The week ahead is expected to see a focus on cross-strait issues as China’s Taiwan Affairs Office (TAO) Director Zhang Zhijun (張志軍) begins his four-day visit on Wednesday. It is to be the first time a Chinese official in that role pays a visit to Taiwan.
It could be described as a return visit following Mainland Affairs Council Minister Wang Yu-chi’s (王郁琦) trip to China in February, although the visit comes at a sensitive time after TAO spokesperson Fan Liqing (范麗青) said on June 11 that the future of Taiwan must be decided by all 1.3 billion Chinese, including the “compatriots” in Taiwan.
The dates of Zhang’s visit were set long ago. Had Zhang been serious when he said in April at the Boao Forum that the student-led Sunflower movement in March had given him an insight into why the cross-strait service agreement is being met with opposition from the public in Taiwan, Fan would not have made such an incendiary remark.
Fan’s statement, in reply to a Xinhua news agency reporter asking about what Greater Tainan Mayor William Lai (賴清德) said in China — that there is consensus among Taiwanese that the country’s future must be determined by its 23 million people — appears to have been carefully planned. Fan’s statement was not just rhetoric that rejected the contention that Taiwan has the right to self-determination. China decided to follow Fan’s comments with Zhang’s visit to Taiwan to show that China will be able to get its hands on Taiwan.
When China enacted the “Anti-Secession” Law in March 2005, formalizing its policy of using “non-peaceful means” against Taiwanese independence, then-Chinese president Hu Jintao (胡錦濤) said that any issues concerning the nation’s sovereignty and territorial integrity should be decided by all Chinese. Hu restated this position at the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) 17th National Congress in 2007.
It is true that Fan’s statement on June 11 was just a repetition of Beijing’s stance that there is only one China and that Taiwan is part of China, but when it comes right ahead of Zhang’s visit to Taiwan, a trip that has been facilitated and welcomed by President Ma Ying-jeou’s (馬英九) administration, it sends a message to the international community that Taiwan has acquiesced to China’s demand that the fate of Taiwan is not only in the hands of its 23 million citizens, but should be decided by 1.3 billion Chinese.
In November 2005, then-TAO director Chen Yunlin (陳雲林) was invited by the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) to attend the KMT-CCP forum, but the then-Democratic Progressive Party administration rejected his entry application to protest against China’s refusal to repeal the “Anti-Secession” Law.
In 1999, then-president Lee Teng-hui (李登輝) redefined cross-strait relations as a special state-to-state relationship in an interview with Deutsche Welle Radio of Germany to forestall the then-chairman of the Association for Relations Across the Taiwan Straits Wang Daohan’s (汪道涵) scheduled trip to Taiwan because Lee said Wang was going to proclaim that Taipei accepted Beijing’s “one China” principle.
The Ma administration’s response to Fan’s statement has been ridiculed as weak and ineffective. Some have even accused the Ma administration of giving a response in line with what Fan said.
That response — that the future of the Republic of China should be determined by its 23 million citizens as per the Republic of China Constitution — leaves room for interpretation in China’s favor because the constitution still claims sovereignty over the People’s Republic of China.
It may not be too late for the Ma administration to make up for what it has failed to do by lodging a protest with Zhang over Fan’s statement before it proceeds with pursuing its cross-strait agenda.
When Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) sits down with US President Donald Trump in Beijing on Thursday next week, Xi is unlikely to demand a dramatic public betrayal of Taiwan. He does not need to. Beijing’s preferred victory is smaller, quieter and in some ways far more dangerous: a subtle shift in American wording that appears technical, but carries major strategic meaning. The ask is simple: replace the longstanding US formulation that Washington “does not support Taiwan independence” with a harder one — that Washington “opposes” Taiwan independence. One word changes; a deterrence structure built over decades begins to shift.
The cancelation this week of President William Lai’s (賴清德) state visit to Eswatini, after the Seychelles, Madagascar and Mauritius revoked overflight permits under Chinese pressure, is one more measure of Taiwan’s shrinking executive diplomatic space. Another channel that deserves attention keeps growing while the first contracts. For several years now, Taipei has been one of Europe’s busiest legislative destinations. Where presidents and foreign ministers cannot land, parliamentarians do — and they do it in rising numbers. The Italian parliament opened the year with its largest bipartisan delegation to Taiwan to date: six Italian deputies and one senator, drawn from six
Recently, Taipei’s streets have been plagued by the bizarre sight of rats running rampant and the city government’s countermeasures have devolved into an anti-intellectual farce. The Taipei Parks and Street Lights Office has attempted to eradicate rats by filling their burrows with polyurethane foam, seeming to believe that rats could not simply dig another path out. Meanwhile, as the nation’s capital slowly deteriorates into a rat hive, the Taipei Department of Environmental Protection has proudly pointed to the increase in the number of poisoned rats reported in February and March as a sign of success. When confronted with public concerns over young
Taipei is facing a severe rat infestation, and the city government is reportedly considering large-scale use of rodenticides as its primary control measure. However, this move could trigger an ecological disaster, including mass deaths of birds of prey. In the past, black kites, relatives of eagles, took more than three decades to return to the skies above the Taipei Basin. Taiwan’s black kite population was nearly wiped out by the combined effects of habitat destruction, pesticides and rodenticides. By 1992, fewer than 200 black kites remained on the island. Fortunately, thanks to more than 30 years of collective effort to preserve their remaining
RSS