The People’s Republic of China (PRC) has more than 1,000 “guns” — or rather missiles — targeting Taiwanese. As if poisoned milk and bird flu were not enough. Here is an excerpt from a piece by Agence France-Presse from July 16, 2006, which is still every bit as valid as it was back then:
“China has 820 ballistic and cruise missiles currently aimed at Taiwan, according to Taiwanese President Chen Shui-Bian (陳水扁). Speaking today at a forum of Japanese scholars in Taipei, Chen stated that the People’s Liberation Army had deployed 784 ballistic and 36 cruise missiles, adding that the number of missiles is rising at a rate of 120 per year.”
Chen’s figures were in line with those of the Pentagon’s 2006 Report to Congress on the Military Power of the People’s Republic of China, which estimated the number of Chinese CSS-6 and CSS-7 short-range ballistic missiles aimed at Taiwan as numbering between 710 and 790, an increase over the previous year’s 650 to 730 missiles.
In his statement, Chen noted that a 10-hour Chinese bombardment could paralyze Taiwan’s communications, transportation and command centers.
He added that China has repeatedly threatened to invade Taiwan should it declare formal independence.
This news is just over two years old, which means that the current total number of missiles aimed at Taiwan now stands at somewhere near 1,060.
Why is Taiwan and its government not in an absolute state of emergency and alarm over this?
What’s more, why does Taiwan remain willing to increase trade and relations with a neighboring state that has consistently denied Taiwan’s very right to exist at each and every opportunity and constantly threatens the lives of Taiwanese with these dangerous weapons?
To put it in simple terms: “How can we possibly be friends when you [China] have a loaded gun pointed at my head?”
The Taiwanese government — pan-blue or pan-green — should at a very minimum stand for the welfare of Taiwanese and do its utmost to keep them safe.
With the present government, this is just not happening, and no amount of rhetoric and obfuscation can skirt the issue anymore.
The bottom line should be that there can be no negotiations, trade of any kind or relations at all while the lives of Taiwanese are recklessly put in harm’s way by the Chinese.
Where is the Taiwanese government’s dignity and sense of duty?
Any responsible government would by now have asked Beijing to stop targeting its people with missiles.
Until these missiles are all completely removed, with proper verification by a third party, all trade, flights and or relations of any kind should be banned.
No other nation that cherishes the lives of its own people, let alone its dignity, would ever tolerate this ridiculous state of affairs.
Maybe this is one of the reasons China is so bold in its isolation of Taiwan in the international arena, because the Taiwanese themselves do not seem to have any sense of dignity when it comes to this issue.
China knows that Taiwan will continue to provide infrastructure investment and money to the PRC even though doing so hurts the Taiwanese economy and people.
China can therefore afford to say: “Why not threaten Taiwan with missiles? They won’t do anything about it and we still get their money.”
China still gets everything it wants even if it behaves badly. This cowardly behavior on the part of Taiwan only encourages China and only serves to embolden its leaders to become even worse.
If Taiwanese really want peace and harmony in the Taiwan Strait, they should stop dreaming and take a stand.
As Mohandas Gandhi once said: “All compromise is based on give and take, but there can be no give and take on fundamentals. Any compromise on mere fundamentals is a surrender. For it is all give and no take.”
Taiwan’s goal is not to harm China. Taiwan only wants what every other group of people wants, and that is to live freely and with a certain degree of safety.
If China cannot and will not honor this minimum standard of human interaction, then there really is no point in talking.
Howard Fass is a human rights and political activist.
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