Five Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) legislators will join a financial delegation led by People First Party (PFP) Legislator Christina Liu (劉憶如) to an economic symposium in China. Even if we disregard the question of whether or not it would be appropriate, a joint visit by DPP and PFP legislators, and to China of all places, is still strange.
I have two questions. First, the PFP has constantly been blocking the government's policies, so why this sudden willingness to cooperate? Second, PFP Chairman James Soong (宋楚瑜) took the white flag of surrender with him on his kowtowing trip to China, and Liu has since visited China several times, and that is all fine. But now that Liu is bringing DPP legislators along with her, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) will credit the PFP. So why does the DPP increase its troubles by increasing the PFP's capital?
Legislator Gao Jyh-peng (高志鵬), one of the DPP group going to China, said that the purpose of the visit was to study "the mainland." But President Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁) has defined the relationship between Taiwan and China as being that of "one country on each side of the Taiwan Strait," so why this talk of "the mainland?"
There is talk of financial policy, the financial system and listening to China-based Taiwanese businesspeople -- everything has been done to eliminate the political implications. These people have been in politics for so long, but they still don't understand that when a legislator visits China, that action is political in and of itself. Even if they go to China with their eyes shut, ears muffled and mouths gagged, the fact that they go is still political.
China is a totalitarian, despotic and anti-democratic country, and regardless of in what name one participates in some symposium, the main consideration should be whether or not it is opposing these facts. If it isn't, participation is the same as adding credibility to a gang of butchers who suppress their own people and human rights. Any decision to go or not to go to China is a human-rights decision.
This depth of reasoning may of course be lost on politicians. Let's instead apply the logic of power. From this perspective it is even dafter of DPP legislators to follow in the footsteps of Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Chairman Lien Chan (連戰) and Soong. DPP members from Chen on down severely criticized Lien and Soong for kneeling down before Chinese President Hu Jintao (胡錦濤), while the Taiwanese public was angered. With the "Anti-Secession" Law hanging like the sword of Damocles over our heads, Lien and Soong's visits were an endorsment of China.
By traveling to China, the DPP legislators are endorsing Lien and Soong's visits -- something not even a stupid person would do.
The five DPP legislators have borrowed from the pan-blue camp's apologists, saying that those opposing their visit are sealing Taiwan off from the outside world. Saying that opposition to China is the same as sealing off the country is bizarre. Turning China down is not the same as wanting to seal Taiwan off from the outside world.
As former Czech president Vaclav Havel stressed in a May 24 lecture in the US in which he condemned China for threatening Taiwan and Tibet, "We must do all we can to support those who dare come forth and face despotic regimes."
Chin Heng-wei is editor-in-chief of Contemporary Monthly magazine.
Translated by Perry Svensson
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