Taiwan takes a step toward China...

[A Mafan]

Anyone who says the KMT LY win was "a step closer to PRC" is just spreading propaganda.

 

The LY election was about economics.

 

Hu Jintao changed PRC's (Jiang Zemin's) policy from "Bring about re-unification" to "Prevent independence".

 

Chen's popularity and relevence started to plummet pretty quickly thereafter, because he thrives on combativeness.

 

Absent the threat of imminent invasion from the PRC, most Taiwanese worried about making money. They complain that they used to have double the per capita income of ROK, and now are $3000/year per capita behind ROK. They complain that their per capita income is now lagging behind Indonesia.

 

They see every other country in the world making money off of trade/economic interaction with the PRC, and wonder why Chen won't let them do that.

 

8% of Taiwanese want to reunify. 9% want complete, total, recognized independence now. The other 83% just want to make money and have a secure, comfortable life.

 

Chen was only good at treating the PRC as an enemy, and all his policies reflect that. The people want a government that will stop restricting their chances to make money on the mainland.

 

The nail in Chen's coffin (after the corruption scandals that made him vulnerable) was that he pushed a campaign to erase Chiang Kai-shek. While Chiang is not loved by many, he is responsible for Taiwan's separate existence from the PRC. He and his son are responsible for Taiwan's economic and social development. Even martial law is a historical fact, even if resented. Chen tried to throw Chiang down the memory hole, to ignore his accomplishments because of his failings. Chinese society teaches to respect your elders, even if you hate them, so Chen's attempts to imitate Marxist historical rewriting just irritated too many people.

 

Ma will win the election. Taiwan will not re-unify with the PRC under Ma's watch.

 

From what I think, the problem will be that yes, Taiwan can make money in economic engagement with the PRC just like any other country...but the PRC doesn't claim other countries as territory. Taiwan's economy is huge for their size...but dwarfed by the PRC's. At some point, Taiwan will lose its economic sovereignty, and the PRC will be able to say: Re-unify, or we'll send you into the worst depression history has ever known, and Taiwan will unify with the PRC without a shot fired.

 

...unless the PRC collapses from internal strife first.

[A Mafan]

I'm sorry I killed the thread.

 

One thing I wanted to clarify: When I said "anyone who", I was referring to the original media outlet, not the person who posted this on the page.

[rogerluli]

I'm sorry I killed the thread.

 

One thing I wanted to clarify: When I said "anyone who", I was referring to the original media outlet, not the person who posted this on the page.

 

I'll accept that...

[rogerluli]

It's getting lonelier for Taiwan...

 

Malawi drops ties with Taiwan for China

 

TAIPEI, Taiwan - The African nation of Malawi has cut diplomatic ties with Taiwan in favor of relations with China, which has been using its rising political and economic clout to reduce the number of countries who recognize the island.

 

Three Taiwanese diplomats said Monday that their nation was breaking diplomatic ties with Malawi.

 

Soon after, Chinese state media said Beijing and Malawi had established diplomatic relations late last month.

 

In a press conference in Malawi's capital, Lilongwe, Foreign Affairs Minister Joyce Banda confirmed that her nation was breaking its 42-year diplomatic relationship with Taiwan in favor of China.

 

"The Government of the Republic of Malawi recognizes that there is but one China in the world, the Government of the People's Republic of China is the sole legal government representing the whole of China, and that Taiwan in an inalienable part of China's territory," she said.

 

China and Taiwan split amid civil war in 1949. Since then they have engaged in an all-out contest to win diplomatic allegiance from countries around the world.

 

In recent years, Chinese economic enticement have helped it persuade more countries to recognize Beijing instead of Taipei, reducing the number of Taiwan's allies to only 23 following Malawi's defection. China has relations with more than 170 countries.

 

Most of Taiwan's allies are small and impoverished nations in Latin America, Africa and the South Pacific.

 

"The Chinese government supports the Malawian government in its efforts to safeguard its state sovereignty and develop its economy," China's Xinhua News Agency quoted a joint communique as saying.

 

It did not say why Malawi's switch in relations to Beijing was not made public for more than two weeks.

 

Taiwanese Deputy Foreign Minister Yang Tzu-pao charged that China had used underhanded means to steal away Malawi.

 

"We deeply regret that Malawi has decided to establish ties with China under Chinese threats and seduction," he told reporters. "We are terminating diplomatic relations with Malawi effective today."

 

He said China offered Malawi $6 billion to get it to switch sides, and criticized the country for carrying out the move when President Chen Shui-bian was visiting Latin America.

 

"This is a great humiliation to our government and the Taiwanese people," Yang said. "This is not something a self-proclaimed democratic country with 42-year-long relations with Taiwan should do."

 

Two senior Malawian diplomats visited Beijing last month. Taiwan's foreign minister James Huang had to abort a planned visit to Malawi in early January to shore up diplomatic support because officials refused to receive him.

 

Huang said last week that China could undermine the island's diplomatic standing around Saturday's Taiwanese legislative elections and the president's visit to Latin America.

 

Malawi is the third Taiwanese ally to defect to Beijing in the past 18 months. Chad switched sides in August 2006 and Costa Rica followed suit in June 2007.

 

"We are facing grave challenges on the diplomatic front," Huang told a group of reporters.

 

 

While it might be easy to criticize Malawi for switching sides in exchange for fiscal renumeration, this blogger notes with some irony that Malawi actually held out a lot longer than the majority of the developed world. Most of whom had jumped ship from Chinese-Taiwan to the Mainland a long time prior, and most of whom did it for less than the $US6 billion that Malawi is said to have accepted. Indeed, many nations did it for free.