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Editorial: Straight talk on Strait affairs

Saturday's speech to the World Federation of Taiwanese Associations in which President Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁) set out something akin to former president Lee Teng-hui's (李登輝) "state-to-state" conception of Taiwan-China relations was the first time in two years, after our hopes were crushed with the contemptible "five no's" of Chen's inauguration speech, that we have cause to be optimistic about the government's China policy.

Of course we realize that among Taiwan's punditocracy we are in the minority. The chorus of nay-sayers yesterday was overwhelming. But that chorus was made up of the usual suspects: KMT Chairman Lien Chan (連戰) and PFP Chairman James Soong (宋楚瑜) -- the two festering boils on the backside of Taiwan's body politic -- and the pro-China press. They are, of course, livid that a Taiwan president should dare to state the reality of the cross-strait situation. Anything that punctures the composure, that disturbs the fantasies of imperial aggrandizement of the butchers of Beijing is shocking lese majesty to the scum that constitutes the "pan-blue" camp.

It is always interesting for those of us who were raised with a certain standard of honorable behavior, which includes the idea that you should resist threat and intimidation to the best of your ability, to look at the ways in which the bizarre psychopathology of the "pan-blue" camp reveals itself.

First there was bluster about the threat of war from China, never, notice any denunciation of China for its threat of war. Then there was the twisting of what was actually said into something more easy to attack. This time the target has been Chen's remarks on a referendum. The "pan-blue" camp followers are saying that Chen has backtracked on his inaugural promise not to hold a referendum on Taiwan independence. Actually he has done nothing of the sort. What he said was not that a referendum should be held, but that if the time ever came to make a decision a referendum was the only acceptable way to do so and with this in mind, legislation should be passed to legitimize the procedure.

This, of course, is exactly what the KMT does not want; it has never supported a referendum on the most important decision that Taiwan might ever have to make. Even the PFP has better democratic credentials here. We can only attribute this to Lien's desire to trade Taiwan's sovereignty to Beijing in return for the KMT's appointment as the permanent government of Taiwan, in the manner of the Tung Chee-hwa (董建華) clique in Hong Kong.

President Chen, as Mainland Affairs Council Vice Chairman Chen Ming-tong (陳明通) said, simply told the truth on Saturday, no matter how many people on both sides of the Taiwan Strait refuse to countenance it. But we have to wonder about timing. Taiwan's relationship with the US is crucial to its preservation of independence against possible Chinese aggression. But Washington has a rather compelling set of other concerns right now and it is hard to imagine that it would look happily on increased tension in the Strait.

It is also likely that Chen's statement will give more power to the hardliners in China's coming power transfer; it will be much harder in the short- to mid-term for voices advocating accommodation and negotiation with Taiwan to get a hearing. But perhaps the president -- whose intelligence sources are better than ours -- has decided that the chances of any faction coming to power prepared to deal with Taiwan on the only terms that make sense -- as an equal and without military intimidation -- are in any case next to nothing. The protection of Taiwan's sovereignty -- by swinging the public behind the popular "state-to state" policy -- against "pan-blue" camp efforts to destroy it has to take priority.
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