Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Chairman Ma Ying-jeou (
There are many variables governing the direction in which cross-strait relations could develop, and political leaders such as President Chen Shui-bian (
While campaigning Chen has often proclaimed that Taiwan and China are two countries, one on each side of the Taiwan Strait, only to return to re-iterating that he will not declare independence while president. He reportedly even asked People First Party (PFP) Chairman James Soong (
As a likely candidate for the presidency in 2008, Ma should take Chen's failures to keep his promises as a lesson to speak and act cautiously. He should not let power or the cheers of the people mislead him into making irresponsible statements.
In the final two years of the Chen administration, the people will certainly examine Ma's words and deeds with care. They will evaluate him by the way he handles issues such as the KMT's stolen assets, the retirement of party officials, the Taipei City Government's achievements and his stance on cross-strait affairs, as well as his ability to resist outside pressure on this issue.
Ma still has some troubling ideas. For example, he continues to push for opening Taipei's Songshan Airport to direct cross-strait flights, and has said that he will fully implement direct links within two years of being elected president. He recently said he would not reject allowing people from China to join the KMT.
These ideas have been vociferously attacked by the pan-green camp, which accuses Ma of ignoring national security issues. His statements and comments have been as inconsistent as those emanating from the Presidential Office.
The phrase "You can go retake the mainland, we will remain behind to protect Taiwan" has long had currency for those uninterested in the KMT's designs. It underlines the lack of interest that many Taiwanese feel in becoming involved in China's affairs. Ma, in outlining his cross-strait strategy, should bear this in mind so as not to create more problems by meddling in China's domestic affairs.
Ma should be applauded for his acceptance of the position that negotiations are impossible until China removes its missiles. This is the first step toward a cross-strait policy that upholds Taiwan's dignity. It is a clear and reasonable position. Naturally, the removal of the missiles, in and of itself, will not resolve the cross-strait issue, but it will greatly ameliorate the atmosphere in which negotiations can take place between the two governments. Let's hope this is not just more of Ma's political posturing.
“History does not repeat itself, but it rhymes” (attributed to Mark Twain). The USSR was the international bully during the Cold War as it sought to make the world safe for Soviet-style Communism. China is now the global bully as it applies economic power and invests in Mao’s (毛澤東) magic weapons (the People’s Liberation Army [PLA], the United Front Work Department, and the Chinese Communist Party [CCP]) to achieve world domination. Freedom-loving countries must respond to the People’s Republic of China (PRC), especially in the Indo-Pacific (IP), as resolutely as they did against the USSR. In 1954, the US and its allies
A response to my article (“Invite ‘will-bes,’ not has-beens,” Aug. 12, page 8) mischaracterizes my arguments, as well as a speech by former British prime minister Boris Johnson at the Ketagalan Forum in Taipei early last month. Tseng Yueh-ying (曾月英) in the response (“A misreading of Johnson’s speech,” Aug. 24, page 8) does not dispute that Johnson referred repeatedly to Taiwan as “a segment of the Chinese population,” but asserts that the phrase challenged Beijing by questioning whether parts of “the Chinese population” could be “differently Chinese.” This is essentially a confirmation of Beijing’s “one country, two systems” formulation, which says that
Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi arrived in China yesterday, where he is to attend a summit of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) with Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) and Russian President Vladimir Putin today. As this coincides with the 50 percent US tariff levied on Indian products, some Western news media have suggested that Modi is moving away from the US, and into the arms of China and Russia. Taiwan-Asia Exchange Foundation fellow Sana Hashmi in a Taipei Times article published yesterday titled “Myths around Modi’s China visit” said that those analyses have misrepresented India’s strategic calculations, and attempted to view
When Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) stood in front of the Potala Palace in Lhasa on Thursday last week, flanked by Chinese flags, synchronized schoolchildren and armed Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA) troops, he was not just celebrating the 60th anniversary of the establishment of the “Tibet Autonomous Region,” he was making a calculated declaration: Tibet is China. It always has been. Case closed. Except it has not. The case remains wide open — not just in the hearts of Tibetans, but in history records. For decades, Beijing has insisted that Tibet has “always been part of China.” It is a phrase
RSS