Former Taiwan premier to visit China

[cirr]

AFP

Monday, Oct 01, 2012

TAIPEI - Former Taiwan premier Frank Hsieh Monday announced plans to visit China, a trip which would make him the most senior politician from the China-sceptic opposition party to visit the mainland.

The visit, described by local media as "ice-breaking", came amid debate in the party about whether to change its China policy.

Hsieh, who was premier from 2005 to 2006 and retains major influence in the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP), told reporters he would leave Thursday.

"The purpose of the trip is to build mutual trust," said Hsieh, declining to say if he would meet Chinese government officials during the five-day visit.

Hsieh's first stop will be the southeastern coastal city of Xiamen, followed by a visit to nearby Dongshan Island where his ancestors lived before emigrating to Taiwan.

Later, the trip will take him to Beijing, where he plans to visit the Olympic stadium and attend an international cocktail contest as a guest of the International Bartenders Association.

Voters in January re-elected President Ma Ying-jeou of the Kuomintang party, endorsing the Beijing-friendly policies he has pursued since he took office in 2008.

Since then, leading DPP members have debated whether their party needs to change its China policy, in part to reflect Beijing's fast-expanding regional and global influence.

"The DPP should face the reality of China's rise...if the DPP keeps refusing to change its position and let the Kuomintang and the Chinese communist parties work hand in hand, I'm afraid the DPP will never be able to get back into power," Hsieh said.

Hsu Yung-ming, a political science professor at Taipei's Soochow University, told AFP that "although the party authorities have not decided to amend their China policy at the moment, the results of the visit could be used as a key reference in the future".

Tensions between Taipei and Beijing soared in the eight years to 2008 when then-president Chen Shui-bian of the DPP repeatedly ruffled Beijing's feathers.

China and Taiwan have been ruled separately since the end of a civil war in 1949. But Beijing still claims sovereignty over the island and has threatened to invade should it declare formal independence.

Former Taiwan premier to visit China

 

[cirr]

China and Taiwan: from enemies to frenemies

Analysis: Taiwan’s increasing willingness to indirectly work with Beijing in the East China Sea is starting to ruffle American feathers.

By Cain Nunns

October 5, 2012 06:25

TAIPEI, Taiwan — It wasn’t too long ago that the only thing Taiwan and China could agree on was that there was little common ground between them.

But that was before Taiwanese companies helped build the gold rush across the Taiwan Strait and China’s economic might began translating into political and economic gains both in the region and on this diplomatically marginalized island republic.

In perhaps the clearest example yet of how much Beijing is shaping Taiwan’s domestic political landscape, opposition heavyweight Frank Hsieh made a trip to the mainland on Thursday.

Hsieh, a former premier with the independence-leaning Democratic Progressive Party (DPP), is the first senior member of the party to hold out an olive branch to Beijing. China considers Taiwan a renegade province and has vowed to invade the burgeoning democracy should it declare formal independence.

For its part, the DPP is split over whether it should begin a dialogue with Beijing following its loss in last year’s presidential elections to nationalist party Kuomintang (KMT) incumbent Ma Ying-jeou.

Under the leadership of Chen Shui-bian, who is now serving a lengthy prison term for corruption, the DPP won the island’s second free presidential elections in 2000, breaking the KMT’s 53-year stranglehold on power.

But Chen’s two-term administration polarized the electorate as China-Taiwan relations plummeted and the United States, a chief backer, sent subtle signals that it preferred the more conciliatory and less explosive approach of the KMT.

“The Hsieh trip is a positive development for the DPP. It’s trying to reach out, increase contacts and build some degree of understanding. It also sends a signal to the outside world that the DPP is more rational by adjusting its [China] policy,” said George W. Tsai, a professor at Taipei's Chinese Culture University, and vice president of the Taiwan Foundation for Democracy.

Tsai says that US influence over the island will wane as China’s increases, assuming that the world’s second-largest economy continues to be politically stable and its economic growth rates remain high.

“The DPP is directly or indirectly under tremendous Chinese pressure. It has to face this reality. The China factor is there, and is going to be there as their influence grows stronger. It will become politically stronger. That’s the inevitable reality. We cannot avoid that,” he said.

It’s a situation that has been compounded by Ma’s administration, which has moved quickly to cement ties by ushering in a number of landmark investment, trade and tourism pacts between the two sides.

The Harvard grad has also said he wants to sign a peace accord with Beijing before he leaves office in 2014. China and Taiwan, under its official moniker the Republic of China, are still technically at war following Chiang Kai-shek’s capitulation to communist forces in the Chinese Revolution and his eventual exodus to the island in 1949.

