Sun, Sep 13, 2015 page8

• Combating the war of unification

  • By Leung Man-to 梁文韜
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  When former vice president Lien Chan (連戰) attended China’s military parade to commemorate the end of the War of Resistance Against Japan, he also met with Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平).

  This has been seen by some in the pro-China camp as the consolidation of the outcome of a meeting between Lien and former Chinese president Hu Jintao (胡錦濤) a decade ago, at which they reached a consensus on reconciliation between the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) and the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), and agreed to work together to prevent Taiwanese independence.

  KMT presidential candidate Hung Hsiu-chu (洪秀柱) endorsed Lien’s trip, claiming that any peaceful exchange would be good.

  The government has claimed for more than seven years that it has made progress in developing peaceful cross-strait ties, but China’s ongoing military expansion can be seen as a negation of this claim.

  The reconciliation between the KMT and the CCP did not bring cross-strait peace; it only showed the effectiveness of the alliance between the KMT and the CCP to prevent Taiwanese independence.

  This significantly lowered the CCP’s resistance to going all-out in its plan to annex Taiwan. The long-standing truce led to superficial peace, which created an opportunity for the CCP to actively undertake an economic war of unification.

  The purpose of signing the Economic Cooperation Framework Agreement (ECFA) and negotiating the ECFA conditions that regulate the trade of goods and services is to help the government further tie the Taiwanese economy to China’s and cooperate with Beijing’s policy to bring about unification through economic means. The alliance between the KMT and the CCP aims to encourage Taiwan’s surrender to China and the destruction of the nation.

  After the economy is tied to China’s, the unification of the view on history and political surrender is bound to follow.

  In the meeting with Xi, Lien agreed with Xi’s view of using the same historic materials and writing history together. China’s and Taiwan’s once separate accounts of the War of Resistance Against Japan have today become the same, but this common account is in fact written according to CCP’s version of history, which views the CCP as the main pillar of resistance.

  First, it asserts that the war began with the Mukden Incident — or Manchurian Incident — in 1931, which Japan used as an excuse to invade northern China, not with the battle between the Republic of China’s (ROC) Nationalist Revolutionary Army and the Japanese on the Marco Polo Bridge in 1937, known as the Marco Polo Bridge Incident.

  Second, it asserts that during the war, the KMT and the CCP played equally important roles.

  Third, it asserts that victory in the war was jointly achieved by the CCP and the KMT and that it was the result of all Chinese people, including Taiwanese, shedding their blood.

  The CCP’s strategy regarding the historical view of the War of Resistance Against Japan is that if Lien, in the name of Taiwanese, recognizes Beijing’s right to interpret the history of the war — thereby tying Taiwan to China’s historical viewpoint — it would be tantamount to accepting the view that China and Taiwan are parts of China.

  This is precisely the view that the KMT did not dare express at the meeting between Lien and Hu a decade ago, but that KMT Chairman Eric Chu (朱立倫) agreed with during his meeting with Xi in May this year.

  Chu’s view that Taiwan and China are parts of “one China” and Hung’s view of “one China, same interpretation” imply that the ROC does not exist and they signify political surrender to China and obedience to the historical viewpoint the CCP. Taiwan will be destroyed as a result of this.

  The CCP made a movie titled the Cairo Declaration, a historic drama in which Chiang Kai-shek’s (蔣介石) importance in the War of Resistance Against Japan is belittled. The movie was released in China on Sept. 3, the day of the military parade.

  Its main purpose is to tell Chinese people and the rest of the world that China is determined in the legitimacy of its inherited right to rule Taiwan.

  Lien was lured into cooperating with their propaganda by attending the parade, thus endorsing China’s false concern for cross-strait peace, and by telling Xi and the international media that Taiwan was returned to China at the 1943 Cairo Conference. Through this statement, the CCP gave the international community the false impression that Taiwanese turned their faces to China and did not reject the idea of unification.

  The CCP is trying to destroy Taiwanese identity through its own interpretation of history.

  However, those who identify themselves as Taiwanese do not accept the KMT’s version of the past and will never identify with a KMT-CCP historical viewpoint based on the CCP’s account of history. They will also resolutely cast aside all other attempts by Lien and the KMT to surrender to China in the name of all Taiwanese.

  The KMT does not represent Taiwan. Taiwanese cannot sit by and watch the evil consequences of a successful war of unification. They must counter the KMT’s surrender to China and destruction of their nation. The forces that oppose the CCP’s annexation of Taiwan should not confine themselves to voicing weak criticisms, but should consider a comprehensive strategy to oppose unification.

  They should also promote the creation of an anti-unification law and introduce new strategies to their political groups that would restrict unnecessary activities between the two sides before next year’s presidential election. They should do all they can to stop the KMT from cooperating with the CCP and further tying Taiwan to China before May 20 next year.

  This is in line with public opinion and would gain the support of the vast majority of voters who are strongly opposed to being annexed by China.

  Leung Man-to is a professor of political science at National Cheng Kung University.

  Translated by Clare Lear
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