As President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) juggles the opportunities and challenges of cross-strait relations during the remainder of his second term there will be “significant political turmoil” in the nation, a US academic said.
“It is rare to find any issue of importance that does not come down to a partisan struggle between the ruling Kuomintang [Chinese Nationalist Party, KMT] and the opposition Democratic Progressive Party [DPP],” he said.
“I find this sadly reminiscent of the political dysfunction that currently prevails in the US,” Henry Stimson Center East Asia program director Alan Romberg said.
“Even in Washington one does not witness the physical obstructionism that plays such a prominent role in Taipei’s political scene today,” Romberg said.
Despite this, the coming period in cross-strait relations is “unlikely to be tumultuous,” Romberg said, because ties across the Strait are on a “reasonably stable and predictable course.”
In an academic paper on cross-strait relations leading up to 2016, Romberg says China is prepared to pay the necessary price in its ongoing campaign to win hearts and minds by continuing “to skew the terms generally in Taiwan’s favor.”
The paper, published earlier this month, came just before Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) said that China would not let Taiwan indefinitely put off talks on political issues between Taipei and Beijing.
As long as everything is handled within a “one China” framework and the provisions of Article 8 of China’s Anti-Secession Law are not triggered, Beijing will not try to “proceed at a forced march pace toward unification,” Romberg said.
However, the possibility of the DPP returning to power in 2016 seems to be affecting Bejing’s attitude toward political talks, he said. “It probably impels [China] toward conducting political dialogues in whatever way is possible at this point. It undoubtedly lies at the heart of [China’s] campaign to court senior DPP officials, even though not yet on a party-to-party basis.”
Before the end of Ma’s term in office it may lead to a “determined effort” to raise the current dialogue to an authoritative level, also in order to lock in the current state of play, Romberg said.
“Whether this will include efforts to negotiate a peace accord or military mutual trust-building measures — the two items that appear to be at the top of Beijing’s political agenda — is unknowable at this point,” he said.
Romberg said that in terms of the dynamics of cross-strait relations, the coming years should witness overall stability and predictability.
“The scope of relations will likely expand beyond economics, including expansion of educational and cultural exchange, though movement to authoritative dialogue will remain a question mark,” he said.
A group of Taiwanese-American and Tibetan-American students at Harvard University on Saturday disrupted Chinese Ambassador to the US Xie Feng’s (謝鋒) speech at the school, accusing him of being responsible for numerous human rights violations. Four students — two Taiwanese Americans and two from Tibet — held up banners inside a conference hall where Xie was delivering a speech at the opening ceremony of the Harvard Kennedy School China Conference 2024. In a video clip provided by the Coalition of Students Resisting the CCP (Chinese Communist Party), Taiwanese-American Cosette Wu (吳亭樺) and Tibetan-American Tsering Yangchen are seen holding banners that together read:
UNAWARE: Many people sit for long hours every day and eat unhealthy foods, putting them at greater risk of developing one of the ‘three highs,’ an expert said More than 30 percent of adults aged 40 or older who underwent a government-funded health exam were unaware they had at least one of the “three highs” — high blood pressure, high blood lipids or high blood sugar, the Health Promotion Administration (HPA) said yesterday. Among adults aged 40 or older who said they did not have any of the “three highs” before taking the health exam, more than 30 percent were found to have at least one of them, Adult Preventive Health Examination Service data from 2022 showed. People with long-term medical conditions such as hypertension or diabetes usually do not
POLICE INVESTIGATING: A man said he quit his job as a nurse at Taipei Tzu Chi Hospital as he had been ‘disgusted’ by the behavior of his colleagues A man yesterday morning wrote online that he had witnessed nurses taking photographs and touching anesthetized patients inappropriately in Taipei Tzu Chi Hospital’s operating theaters. The man surnamed Huang (黃) wrote on the Professional Technology Temple bulletin board that during his six-month stint as a nurse at the hospital, he had seen nurses taking pictures of patients, including of their private parts, after they were anesthetized. Some nurses had also touched patients inappropriately and children were among those photographed, he said. Huang said this “disgusted” him “so much” that “he felt the need to reveal these unethical acts in the operating theater
Heat advisories were in effect for nine administrative regions yesterday afternoon as warm southwesterly winds pushed temperatures above 38°C in parts of southern Taiwan, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said. As of 3:30pm yesterday, Tainan’s Yujing District (玉井) had recorded the day’s highest temperature of 39.7°C, though the measurement will not be included in Taiwan’s official heat records since Yujing is an automatic rather than manually operated weather station, the CWA said. Highs recorded in other areas were 38.7°C in Kaohsiung’s Neimen District (內門), 38.2°C in Chiayi City and 38.1°C in Pingtung’s Sandimen Township (三地門), CWA data showed. The spell of scorching