"The DPP should face China's rise ... if the DPP keeps refusing to change its position and let the Kuomintang and the Chinese communist parties work hand in hand, I'm afraid the DPP will never be able to get back into power," Hsieh said at a media briefing earlier this week.

Highlighting this “hand-in-hand” approach is the ongoing spat with Japan over the Diaoyu Islands, known as the Senkaku in Japan. Taipei and Beijing make similar claims over the oil- and gas-rich rocky outcrop to legitimize one another’s positions.

The US, long Taiwan’s strongest supporter, initially said it had no position in the dispute, but later tipped its hand by also saying it was bound to defend Japan under its security pact with Tokyo if the islands came under attack.

“One can read between the lines. The US plays it very coy. It hasn’t even made a decision on the sovereignty of Taiwan. It has a long history of playing its cards that way. Some call it strategic ambiguity. But regarding Taiwan, 67 years is a heck of a long time to be ambiguous,” said Jerome Keating, a former National Taiwan University professor.

While US official policy on Taiwan is “undecided” over who should have sovereignty over the islands, sources say that Taiwan’s increasing willingness to indirectly work with Beijing against Washington’s interests is starting to ruffle American feathers.

Territory in the South China Sea is equally as hotly disputed. Taiwan and China claim the vast majority of the body of water stretching from China’s eastern seaboard to Malaysia’s Borneo. China and Taiwan claim about 3.5 million square kilometers of the resource-rich sea based on “historical evidence” that Chinese fishermen once plied its waters and trade routes and desolate outcrops were established centuries ago.

“I would say that the US is starting to see through Ma. He says what they want him to say, but then he also takes positions they don’t want him to take. He can say he’s for Taiwan. He can say he’s for China, and keep his feet in two boats. But sooner or later it’s going to catch up with him,” said Keating, a longtime commentator on Taiwan.

Taipei makes its South China Sea claim under the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea. But the Republic of China was expelled from the UN in 1971, when the General Assembly recognized “the Peoples’ Republic of China as the only legitimate representative of China to the United Nations.”

“Politically and militarily we can’t cooperate with China, but indirectly we can have some association in the South China Sea or Diaoyu Islands. The US has every right to serve their interests, but if we have to align with somebody on these claims then we need to look after our own,” said Tsai.

China and Taiwan: from enemies to frenemies | GlobalPost

 

[ahfatzia]

Be really careful here because it seems Japan is taking a page out of Uncle Sam's playbook: 'divide and conquer' as she agrees to the spirit of Taiwan's peace initiative in which she didn't even bother to acknowledge a few months ago. But it leave no doubt who won the water cannon fight last week though.


TAIPEI -- Japan agrees with the basic concept and spirit of Taiwan's East China Sea Peace Initiative, Japan's foreign minister said in a statement released by Japan's Interchange Association yesterday.

According to the statement, Foreign Minister Koichiro Gemba said that although some parts of the initiative and its “implementation guidelines” were unacceptable to Japan, Japan acknowledges and agrees with the basic concept and spirit of the proposal.

Gemba also expressed hope that actions that increase tensions between Japan and Taiwan will not be taken again.

He said the Japanese government expects an improvement in bilateral relations and has recently proposed to resume fishery talks between Taiwan and Japan.

According to the Interchange Association, which represents Japan's interests in Taiwan in the absence of diplomatic ties, Gemba gave his message to Tadashi Imai, the association's president, at a recent meeting and asked him to relay it to Taiwan.

The date of the meeting was not specified.

The statement did not specifically mention the disputed Diaoyutai Islands in the East China Sea, which are claimed by both Taiwan and Japan and have been the source of much of the recent friction between the two countries.

Tensions have mounted over the Diaoyutais since Japan agreed to buy three of the chain's islets from their private owner on Sept. 10 in a bid to further assert its sovereignty over the archipelago.

Gemba acknowledged, however, that because Taiwan and Japan are in close proximity to each other, “unsettled issues” are sometimes unavoidable. He said the two sides should maintain rational communications and not let bilateral ties be affected by “isolated cases.”

The East China Sea Peace Initiative, proposed by Taiwan's President Ma Ying-jeou in August, urges all claimants to the disputed islands to refrain from taking confrontational actions, shelve their differences, observe international law and resolve disputes through peaceful means.

The initiative also called for all sides to seek a consensus on a code of conduct for the East China Sea and establish a mechanism allowing the parties to cooperate in exploring the region's resources.

Japan agrees with 'spirit' of Ma's peace initiative - The China Post

 

[帅的一匹]

Its just a matter of time to unify Taiwan.

