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
The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) has long been expansionist and contemptuous of international law. Under Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平), the CCP regime has become more despotic, coercive and punitive. As part of its strategy to annex Taiwan, Beijing has sought to erase the island democracy’s international identity by bribing countries to sever diplomatic ties with Taipei. One by one, China has peeled away Taiwan’s remaining diplomatic partners, leaving just 12 countries (mostly small developing states) and the Vatican recognizing Taiwan as a sovereign nation. Taiwan’s formal international space has shrunk dramatically. Yet even as Beijing has scored diplomatic successes, its overreach
After 37 US lawmakers wrote to express concern over legislators’ stalling of critical budgets, Legislative Speaker Han Kuo-yu (韓國瑜) pledged to make the Executive Yuan’s proposed NT$1.25 trillion (US$39.7 billion) special defense budget a top priority for legislative review. On Tuesday, it was finally listed on the legislator’s plenary agenda for Friday next week. The special defense budget was proposed by President William Lai’s (賴清德) administration in November last year to enhance the nation’s defense capabilities against external threats from China. However, the legislature, dominated by the opposition Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) and Taiwan People’s Party (TPP), repeatedly blocked its review. The
In her article in Foreign Affairs, “A Perfect Storm for Taiwan in 2026?,” Yun Sun (孫韻), director of the China program at the Stimson Center in Washington, said that the US has grown indifferent to Taiwan, contending that, since it has long been the fear of US intervention — and the Chinese People’s Liberation Army’s (PLA) inability to prevail against US forces — that has deterred China from using force against Taiwan, this perceived indifference from the US could lead China to conclude that a window of opportunity for a Taiwan invasion has opened this year. Most notably, she observes that
The Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) said on Monday that it would be announcing its mayoral nominees for New Taipei City, Yilan County and Chiayi City on March 11, after which it would begin talks with the Taiwan People’s Party (TPP) to field joint opposition candidates. The KMT would likely support Deputy Taipei Mayor Lee Shu-chuan (李四川) as its candidate for New Taipei City. The TPP is fielding its chairman, Huang Kuo-chang (黃國昌), for New Taipei City mayor, after Huang had officially announced his candidacy in December last year. Speaking in a radio program, Huang was asked whether he would join Lee’s
RSS