silent delight in the boost that the unification law has given them.

We would like to warn China that since the victory in the primaries to represent the KMT in Hsinchu City by Ko Chun-hsiung (柯俊雄), the former actor who registered to participate in the 1996 Hong Kong provisional legislative elections, the spectrum of the pan-blue camp has shifted into the red zone. The pan-greens are already preparing their attack should Ko be officially nominated. For the pan-greens, Ko's known soft spot for China is like a gift from heaven.

The TAO's Wang should be given special thanks for contributing to the pan-green legislative election campaign because of his use of the unification law to stimulate Taiwanese consciousness. At this point, it will be hard for the pan-greens to resist making use of their "Love Taiwan" propaganda once again.

We call on leaders on both sides of the Strait to put aside ideology and work toward building trust and furthering exchanges between the people of China and Taiwan.

Since we share a common language and culture, once the political issues are solved, Taiwan will always be China's friend, never its enemy. If we put aside emotion and insist on rational dialogue, we can help re-establish friendship between the two sides of the Strait.
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