 

[SinoChallenger]

Taiwan is nothing more than a bunch of Japanophiles. The only thing stopping them from antagonizing mainland China is the military threat. Very very few people in Taiwan are truly pro-China.

The correct perspective is Beijing needs to treat Taiwan as a de facto separate nation-state on its periphery that must be conquered for national security reasons. But soft power alone will not work because the Western / Japanese colonialism mentality is deeply ingrained, even more so than Hong Kong.

The only way is to increase tourism and investment until Beijing can gain a few more local sympathizers on the island, mostly around Taipei. Then, rally those sympathizers through protest / riots demanding immediate unification to gain control of a sector of Taipei city. Then mainland China can inject PLA special forces to set up a protective perimeter around the "liberated" sector of Taipei and impose a naval blockade around the island to stop USA and Japanese forces from intervening.

In other words, the best solution is ultimately an internal coup with external mainland support to achieve unification.

 

[ahfatzia]

^^^You're so pathetically juvenile and it's unbelievable! Christianity must've sucked the grey matter from you, hey.

 

[Pakchina]

China and Taiwan relationship is its best for decades amid the Diaoyu island conflict against the Japanese Imperial War atrocities criminals.

 

[faithfulguy]

^^^You're so pathetically juvenile and it's unbelievable! Christianity must've sucked the grey matter from you, hey.

Sinochallenger is not Chinese. He is most likely an Indian who speaks Chinese but the china. Hence, the ame Sinochallenger.

 

[SinoChallenger]

Only truly high IQ people can see that my position is 100% accurate. There can be no peaceful reunification. The current Taiwan position is "indefinite status quo" -- a stealthy independence -- with close coordination with and backing from USA and Japan.

Military power must be used and will be used to sever Taiwan from USA and Japan permanently. At the current pace, Taiwan will very likely backstab mainland China over the Diaoyu Islands.

 

[rashtriya.rifles]

FORMER ? ok !!

 

[ahfatzia]

Sinochallenger is not Chinese. He is most likely an Indian who speaks Chinese but the china. Hence, the ame Sinochallenger.

I know he's Christian so he could be a far right Chinese living in any of the countries in this area where the religion is proliferated. Almost all his posts:

1) aim to divide China and CPC against the world at large.

2) make China and CPC look like the biggest bullies.

3) instill hatreds between the mainland Chinese against the oversea Chinese.

If we are using the few insidious Chinese Filipinos in this forum as a guide, I wouldn't surprised he's a Chinese living in Philippines, which has a large Christian population. It's also my experiences that there are no Chinese living around the world have ill wills on the country China. Gordon Chans of this world do it for a livings, not out of hatreds. But you're right we overlook the meaning of his name.

 

[SinoChallenger]

^ This Singapore who isn't even literate in Chinese -- what a fool he is making of himself

You Singaporeans are afraid of China getting into conflicts because then those SE Asians start slaughtering you. But we real Chinese don't care because we live in mainland China protected by the PLA

So take your Singaporean ethnic Chinese agenda and take a hike. Don't try to pretend to be one of us.

 

[ahfatzia]

^ I am a Chinese citizen and Singaporeans like you are not. So you can stop living vicariously through China -- you have nothing to do with my country and you don't even read or write Chinese!!

What a joke this Singlish-speaker is making himself out to be

That might be so but I'm not the one who's hurting the image of China and the Chinese people by making warmongering foolish remarks all over the forum. Your thick skin prohibits you from understanding the fact you're a joke in this forum which is your own business but, unfortunately because of your flag, you make all Chinese look bad.

Oh BTW my Chinese calligraphy skill earns me a handsome pocket change and I'm fluent in Mandarin, Fujianese, Cantonese and Hakka, thank you.

 

[Chinese-Dragon]

End of story.

Fellow Chinese members and ethnic Chinese like ahfatzia will understand what I mean. Others won't.

 

[SinoChallenger]

台湾不可能跟大陆和平统一。台湾人崇拜日本人的奴性以及劣根性相当明显。日本地震后台湾捐了巨大金额，结果日本回头马上就拿钱来购岛了。一群卑鄙的奴才。

现在台湾主流观点已经是无限期的维持现状，中国战胜日本或者美帝之前不会改变。问题是，战争时候，台湾又很可能帮助敌方。

毛主席教导我们“笤帚不到，灰尘不会自己跑。” 统一还是需要强大的勇气，强大的力量！

谁是真实的中国人？就是支持毛泽东思想的！我们就是中华人民共和国的标准国民！