It seemed like a welcome shift last week when Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) presidential candidate Ma Ying-jeou (
Even Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) presidential candidate Frank Hsieh (
Whether this rhetorical shift is heartfelt -- a coming out of sorts, a la former president Lee Teng-hui (
And in Taiwan, the center is the "status quo." However uncomfortable it is, the "status quo" is, ironically, quite comfortable. It is the invisible enemy we know rather than the unknown of a sudden shift. It's also a vote-winner, as maintaining that comfortable level of uncertainty seems to be what Taiwanese of all stripes want most.
Welcome as Ma's "determination to defend Taiwan's sovereignty" might be -- and let us assume, for the sake of argument, that he means what he said -- his vow to create friendly cross-strait relations might be more difficult to achieve than he thinks. For upon hearing his comments, Beijing could be forgiven for accusing Ma of himself "heightening cross-strait tensions," in similar fashion to what Ma in the same breath accused the DPP of doing over the past eight years.
Should Ma decide to go down this path, he would soon find -- as every other president before him has found -- that peace across the Taiwan Strait, or its absence, is not in the hands of Taiwanese and their leaders, but in those of the regime in Beijing, which seems to think that time is on its side and that the annexation of Taiwan is inevitable.
In recent years, Beijing had placed its hopes in the KMT, which it saw as a surrogate, a backdoor entry to Taiwan. If Ma shuts that door, it will be 1996 all over again, with the additional layer of 12 years of budding Taiwanese consciousness. Should that happen, all that talk about a common market, of small, medium and big links and friendlier ties will mean very little.
If Ma becomes president, he will soon find out why his predecessors Lee and Chen Shui-bian (
And soon enough, following his rude awakening, life would go back to normal, back to the "status quo." The economy would be no better, no worse, and the main question Ma would need to answer would be the one Lee and Chen had to juggle: How to defend Taiwan against a giant whose pride has yet again been hurt, and who is realizing that the longer the "status quo" prevails, the more time is on Taiwan's side.
Ultimately, Beijing's eyesight is blurry. Lee, Chen, Ma -- for all it cares, Taiwanese on Saturday will be voting for "Ma Teng-bian" or "Hsieh Ying-hui." It doesn't care who is in power in Taiwan. What Beijing covets is real estate, all 35,980km2 of it.
China badly misread Japan. It sought to intimidate Tokyo into silence on Taiwan. Instead, it has achieved the opposite by hardening Japanese resolve. By trying to bludgeon a major power like Japan into accepting its “red lines” — above all on Taiwan — China laid bare the raw coercive logic of compellence now driving its foreign policy toward Asian states. From the Taiwan Strait and the East and South China Seas to the Himalayan frontier, Beijing has increasingly relied on economic warfare, diplomatic intimidation and military pressure to bend neighbors to its will. Confident in its growing power, China appeared to believe
After more than three weeks since the Honduran elections took place, its National Electoral Council finally certified the new president of Honduras. During the campaign, the two leading contenders, Nasry Asfura and Salvador Nasralla, who according to the council were separated by 27,026 votes in the final tally, promised to restore diplomatic ties with Taiwan if elected. Nasralla refused to accept the result and said that he would challenge all the irregularities in court. However, with formal recognition from the US and rapid acknowledgment from key regional governments, including Argentina and Panama, a reversal of the results appears institutionally and politically
In 2009, Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC) made a welcome move to offer in-house contracts to all outsourced employees. It was a step forward for labor relations and the enterprise facing long-standing issues around outsourcing. TSMC founder Morris Chang (張忠謀) once said: “Anything that goes against basic values and principles must be reformed regardless of the cost — on this, there can be no compromise.” The quote is a testament to a core belief of the company’s culture: Injustices must be faced head-on and set right. If TSMC can be clear on its convictions, then should the Ministry of Education
The Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA) provided several reasons for military drills it conducted in five zones around Taiwan on Monday and yesterday. The first was as a warning to “Taiwanese independence forces” to cease and desist. This is a consistent line from the Chinese authorities. The second was that the drills were aimed at “deterrence” of outside military intervention. Monday’s announcement of the drills was the first time that Beijing has publicly used the second reason for conducting such drills. The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) leadership is clearly rattled by “external forces” apparently consolidating around an intention to intervene. The targets of
RSS