Recent events indicate how much the people of Taiwan long for an improved cross-strait relationship against a backdrop of prolonged military threats from China and international isolation. The slightest gesture of warmth or lessening of hostility on the part of Beijing is enough to incite wishful thinking among some people in Taiwan, which makes these people highly susceptible to Chinese unification propaganda.
The first recent event that gave false hope to people in Taiwan is the fact that the governments on the two sides of the Taiwan Strait have finally reached an agreement to make possible non-stop charter flights for the Lunar New Year holiday period. Although Beijing has repeatedly made it clear that this year's charter flights are an isolated incident, many still wholeheartedly believe that it was the beginning of a new-found friendship between the two sides of the Taiwan Strait. They turned a blind eye to the fact that Taiwan had actually taken grave national security risks to make the flights possible. It is truly worrisome that some groups within Taiwan will use this as a stepping stone to push for permanent cross-strait links, without thinking twice about what kind of price the people of Taiwan would have to pay.
The second event that brought hope to the naive is the arrival on Tuesday of a delegation from China to pay their respects to the late top negotiator Koo Chen-fu (
During their brief stay, they refrained from making any official statements on the future of cross-strait relations and avoided meeting government officials, except for a brief meeting and handshake with SEF Chairman and Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) Vice Chairman Johnnason Liu (
Despite this window-dressing gesture of good will, Beijing has not slowed its pace even slightly in getting its anti-secession law enacted. In fact, the Chinese National People's Congress will finish enactment of this law by the end of March. The intended target of the law is obviously none other than Taiwan. Few can overlook the fact that the anti-secession law will give Beijing a legal basis to move against Taiwan in the event of any action Beijing interprets as an act of "Taiwan independence." The hostility and implications of the anti-secession law is so strong and unsettling that the US has openly voiced concerns on more than one occasion.
This could explain why Beijing agreed to the Lunar New Year charter flights and dispatched Sun and Li to Taiwan. However, the tokenism of these two small gestures amounts to virtually nothing in the face of the enormous hostility behind the anti-secession law. This is not to mention the fact that, throughout the process, Beijing did not forget to continue increasing the number of missiles targeting Taiwan. The president recently announced that the number of missiles had grown to 706. Under the circumstances, one cannot help but wonder how anyone in Taiwan can believe that Beijing is sincere about improving its relationship with Taiwan.
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.
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
After Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Chairwoman Cheng Li-wun (鄭麗文) met Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) in Beijing, most headlines referred to her as the leader of the opposition in Taiwan. Is she really, though? Being the chairwoman of the KMT does not automatically translate into being the leader of the opposition in the sense that most foreign readers would understand it. “Leader of the opposition” is a very British term. It applies to the Westminster system of parliamentary democracy, and to some extent, to other democracies. If you look at the UK right now, Conservative Party head Kemi Badenoch is
RSS