The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) has successfully leveraged the cross-strait service trade agreement to waste Taiwan’s national resources. It has also inflicted a great deal of physical and psychological harm on Taiwanese. Throughout the entire process of negotiating and signing the agreement, the CCP has not lost a single thing, while Taiwan has been severely hurt in many ways.
This is the inevitable outcome of President Ma Ying-jeou’s (馬英九) proactive stance over interactions with China.
In the eras of former president Chiang Kai-shek’s (蔣介石) resistance to Russia and his anti-communist drive and his son Chiang Ching-kuo’s (蔣經國) — who had a strategy of “no negotiation, no contact and no compromise” with China — Taiwanese lived through a White Terror era under the one-party dictatorship of the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT).
However, none of that was as frightening as the “Red Terror” that now exists under Ma’s dictatorial leadership. People may think that Taiwan democratized a while ago, but, during his second term in office, Ma has sped up and increased the scope of his moves to promote unification with China.
As a result, Taiwanese feel that their way of life is about to change, that their abilities to make a living and even just get by are being destroyed and that the nation is about to become a part of communist China. This is the reason Taiwanese are so terrified now.
China does not even have to shoot a single bullet to take over Taiwan. However, it does need the cooperation of the pro- unification forces in Taiwan.
There are two pro-unification factions. The leftist faction views things through the lens of politics, while the rightist faction looks from a historical and cultural perspective. However, these factions have recently converged.
This convergence is no more apparent than in the actions of the members of the high-school curriculum adjustment task force. The main factor that has brought the left and right together in such an unimaginable way is “Chinese nationalism.”
The pro-unification faction believe that ethnicity is something higher than democracy and that bloodline is more important than freedom.
This is a common view that the CCP, the KMT and the pro-unification faction share. It is also something that they use to respond to and suppress civic movements both in Taiwan and in China.
Ma is using the service trade agreement to make Taiwan’s economy merge with and eventually be absorbed by China’s, just as he is using the high-school curriculum adjustment task force to force Taiwanese into thinking that they are “Chinese” in an attempt to gain control over both the public’s bodies and minds.
It is correct for the “Sunflower student movement” to base its actions around a civic movement because this makes a direct contribution to the protection of Taiwan’s freedom and democracy. However, the students cannot afford to overlook the fact that the specter of Chinese nationalism is the true enemy as Taiwanese and Chinese seek their own democracy and freedom.
Chang Bing-yang is a professor at the National Taipei University of Education.
Translated by Drew Cameron
When it became clear that the world was entering a new era with a radical change in the US’ global stance in US President Donald Trump’s second term, many in Taiwan were concerned about what this meant for the nation’s defense against China. Instability and disruption are dangerous. Chaos introduces unknowns. There was a sense that the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) might have a point with its tendency not to trust the US. The world order is certainly changing, but concerns about the implications for Taiwan of this disruption left many blind to how the same forces might also weaken
As the new year dawns, Taiwan faces a range of external uncertainties that could impact the safety and prosperity of its people and reverberate in its politics. Here are a few key questions that could spill over into Taiwan in the year ahead. WILL THE AI BUBBLE POP? The global AI boom supported Taiwan’s significant economic expansion in 2025. Taiwan’s economy grew over 7 percent and set records for exports, imports, and trade surplus. There is a brewing debate among investors about whether the AI boom will carry forward into 2026. Skeptics warn that AI-led global equity markets are overvalued and overleveraged
Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi on Monday announced that she would dissolve parliament on Friday. Although the snap election on Feb. 8 might appear to be a domestic affair, it would have real implications for Taiwan and regional security. Whether the Takaichi-led coalition can advance a stronger security policy lies in not just gaining enough seats in parliament to pass legislation, but also in a public mandate to push forward reforms to upgrade the Japanese military. As one of Taiwan’s closest neighbors, a boost in Japan’s defense capabilities would serve as a strong deterrent to China in acting unilaterally in the
Taiwan last week finally reached a trade agreement with the US, reducing tariffs on Taiwanese goods to 15 percent, without stacking them on existing levies, from the 20 percent rate announced by US President Donald Trump’s administration in August last year. Taiwan also became the first country to secure most-favored-nation treatment for semiconductor and related suppliers under Section 232 of the US Trade Expansion Act. In return, Taiwanese chipmakers, electronics manufacturing service providers and other technology companies would invest US$250 billion in the US, while the government would provide credit guarantees of up to US$250 billion to support Taiwanese firms
RSS