Fri, Sep 27, 2019 page8

• EDITORIAL: Arrest shows lunacy of unification

  • • 
    • 
    • 

  China’s Taiwan Affairs Office on Wednesday confirmed that Tsai Chin-shu (蔡金樹), chairman of the Southern Taiwan Union of Cross-strait Relations Associations, was taken into custody on July 22 last year. The arrest is believed to have taken place while Tsai was waiting for a connecting flight in Xiamen.

  This latest arbitrary detention of a Taiwanese by Chinese authorities provides yet more proof that “peaceful unification” with China — still frequently touted by pro-Beijing Taiwanese — would be an act of supreme folly.

  Tsai’s disappearance had previously been kept out of the public domain. However, Shih Chien University chair professor Chiang Min-chin (江岷欽), an old friend of Tsai’s, last week revealed on television that Tsai is being detained at a prison in China’s Fujian Province.

  The news of Tsai’s arrest follows a string of disappearances of Taiwanese and other foreign nationals within China’s borders in the past few years. The list includes Taiwanese human rights advocate Lee Ming-che (李明哲), who went missing in 2017 and is serving a five-year custodial sentence, and Morrison Lee (李孟居), a native of Hsinchu County, who last month went missing after crossing into Shenzhen after attending an Aug. 18 anti-extradition bill rally in Hong Kong. He is also being held under lock and key by the Chinese.

  Then there is the case of two Canadians — former diplomat Michael Kovrig and businessman Michael Spavor — who were spirited away by Chinese security forces last year in what most observers believe was an act designed to punish the Canadian government for the arrest of Huawei Technologies Co chief financial officer Meng Wanzhou (孟晚舟). The two continue to languish in the vortex of China’s opaque legal system, their fate wholly at the mercy of Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平).

  As with each of these cases, the reason Chinese authorities gave for Tsai’s arrest was the standard catch-all offense of “engaging in activity that endangers national security.” However, what marks Tsai’s case out as unusual is that, unlike previous disappearances, there is no obvious rationale — other than to sow fear among Taiwanese — for Tsai’s detention.

  Tsai is a man with impeccable pro-Beijing credentials. A long-time Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) supporter and a veteran campaigner for closer relations with China, Chiang says his friend is “as blue as can be.”

  Furthermore, his family said they lost contact with him after he checked out of a hotel in Xiamen to attend nothing more offensive than a cross-strait food fair.

  This shows that any Taiwanese, regardless of their political allegiance, is now at risk of arrest once they cross China’s borders. It is also a timely reminder of what can, at best, be described as the reckless optimism of pro-unification Taiwanese politicians and their supporters.

  Despite a growing mountain of evidence to the contrary, they still cling to the idea that if Taiwan were to voluntarily capitulate to China, as the joint architects of a “peaceful unification,” they would somehow be able to negotiate safeguards for Taiwan, while also shielding themselves on a personal level from the capricious nature of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP).

  It should be obvious by now that promises made by the CCP are not worth the paper they are written on. Solemn pledges not to militarize the South China Sea, not to interfere in Hong Kong’s affairs and to maintain the “status quo” with Taiwan have one after the other been broken.

  Pro-unification Taiwanese politicians need to explain why they believe they are uniquely placed to buck the trend of recent history.
• Most Popular

  • 1

    Palmeiras hopes for club cup win

  • 2

    US to deliver 10 new F-16s, source says

  • 3

    Taiwan blacklists Huawei and SMIC

  • 4

    Ma Ying-jeou’s forum speech regrettable, MAC says

  • 5

    Barring of Chinese officials justified, MAC says