Is it any surprise anymore that the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT)-controlled government is holding secret meetings with top Chinese security officials?
Since former KMT chairman Lien Chan (連戰) and Chinese President Hu Jintao (胡錦濤) signed an agreement on cooperation between the KMT and the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) in 2005, nothing has been on the level. Backroom politics, secret agreements, obfuscation and cover-ups now define relations between these former enemies, now bedfellows. That’s why it comes as little surprise that Chinese Vice Minister of Public Security Chen Zhimin (陳智敏) visited Taiwan for a week last month to discuss who-knows-what with top Taiwanese officials, who remain anonymous because nobody in power wants anybody in the opposition to know just what’s going on.
The ramifications of secret meetings like this run deep. Former Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) chairman Joseph Wu (吳釗燮) hit the nail on the head when he said that discussions between Chinese security chiefs and the Mainland Affairs Council, Ministry of Justice and Coast Guard Administration could be focused on combating “terrorism,” a euphemism that could easily be used to describe those who support independence, or those who disagree with President Ma Ying-jeou’s (馬英九) headlong push into unification. Once a secret agreement between the two sides’ security apparatuses is signed, it wouldn’t be hard to cooperate electronically to track and pressure pro--independence bloggers, activists and politicians.
If meetings like this become the norm, as Democratic Progressive Party Legislator Huang Wei-cher (黃偉哲) said he fears, then the public won’t know when their actions — which might have been legal in the past — will suddenly be considered dangerous or illegal.
Another suspicious coincidence is that Chen’s visit came at roughly the same time as the showdown between Japan and China on sovereignty over the Diaoyutai Islands (釣魚台). The ongoing dispute directly involves the coast guards of all three nations that claim the islands — China, Japan and Taiwan. Setting the backdrop to these simmering nationalist tensions is unprecedented cooperation between the coast guards of Taiwan and China — an hours-long rescue drill off Kinmen Island, a place where the two sides used to do battle. In addition, the Taiwanese government allowed activists to board vessels leaving from Taiwanese territory to protest against Japan’s claim to the islands, escorting them with coast guard vessels. During this ugly confrontation, who steps across the Taiwan Strait to hold closed-door, secretive meetings with Taiwan’s coast guard? None other than one of the prime architects of the security crackdowns in Beijing, Hong Kong and Macau, China’s second-most powerful cop.
Why all this security cooperation? Isn’t the agreement on extradition of cross-strait criminals, stowaways and illegal immigrants — the Kinmen Agreement — that Taiwan signed with China 20 years ago enough? Why should the two sides meet secretly to strengthen cross-strait security, or hold so-called “peaceful exchanges”? The answer is because there will be a lot more people in Taiwan who disagree vocally with unification than there were in Hong Kong or Macau, and the groundwork needs to be laid. Once it becomes painfully obvious that the KMT and CCP intend to jointly unify the two sides of the Taiwan Strait, they’re going to have to act quickly to suppress all internal dissent and to unify their outward postures to discourage the involvement of Japan and the US. The talks surrounding these issues are not something they want to make public.
All this shows that things are a lot further along in the unification race than we had thought. Given the way the KMT and CCP are acting, unification seems like a done deal, with cross-strait markets and now mutual security apparatuses making the plunge before the politicians jump into the honeymoon suite.
In the past month, two important developments are poised to equip Taiwan with expanded capabilities to play foreign policy offense in an age where Taiwan’s diplomatic space is seriously constricted by a hegemonic Beijing. Taiwan Foreign Minister Lin Chia-lung (林佳龍) led a delegation of Taiwan and US companies to the Philippines to promote trilateral economic cooperation between the three countries. Additionally, in the past two weeks, Taiwan has placed chip export controls on South Africa in an escalating standoff over the placing of its diplomatic mission in Pretoria, causing the South Africans to pause and ask for consultations to resolve
An altercation involving a 73-year-old woman and a younger person broke out on a Taipei MRT train last week, with videos of the incident going viral online, sparking wide discussions about the controversial priority seats and social norms. In the video, the elderly woman, surnamed Tseng (曾), approached a passenger in a priority seat and demanded that she get up, and after she refused, she swung her bag, hitting her on the knees and calves several times. In return, the commuter asked a nearby passenger to hold her bag, stood up and kicked Tseng, causing her to fall backward and
In South Korea, the medical cosmetic industry is fiercely competitive and prices are low, attracting beauty enthusiasts from Taiwan. However, basic medical risks are often overlooked. While sharing a meal with friends recently, I heard one mention that his daughter would be going to South Korea for a cosmetic skincare procedure. I felt a twinge of unease at the time, but seeing as it was just a casual conversation among friends, I simply reminded him to prioritize safety. I never thought that, not long after, I would actually encounter a patient in my clinic with a similar situation. She had
A recent trio of opinion articles in this newspaper reflects the growing anxiety surrounding Washington’s reported request for Taiwan to shift up to 50 percent of its semiconductor production abroad — a process likely to take 10 years, even under the most serious and coordinated effort. Simon H. Tang (湯先鈍) issued a sharp warning (“US trade threatens silicon shield,” Oct. 4, page 8), calling the move a threat to Taiwan’s “silicon shield,” which he argues deters aggression by making Taiwan indispensable. On the same day, Hsiao Hsi-huei (蕭錫惠) (“Responding to US semiconductor policy shift,” Oct. 4, page 8) focused on
RSS