The Chinese Nationalist Party’s (KMT) annual forums with the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) have obviously reached an impasse, prompting former KMT secretary-general Lee Shu-chuan (李四川) — in a report on party reform after holding 21 forums with the party’s grassroots supporters and local cadres nationwide over the past month — to propose the abolition of the exchanges.
Initiated by then-KMT chairman Lien Chan (連戰) and then-Chinese president Hu Jintao (胡錦濤) during Lien’s 2005 “ice-breaking” visit to Beijing, the forum has been held since 2006, with the KMT touting it as a party-to-party communication platform that assists the development of cross-strait ties. At the end of each forum, consensuses were reached on topics relating to agricultural affairs, trade and cultural and educational exchanges, “providing a reference to formulating policies for both governments.”
However, it became apparent that the real purpose of the forums — billed as cultural and economic in nature — was to promote China’s goal of unification when then-KMT chairman and head of the KMT delegation to last year’s forum Eric Chu (朱立倫) said that both sides of the Taiwan Strait “belong to one China.”
It is clear that the forum operates in an opaque manner and works against the democratic process. Not only was a KMT official who was not part of the national government discussing matters of fundamental national importance with China without the mandate of the Taiwanese public, but Taiwan’s democracy has been further eroded by the KMT and China attempting to make decisions on cross-strait relations and developments via a party-to-party mechanism that excludes the Taiwanese electorate.
Over the past 10 years the forum has demonstrated to Taiwanese that it is not simply a meeting between two political parties but an opportunity for high-ranking KMT officials to fawn over Beijing officials who are attempting to determine Taiwan’s cross-strait policies and dictate cross-strait developments.
It often follows a similar pattern: Issues brought up during the KMT-CCP forum and shortly after prompt Taiwan’s Straits Exchange Foundation (SEF) and China’s Association for Relations Across the Taiwan Straits (ARATS) to draw up and sign agreements.
In other words, the forum has seemingly become a sharp point that China uses to prod President Ma Ying-jeou’s (馬英九) administration.
While Ma has said that everything decided at the forums must be approved by the government and agreed to by the SEF and ARATS, the then-KMT-dominated legislature often appeared to blindly endorse any agreements by the two agencies.
In short, the government’s authority seems to have been usurped, with the forums setting the agenda for cross-strait development.
The Ma administration’s submissive attitude toward China has caused public discontent, and the electorate made their displeasure felt in January’s elections by handing the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) a landslide victory.
After the KMT became a “true opposition” party — by losing the presidency and a majority in the legislature — the forum is likely to no longer play the role of setting the cross-strait agenda.
Now that the KMT’s grassroots and local cadres have recognized the public’s anger and called for the abolition of these opaque forums, the top echelon of the KMT must have the wisdom to acquiesce.
On May 7, 1971, Henry Kissinger planned his first, ultra-secret mission to China and pondered whether it would be better to meet his Chinese interlocutors “in Pakistan where the Pakistanis would tape the meeting — or in China where the Chinese would do the taping.” After a flicker of thought, he decided to have the Chinese do all the tape recording, translating and transcribing. Fortuitously, historians have several thousand pages of verbatim texts of Dr. Kissinger’s negotiations with his Chinese counterparts. Paradoxically, behind the scenes, Chinese stenographers prepared verbatim English language typescripts faster than they could translate and type them
More than 30 years ago when I immigrated to the US, applied for citizenship and took the 100-question civics test, the one part of the naturalization process that left the deepest impression on me was one question on the N-400 form, which asked: “Have you ever been a member of, involved in or in any way associated with any communist or totalitarian party anywhere in the world?” Answering “yes” could lead to the rejection of your application. Some people might try their luck and lie, but if exposed, the consequences could be much worse — a person could be fined,
Xiaomi Corp founder Lei Jun (雷軍) on May 22 made a high-profile announcement, giving online viewers a sneak peek at the company’s first 3-nanometer mobile processor — the Xring O1 chip — and saying it is a breakthrough in China’s chip design history. Although Xiaomi might be capable of designing chips, it lacks the ability to manufacture them. No matter how beautifully planned the blueprints are, if they cannot be mass-produced, they are nothing more than drawings on paper. The truth is that China’s chipmaking efforts are still heavily reliant on the free world — particularly on Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing
On May 13, the Legislative Yuan passed an amendment to Article 6 of the Nuclear Reactor Facilities Regulation Act (核子反應器設施管制法) that would extend the life of nuclear reactors from 40 to 60 years, thereby providing a legal basis for the extension or reactivation of nuclear power plants. On May 20, Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) and Taiwan People’s Party (TPP) legislators used their numerical advantage to pass the TPP caucus’ proposal for a public referendum that would determine whether the Ma-anshan Nuclear Power Plant should resume operations, provided it is deemed safe by the authorities. The Central Election Commission (CEC) has
RSS