The newly forged reconciliation between former foes the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) and the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), a political friendship that is soon to be sealed with the highest-level meeting between the two parties in over 50 years, demonstrates the idiom that your enemy's enemy is your friend, analysts said yesterday.
But in this case, it is unclear whether enemies at home remain enemies abroad, for the opposition parties have been defiant in the face of accusations that they have inappropriately taken state affairs into their own hands. Instead, they claim to be doing what the government has not or cannot do.
In fact, KMT Chairman Lien Chan's (
Democratic Progressive Party's (DPP) Chinese affairs department director Tung Li-wen (
"For China, all political parties that don't support Taiwanese independence will be rewarded. To what degree ... that's a wild guess," Alexander Huang (
Chao Chien-min (
"The opposition party is limited in what it can do," Chao said.
Despite Lien's role as the main opposition leader, there has been talk of late that Beijing could make some sort of concession on the military front. Tung noted earlier this month that the concession could involve the withdrawal of missiles.
Tung said that such a move would not be unprecedented, citing then Chinese president Jiang Zemin's (
Huang said however, that talk of retracting missiles aimed at Taiwan, if it came up during Lien's visit, would remain just that.
"It'd just be lip service ... there's no verification mechanism. so we would never know [if the missiles were withdrawn]," Huang said, admitting however that the move could earn Beijing credit with Washington. He added that militarily, the removal of the missiles would not make any substantial difference.
Whether the gesture could sway the EU towards lifting its arms embargo against China was unclear.
Chao said that the EU was determined to lift the ban anyway. He said that the EU had only temporarily put off plans to lift the ban in light of Beijing's "Anti-Secession" Law, adding that the ban was going to be trashed sooner or later regardless of whether China withdrew any missiles.
Huang said that it would put the US Department of State in a hard spot, but indicated that it was unclear which way the decision would go with the UK chairing the European Council.
As for whether Lien's "journey of peace" could negatively impact cross-strait relations as the ruling party has charged, analysts said increased interaction between Taiwan and China best served cross-strait relations.
"Because of talk of constitutional reform and referendums, China adopted the Anti-Secession Law ... and then as a result we ban China's correspondents in Taiwan. It's a vicious cycle, and so the more dialogue there is across the Strait the better," Chao said.
Huang added that Beijing knew exactly where it stood with Lien.
"China understands clearly that, no matter how big [the concession], it is only to Lien, to his name, or the KMT. They know the government is in the DPP's hands, and the DPP might not recognize it [the concession]" Huang said.
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