It appears the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) government would say anything in an attempt to gain public support for its proposed economic cooperation framework agreement (ECFA) with China.
Latest case in point: President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) linking the ECFA to China removing its missiles aimed at Taiwan.
“We believe China will face mounting pressure from both Taiwan and the international community to handle the missiles, because no one will understand why China has missiles targeting Taiwan if it is doing business with us,” Ma said in a recent interview with the Central News Agency as he touted the benefit of signing an ECFA with Beijing.
Aside from being naive, the remark also takes wishful thinking to a whole new level of absurdity. It is even more spine-chilling to know that such naivete comes from the nation’s commander-in-chief, who is leaving Taiwan’s national security at the mercy of his own ignorance and China’s unfounded goodwill.
In case Ma hasn’t noticed, Taiwan and China have already engaged in many trade exchanges over the past decade. According to the CIA World Factbook, “since 2005 China has overtaken the US to become Taiwan’s second-largest source of imports after Japan. China is also the island’s No. 1 destination for foreign direct investment.”
Have all these cross-strait trade relations dampened China’s military aggression and led to the removal of missiles aimed at Taiwan? The answer is no. Instead, China has increased the number of tactical ballistic missiles deployed across the Strait. Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) Chairwoman Lai Shin-yuan (賴幸媛) in February last year put the number of missiles at more than 1,500 — a huge increase from 200 just 10 years ago.
While it is worth noting that Ma may have forgotten his pledge to demand that China remove the missiles aimed at Taiwan before negotiating any cross-strait accords, the truth is that even if China did decide to remove the missiles in exchange for an ECFA, such an action would not alleviate the military threat, as the missiles are mobile and can be redeployed easily and quickly.
Ma has also spoken of “putting aside the issue of unification” when conducting talks with Beijing. However, the question is: Is China putting aside the unification issue? Again, the answer is no. Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao (溫家寶) made it clear in a talk in March before the National People’s Congress that signing an ECFA with Taiwan remains a priority as he flaunted how the Chinese government would continue developing cross-strait relations “to realize the ultimate goal of peaceful national unification.”
Could Ma’s national security advisory team be so incompetent that it failed to report all of this to Ma? Could Ma be so busy doubling as KMT chairman and engineering November’s special municipality elections that he hadn’t had time to read the newspaper and stay informed? Or has he simply chosen to ignore the obvious and deceive the public with illusions so long as there is the possibility of an ECFA being inked with China? Ma, as the head of state, he should stop talking irresponsibly and wishfully.
China has never wavered on its stance to annex Taiwan, and it does not take a rocket scientist to figure out that everything China does as it seeks to sign an ECFA with Taiwan is aimed at bringing Taiwan into its fold. In view of China’s unceasing aggression and machinations, the last thing a president of Taiwan needs is naivete.
In the event of a war with China, Taiwan has some surprisingly tough defenses that could make it as difficult to tackle as a porcupine: A shoreline dotted with swamps, rocks and concrete barriers; conscription for all adult men; highways and airports that are built to double as hardened combat facilities. This porcupine has a soft underbelly, though, and the war in Iran is exposing it: energy. About 39,000 ships dock at Taiwan’s ports each year, more than the 30,000 that transit the Strait of Hormuz. About one-fifth of their inbound tonnage is coal, oil, refined fuels and liquefied natural gas (LNG),
To counter the CCP’s escalating threats, Taiwan must build a national consensus and demonstrate the capability and the will to fight. The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) often leans on a seductive mantra to soften its threats, such as “Chinese do not kill Chinese.” The slogan is designed to frame territorial conquest (annexation) as a domestic family matter. A look at the historical ledger reveals a different truth. For the CCP, being labeled “family” has never been a guarantee of safety; it has been the primary prerequisite for state-sanctioned slaughter. From the forced starvation of 150,000 civilians at the Siege of Changchun
The two major opposition parties, the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) and the Taiwan People’s Party (TPP), jointly announced on Tuesday last week that former TPP lawmaker Chang Chi-kai (張啟楷) would be their joint candidate for Chiayi mayor, following polling conducted earlier this month. It is the first case of blue-white (KMT-TPP) cooperation in selecting a joint candidate under an agreement signed by their chairpersons last month. KMT and TPP supporters have blamed their 2024 presidential election loss on failing to decide on a joint candidate, which ended in a dramatic breakdown with participants pointing fingers, calling polls unfair, sobbing and walking
In the opening remarks of her meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) in the Great Hall of the People in Beijing on Friday, Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Chairwoman Cheng Li-wun (鄭麗文) framed her visit as a historic occasion. In his own remarks, Xi had also emphasized the history of the relationship between the KMT and the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). Where they differed was that Cheng’s account, while flawed by its omissions, at least partially corresponded to reality. The meeting was certainly historic, albeit not in the way that Cheng and Xi were signaling, and not from the perspective
RSS