When former president Chiang Kai-shek (蔣介石) roped the Taiwanese into his fight against the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) after taking over Taiwan, his planners explained the CCP’s basic doctrine this way: “What is mine is mine, and what is yours is also mine. Some things are to be taken as common property and I will therefore take yours.”
China and its sympathizers would say that the wording of this outline was simply an attempt to stigmatize and demonize China, but I would say it is a fairly accurate way to describe the idea of “one China.”
During this year’s round of political meetings involving the National People’s Congress (NPC) and the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference, Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao (溫家寶) and NPC spokesman Li Zhaoxing (李肇星) reiterated the position that “China and Taiwan both belong to China” and that “Taiwan is a part of China.”
Now, if that isn’t a classic example of “What is yours is mine,” I don’t know what is. I found it particularly rich that Li asked in exasperation how it could be so difficult to understand something so “obvious.” Of course, he was feigning ignorance of the complexities of the situation, adding two and two and coming up with five.
It might be obvious to him, but it isn’t to everyone.
People might find it easier to understand if he actually started making sense and spoke of the situation in terms of one nation on each side of the Strait.
Although China’s high-level politicos are reiterating old ideas, they can no longer be so explicit about them. They claim that Beijing has always approached any issue relating to Taiwan in the context of the “one China” principle, as is implicit in the trap they are setting in the negotiations for an economic cooperation framework agreement (ECFA). You’re not going to see the ideas of the “one China” principle or “unification” spelled out in black and white in the ECFA, but Beijing has already made it clear that these are understood to be part of the agreement.
Premier Wu Den-yih (吳敦義) was being slightly disingenuous when he swore he would step down if the word “unification” appeared in the agreement.
The Mainland Affairs Council has also tried to play things down by saying that it has signed other agreements that were unrelated to politics and that the ECFA was an economic matter that had absolutely nothing to do with politics.
These issues involve the very survival of Taiwan as a country as well as its sovereignty, but there is no real consensus about them in Taiwan. Neither is there any real convergence between what President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) is doing and public opinion. However, there is a clear consensus between Ma and China. I don’t think there is any real surprise, then, that his popularity ratings have been falling.
Once Taiwan buys into the “one China” principle, Beijing will be taking a mile for every inch given to it and say “thank you very much.” It will be reaping its “early harvest,” alright: a present of Taiwan’s sovereignty. It may even well mete out its concessions and remove the odd missile or two, orchestrating a “warming” of the Taiwan Strait situation and pushing for “peace talks.” This would, in turn, make all the more plausible China’s case to the US that there is no real need to sell arms to Taiwan.
If Ma truly supports Taiwanese democracy and sovereignty, he will hold a referendum on the ECFA, require China to accept that there is “one nation on each side of the Strait,” and demand China cease any further military intimidation toward Taiwan. China must not continue to avoid these serious issues simply by promising to remove its missiles aimed at Taiwan.
James Wang is a journalist based in Washington.
TRANSLATED BY PAUL COOPER
Wherever one looks, the United States is ceding ground to China. From foreign aid to foreign trade, and from reorganizations to organizational guidance, the Trump administration has embarked on a stunning effort to hobble itself in grappling with what his own secretary of state calls “the most potent and dangerous near-peer adversary this nation has ever confronted.” The problems start at the Department of State. Secretary of State Marco Rubio has asserted that “it’s not normal for the world to simply have a unipolar power” and that the world has returned to multipolarity, with “multi-great powers in different parts of the
President William Lai (賴清德) recently attended an event in Taipei marking the end of World War II in Europe, emphasizing in his speech: “Using force to invade another country is an unjust act and will ultimately fail.” In just a few words, he captured the core values of the postwar international order and reminded us again: History is not just for reflection, but serves as a warning for the present. From a broad historical perspective, his statement carries weight. For centuries, international relations operated under the law of the jungle — where the strong dominated and the weak were constrained. That
The Executive Yuan recently revised a page of its Web site on ethnic groups in Taiwan, replacing the term “Han” (漢族) with “the rest of the population.” The page, which was updated on March 24, describes the composition of Taiwan’s registered households as indigenous (2.5 percent), foreign origin (1.2 percent) and the rest of the population (96.2 percent). The change was picked up by a social media user and amplified by local media, sparking heated discussion over the weekend. The pan-blue and pro-China camp called it a politically motivated desinicization attempt to obscure the Han Chinese ethnicity of most Taiwanese.
The Legislative Yuan passed an amendment on Friday last week to add four national holidays and make Workers’ Day a national holiday for all sectors — a move referred to as “four plus one.” The Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) and the Taiwan People’s Party (TPP), who used their combined legislative majority to push the bill through its third reading, claim the holidays were chosen based on their inherent significance and social relevance. However, in passing the amendment, they have stuck to the traditional mindset of taking a holiday just for the sake of it, failing to make good use of
RSS