Friday, April 01, 2005

Taiwan: Standing Athwart China's Rising Tide

Fire of Liberty

David Warren of The Ottawa Citizen has an interesting piece on the future of Taiwan. It seems that the party of Chang Kai-shek (KMT) is finding a way to undermine Taiwan's democratic status by holding talks and shuttle diplomacy with the Chinese. I guess they don't realize how big a show of weakness they present by visiting China while the Chinese have 700 missiles pointed at Taiwan and have just passed the anti-secession law against the Island nation. Does "losing face" have any effect on the KMT members. Just see what Warren had to say:
The Taiwanese themselves must find the spine to resist mainland pressure, before the eyes of the world. Of course, even if they do, they might still endure the fate of Poland.

Alas, the result of this genteel treason is to cancel the effect of huge democracy rallies. It is to enable an aggressive power, armed with overwhelming force, and having no domestic dissenters to consider, to exploit the greatest weakness of a democracy: fear. The "butchers of Tiananmen" (never forget this) are indeed trying to divide and conquer their tiny, imaginary adversary. It is "state terrorism" in its most comprehensive form.

This, I still think, is the real aim of Chinese Communist policy: not to invade Taiwan but through intimidation to achieve a peaceful capitulation. And they count on the rest of the world to choose peaceful capitulation on Taiwan's behalf. Polls in Australia and elsewhere already show irritation not with Communist tyranny, but with the Bush administration, out of the suspicion that President Bush might stand his ground.
I just hope that the people of Taiwan understand how dangerous these moves are for their tiny island before China makes its move.

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