The Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT)-Chinese Communist Party (CCP) forum came to an end last week. In terms of political issues, the two parties agreed to further consolidate the so-called “1992 consensus” and to explore the possibility of signing a peace agreement as a way of resolving cross-strait animosity.
If China’s leaders feel that this approach proposed by the KMT would be meaningful to Taiwanese, they should take the initiative to bring the issue to the international community and announce their intention to remove the missiles they have aimed at Taiwan. If they do not, all this talk is just hot air.
Chinese leaders might keep telling the world that the missiles deployed along its coastline are not aimed at Taiwan, but this is not what Taiwanese believe.
In recent years, the report, Military and Security Developments Involving the People’s Republic of China, that the US Department of Defense submits to the US Congress every year has consistently shown that in addition to deploying at least 490 fighter jets along the Taiwan Strait coastline and one-third of its military forces across from Taiwan, China’s most direct threat to Taiwanese is the more than 1,000 short-range missiles it has aimed at Taiwan.
Not only has this number not diminished over the years, it has increased, and this was no different during the administration of former president Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九).
The KMT-CCP forum has been held 11 times and during these occasions every leader of the KMT has brought up the issue of a peace agreement and a military mutual trust mechanism, but nothing has been done to actually start dealing with the issue.
Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) has promised to study the feasibility of a cross-strait peace agreement, but such statements are only insincere and perfunctory responses to the KMT’s proposals.
If he really were determined to follow through on his promises, nothing would be easier than to immediately make a public announcement that China would never use military force against Taiwan and that Beijing is willing to unconditionally remove its missiles aimed at Taiwan, as these are issues that Beijing controls.
Yao Chung-yuan is a former senior deputy director of the Ministry of National Defense’s Strategic Planning Department.
Translated by Perry Svensson
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