Does Taiwan Really Want to Race to the Battleground?

By Chao Chien-min

United Daily News, March 26, 2022

 

With the concern over “Ukraine today, Taiwan tomorrow” ascending, the Ministry of National Defense began to review extending the current military training service. But at this crucial time, the minister of the Mainland Affairs Council responded in the Legislative Yuan that both sides of the Taiwan Strait should recognize each other’s sovereignty. His words are exactly the same as the proposed incorporation of Ukraine’s accession to the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) into the Ukrainian Constitution, a sensitive move bound to provoke Russian nerves. What is making the Taiwan government so reckless in forging ahead?  

 

The boldness reminds us of the “special state-to-state relations” touted by then President Lee Teng-hui in July 1999. The content and timing were surprisingly similar to current situation.

 

In order to get re-elected, President Lee paid a visit to the United States in June 1995 thus provoking the mainland to stir the Taiwan Strait missile crisis, the Chinese communists took advantage of this to change its policy of anti-independence to promoting reunification. In the second Koo-Wang talks of 1998, both sides agreed to engage political and economic dialogue, and further to plan the visit of Wang Daohan, president of mainland China’s Association for Relations Across the Taiwan Strait (ARATS), to Taiwan at an opportune time. Wang also published a “86-word motto” of “One China”. According to Lee, his “Two-State Theory” was meant to deter Wang from announcing the commencement of political negotiations during his visit to Taiwan.

 

President Tsai Ing-wen’s taking office has exacerbated cross-strait relations, with the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) sending military aircraft to circle Taiwan by becoming normalized. The recent Ukraine war has increased the doubt of Chinese Communists to use force against Taiwan. In his 40th anniversary of address to Taiwan fellow citizens in 2019, Chinese President Xi Jinping announced a “Taiwan formula” to the “One Country, Two Systems” model, proposing a program for political negotiation and reunification cross the Taiwan Strait. The 20th National Party Congress to be convoked by the end of this year will also declare an “overall solution” to the Taiwan issue. Political offensive is all-time intensifying. At this juncture, is the proposing of Two-State Theory considered by the government as a magic weapon to counter the “cognitive warfare” by Communist China?

 

The narrative proposed by President Tsai is almost a reprint of that of the then special state-to-state relations creator. The claim of the two-country theorist is that Taiwan is an independent country; its current name is the Republic of China; no side of the Taiwan Strait is affiliated with the other; Taiwan is not a part of China. To cut the connection across the strait, the incumbent administration has opposed the notion that the R.O.C. has existed since 1912 and did not accept the specification of the R.O.C. under the Constitution, neither the determination of two zones-Chinese mainland and Taiwan and they further claimed to amend article four of the constitution in regard to the definition of territory.

 

After assuming presidency, President Tsai adopted a salami tactics to realize step by step her above statement.

 

First to start with was the part about de facto independence. In an interview with BBC radio broadcasting on January 14, 2020, she expressed that “we have been an independent country, our name is the Republic of China”; on many international occasions, Tsai self-claimed as “president of Taiwan.” In her statement on national day last year, she declared that both sides of the Taiwan Strait were not affiliated with each other and claimed that “It has been seventy-two years since the R.O.C. set foot on Taiwan” tantamount to denying the statement of the R.O.C. was established in 1912. The last remaining part is to change territory through constitution amendment.

 

To judge from the results, President Tsai proposed special state-to-state relations forcing Wang Daohan to cancel his visit to Taiwan and consequently rooted out the possibility of cross-strait political dialogue. But this inverse operation of drinking poison to quench thirst eventually pushed cross-strait relations to the brink of crisis. As an original creator of special state-to-state relations, if President Tsai took it as a pride instead and further desired to follow suit trying once again to thwart the proposal of political dialogue by China’s united front. To her political judgement, we are indeed speechless.   

 

When President Lee proposed the special state-to-state relations, the U.S. was very much enraged. The director of American Institute in Taiwan met with President Lee to question him with violating the constitution and requested him the assistance of evacuation of Americans from Taiwan. In the past, the United States only expressed not support Taiwan independence (such as President Bill Clinton on an unofficial occasion in Shanghai in 1998), but when President Chen Shui-bian proposed a constitutional referendum, the United States was in a fury and openly expressed opposition to Taiwan independence. Last year in her National Day address, President Tsai asserted that the two sides of the strait are not subordinate to one another. The United States did not openly oppose on the surface, but a month later on the first Biden-Xi summit video conference, the United States proposed “Four No’s” and “one unintentional” to China to express its opposition to Taiwan independence. Days ago, in the second Biden-Xi second summit, the United States again confirmed her position. The initiator of the Two-State Theory, are the two sides of the Taiwan Strait not affiliated?  

 

The Ukraine war is still raging on, our national security authority is simply adding fuel to the fire, do they think the fire is not blazing enough?

 

The author is dean of the College of Social Sciences, Chinese Culture University.

 

From: https://udn.com/news/story/7339/6192458

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