A change of tone in Taiwan

[reader]

From Channel News Asia

TAIPEI: The situation in the Taiwan Strait is "complex and grim", Chinese President Xi Jinping wrote in a congratulatory letter on Sunday (Sep 26) to the newly elected leader of Taiwan's main opposition party, who has pledged to renew talks with Beijing.

Taiwan's Kuomintang (KMT) elected as their leader on Saturday former New Taipei City mayor Eric Chu, who said he would rekindle stalled high-level contacts with China's ruling Communist Party.

China claims Taiwan as its own territory and has stepped up military and political pressure to force the island to accept Chinese sovereignty, even though most Taiwanese have shown no interest in being governed by Beijing.

In Xi's letter, a copy of which was released by the KMT, he said both parties had had "good interactions" based on their joint opposition to Taiwan independence.

"At present, the situation in the Taiwan Strait is complex and grim. All the sons and daughters of the Chinese nation must work together with one heart and go forward together," wrote Xi, who is also head of the Communist Party.

He expressed hope that both parties could cooperate on "seeking peace in the Taiwan Strait, seeking national reunification and seeking national revitalisation".

Chu, who badly lost the 2016 presidential election to current President Tsai Ing-wen, responded to Xi that people on both sides of the Taiwan Strait were "all the children of the Yellow Emperor" - in other words, all Han Chinese.

Chu blamed Tsai's Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) for tensions with Beijing after pursuing anti-China policies.

Chu, who met Xi in China in 2015, said he hoped to "seek common ground and respect differences, increase mutual trust and geniality, strengthen exchanges and cooperation so as to allow the continued peaceful development of cross-strait relations".

Under outgoing KMT leader Johnny Chiang's 17-month tenure, high-level contacts with China stalled amid military tensions and suspicion in Beijing the party was not sufficiently committed to the idea Taiwan was part of "one China".

Continues at

https://www.channelnewsasia.com/asia/taiwan-kuomintang-eric-chu-xi-jinping-china-2202881

[Lonnie]

2 hours ago, reader said:

All the sons and daughters of the Chinese nation must work together with one heart and go forward together," wrote Xi, who is also head of the Communist Party.

Stick it where the sun don't shine Chairman Xi.

[Lonnie]

3 hours ago, Lonnie said:

Stick it where the sun don't shine Chairman Xi.

Sorry...that was me being my diplomatic self.

[Guest]

The people of Taiwan would have to be completely mad to sign up to unification with China, whilst so much power lies with one person in Beijing.   Concentrating power with one person there has not always worked well.

Then, they would also have to be completely mad to entertain any "one country two systems" solution, as China has not honoured this with Hong Kong.   Bear in mind, that the Taiwan issue ought to have been an incentive for China to show it could be trusted in Hong Kong. 

Finally, Taiwan is a very important semi-conductor manufacturer, mainly due to TSMC.     This has much more strategic importance than (say) Kuwait would have had back in the 1990s.

[fedssocr]

Wow. CKS must be rolling over in his mausoleum to see his party colluding with the commies to undermine Taiwan.

Chu also ignores all of the non-Han people in Taiwan which is a sizable group. With people like this running the KMT, they have no hope of regaining power. Most of the younger generations consider themselves Taiwanese, not Chinese.

[fedssocr]

I think YouTube is eaves dropping on me

 

[Lonnie]

7 hours ago, fedssocr said:

Wow. CKS must be rolling over in his mausoleum to see his party colluding with the commies to undermine Taiwan.

This Chu character seems like a new Carrie Lam especially for Taiwan.

[PeterRS]

I find some of the comments in this thread mystifying. I don't know how often I have to write this but the legal position of Taiwan is actually pretty clear. As a result of the Cairo Conference with Churchill and Roosevelt during World War 2, agreement was reached that all countries invaded by Japan during its expansionist years would be returned to the countries which had in effect ruled them immediately beforehand. Like it or not, virtually all of Taiwan was ruled by Beijing and had been so for around 200 years  The wording of the Declaration states ""all the territories Japan has stolen from the Chinese, including Manchuria, Formosa, and the Pescadores, shall be restored to the Republic of China" (mainland China then being named prior to the revolution The Republic of China). Could that be more clear?

At that time, of course, the gangster and murderer Chiang Kai Shek was the ruler of China. And so it was to Chiang and his Kuomintang Party that all Japanese occupied territories in China were returned. No-one, least of all the Americans, ever thought that Chiang and Mao would split after the war and that Chiang would be soundly beaten and flee to Taiwan. The accusatory "Who lost China?" was a refrain heard for years in Washington after 1949. Naturally the USA wanted out of the agreement it had formerly made. And so it summoned another Conference in San Francisco in 1951. The US wanted Chiang's newly declared Republic to represent China. The UK and others objected. They wanted Mao's government as the legitimate government of China. The result was that neither side was represented. The US then attempted to get out of its Cairo commitment but failed to do so. The delegates agreed that the legal position of Taiwan would remain in limbo to be determined at a later date. Since there has so far been no further legal determination and it remains uncertain if the declaration made at that Conference has any validity, whether we like or not - and most do not - in international law mainland China retains the rightful government of Taiwan.

