Like a ripe melon, Taiwan may eventually fall from the tree and into China’s open arms, a new political analysis from the Washington-based East-West Center said.
“China can be expected to exercise strategic patience buttressed by internal political confidence,” read the report, written by Asia Studies Visiting Fellow Sung Wen-ti (宋文堤).
Cross-strait relations will remain stable in the foreseeable future, but the continuation of Taiwan’s strategic autonomy may gradually come into question, Sung said.
“There is an old Chinese saying: ‘Melons prematurely harvested from the trees don’t taste sweet.’ With favorable internal and external factors in place, Beijing can patiently await the melon to fall down from the tree on its own,” he added.
A doctoral candidate at the Australian National University of Taiwanese origin, Sung said that the intensifying dynamics of the Beijing-Taipei-Washington triangle are contributing to the “melon” scenario: the Chinese leadership is consolidating, there is growing cross-strait “enmeshment” and the US is suffering from attention deficit.
“In Beijing, a favorable combination of institutional integration, political consolidation and leadership expertise is enabling China’s leaders to manage cross-strait relations with confidence and patience,” he wrote in the report.
The newly installed Chinese State Security Committee should make it easier to present a cross-strait policy that is more coordinated, pragmatic and oriented toward “winning hearts and minds,” the study said.
“The new policy environment will be more insulated from inter-agency bickering, coordination challenges and individual actors’ political urge to play the assertive nationalist card regarding Taiwan,” Sung wrote.
Under Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平), the leadership in Beijing is well-positioned to exercise “strategic patience” over the Taiwan issue, he added.
“Beijing’s patience is predicated on the belief that time is on Beijing’s side, for reasons of economics, military, and the perceived attention deficit of the US,” the academic wrote. “As more sectors of the Taiwanese society become reliant on cross-strait commerce, this economic dependency has the potential to spill-over into politics and nurture more Beijing-friendly voices.”
Sung said there are also signs the US may be losing its ability to appreciate the nuances of Chinese policy.
“For Beijing, there is little incentive to pursue unification with Taiwan in the foreseeable future,” he wrote. “Pursuing unification through coercion runs the risk of a costly conflict with the US.”
“The pursuit, however, of unification through peaceful negotiation, presumably under an augmented version of the ‘one country, two systems’ formula, is also not necessarily desirable,” for that could oblige Beijing to sustain Taiwan’s economic prosperity, Sung said.
In addition, Beijing may fear that Taiwan’s democracy could increase pressure from China’s middle class for China to democratize, he added.
Given these considerations, China can be expected to wait for the “melon” to fall of its own accord, the report said.
A small number of Taiwanese this year lost their citizenship rights after traveling in China and obtaining a one-time Chinese passport to cross the border into Russia, a source said today. The people signed up through Chinese travel agencies for tours of neighboring Russia with companies claiming they could obtain Russian visas and fast-track border clearance, the source said on condition of anonymity. The travelers were actually issued one-time-use Chinese passports, they said. Taiwanese are prohibited from holding a Chinese passport or household registration. If found to have a Chinese ID, they may lose their resident status under Article 9-1
PROCEDURE: Although there is already a cross-strait agreement in place for the extradition of criminals, ample notice is meant to be given to the other side first Ten Taiwanese who were involved in fraud-related crimes in China were extradited back to Taiwan via Kinmen County on Wednesday, four of whom are convicted fraudsters in Taiwan. The 10 people arrived via a ferry operating between Xiamen and Kinmen, also known as the “small three links.” The Kinmen County Prosecutors’ Office yesterday said that four of the 10 extradited people were convicted in Taiwan for committing fraud and contravening the Money Laundering Control Act (洗錢防制法), and were on the wanted list. They were immediately arrested upon arrival and sent to Kinmen Prison to serve their sentences following brief questioning, the office said.
‘REGRETTABLE’: Travelers reported that Seoul’s online arrival card system lists Taiwan as ‘China (Taiwan),’ the Ministry of Foreign Affairs said The Ministry of Foreign Affairs yesterday urged South Korea to correct the way Taiwan is listed in its newly launched e-Arrival card system, saying the current designation downgrades the nation’s status. South Korea rolled out the online system on Feb. 24 to gradually replace paper arrival cards, which it plans to phase out by next year. Travelers must complete the electronic form up to 72 hours before entering the country. The ministry said it has received multiple complaints from Taiwanese travelers saying that the system lists Taiwan as “China (Taiwan)” in dropdown menus for both “place of departure” and “next
VIGILANT: Enterovirus activity remains in the epidemic phase, with the CDC urging caregivers of infected children to be on the lookout for signs of severe illness Influenza activity is rising in neighboring countries, and, with temperatures forecast to drop this week, flu cases are expected to increase in the next two weeks, the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) said yesterday. Hospitals reported 87,162 visits for flu-like illnesses between Nov. 23 and Saturday, which remained about the same level as the previous week, but nine deaths and 24 cases with serious flu complications were also confirmed last week, CDC Epidemic Intelligence Center Director Guo Hung-wei (郭宏偉) said. Flu activity reached a peak in late September before declining for eight consecutive weeks, CDC Deputy Director-General and spokesman Lin Min-cheng (林明誠)
RSS