Of course, since 1951 events have moved on at great pace. China is now a world power. Taiwan has established democracy and a thriving economy. But the USA and the UN has also recognised mainland China as the legitimate ruler of all China. More recently, China has all but broken its agreement enshrined in the UN over its actions in Hong Kong. Beijing will certainly have noted that no other country has done anything about it, although the UK has promised to resettle a large number of British National Overseas passport holders - a rather strange document handed out to any Chinese in Hong Kong who wanted it prior to 1997. No other country seems to have done anything but make a small fuss. China is now too big to go against it for long. 

8 hours ago, z909 said:

they would also have to be completely mad to entertain any "one country two systems" solution, as China has not honoured this with Hong Kong.   Bear in mind, that the Taiwan issue ought to have been an incentive for China to show it could be trusted in Hong Kong.

I agree, for the recent events in Hong Kong have definitely changed the equation. China knows it can do what it pleases in what it and international law regards as its territory.  Could war erupt? Taiwan has defence forces (and a lot of extremely cute young guys who have been through the mandatory national service) but anyone who thinks they could stand up to the forces Beijing has at its disposal are in some fantasy land. They would be quickly wiped out. Against that, would Beijing wish to govern an island knowing that those whom it did not kill hate it. Taiwanese have now a taste for making up their own minds. They will not as easily be taken in by mind control as the Tibetans and the Uighyrs.

Then there are Biden's latest foreign policy announcements. In the event of a seeming invasion, would the US come to Taiwan's aid, the more so given the legal situation? Who knows? But i'll put money on 'No'!  It could build up its naval and air assets in the Taiwan Strait as a show of force, but would it actually use them? To do so would almost certainly risk a major war that could easily escalate and involve other countries.

My good friends in Taiwan all would prefer independence. But to a man they certainly do not want any kind of war. So hopefully the stalemate resulting from the 1951 Conference can continue. This may mean Taiwan being a little less hostlle to China - as used to be the case in the first decade of this century. As I see it, the only way Taiwan can gain independence is if China collapses from within. And Xi Jinping is certainly not going to allow that to happen.

[fedssocr]

I guess the argument is that control of Taiwan was given to RoC, not the communists, after WW2. And in the intervening time Taiwan has become a defacto independent country. It seems pretty obvious to most people. They have their own government, military, currency, passports, etc.

As we've learned in the last year, computer chips are something the world needs and they're something Taiwan makes a lot of. The world has a vested interest in making sure Taiwan keeps humming along without CCP intervention. 

We've seen statements from sevreal countries opposing CCP belligerence. Biden has been trying to put together new alliances and strengthen old ones to counter the PRC's continuing aggression. As the video I linked above notes, Taiwan isn't really prepared for an attack. I guess the question would be what consequences there would be for the PRC if they attack and wipe out Taiwan? There have been few consequences so far with respect to what they've done to Hong Kong. But I think world opinion is pretty strongly against the PRC and Xi at this point. There's very little trust in that regime. And even if they did manage to take over the country, at what continuing cost? The Taiwanese population isn't going to quietly acquiesce. Are they going to lock up millions of people?

I follow the ADVChina guys on YouTube - two Western guys who used to live and work in the PRC and who both have Chinese wives and still have family there. They essentially had to flee the country. They have great insights into what's going on and still have lots of contacts over there. They seem pretty sure that the PRC will not be invading Taiwan any time soon. 

Given all of the problems China faces it's a little surprising that they put so much energy into this little island.

[PeterRS]

7 minutes ago, fedssocr said:

I guess the argument is that control of Taiwan was given to RoC, not the communists, after WW2. And in the intervening time Taiwan has become a defacto independent country. It seems pretty obvious to most people. They have their own government, military, currency, passports, etc.

But how often do we have to be told that that argument holds no water in international law? Control of Taiwan was given to mainland China. Period! Almost every country in the world now agrees that there is but one China. That the Chinese government changed and became communist has nothing to do with it. Governments change all the time but that rarely affects their status in international law. That the communists beat Chiang fair and square should have the same result - no matter what the Taiwan islanders have wanted for a few decades and most of the rest of the world would prefer.

Chiang Kai-shek was a fool in addition to being a gangster. His aim was always to marshal his forces on Taiwan so that eventually he would reconquer the mainland. I assume he reckoned that the USA would assist him. With his powerful and extremely persuasive wife Soong Mei-ling being a very popular and powerful figure in the USA, had he tried to do that in the 1950s, perhaps he just might have been successful, the more so after Mao's frightful campaigns Let a Hundred Flowers Boom and The Great Leap Forward when tens of millions of Chinese died. But he did not. What held him back, I do not know. But following Nixon's visit to China and the abandonment of the two China policy, it was Chiang's son, Chiang Ching-kuo, who accepted reality that he had to get rid of Martial law (1987) and do a great deal more than his father to develop Taiwan. 

The Taiwan situation is one of the longest-lasting outcomes of the Japanese Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere, the Second World War and the Cold War combined. It is an outcome absolutely no one ever anticipated.

[PeterRS]

1 hour ago, fedssocr said:

They seem pretty sure that the PRC will not be invading Taiwan any time soon. 

Given all of the problems China faces it's a little surprising that they put so much energy into this little island.

My friends in China all agree. As for Xi's sabre rattling, I reckon it is more to prop up the hardliners in his government and the loyal Party supporters around the country. It makes for good copy and reasserts China's (make that Xi's) ambition. He can keep the situation in Tibet, Xinjiang and to a large extent in Hong Kong pretty much out of the media in China. But even in China there is absolutely no way an army of censors could keep news of an invasion of Taiwan with hundreds of thousands killed from his own people, the more so when he would have massacred fellow Chinese.