The Cross Strait Times

A few short things about Nanjing:

1. Closer economic integration will help prevent war. This is good.

2. Increased dependency on the Mainland will decrease our leverage in discussions in case Beijing brings something to the table which we would consider unacceptable. This is bad.*

3. A few things about the airlines and direct routes need to be fixed. Namely:

a) Mainlanders should be allowed to fly Taiwan-based carriers. Give people the choice of who to fly with and competition can lead to better services for all.

b) Both Taiwan-based carriers really, really need to have connecting flights beyond the cross-strait area, something that Mainland-based carriers can already do. For instance, Taipei-Beijing-Amsterdam or Taipei-Shanghai-Frankfurt would be lucrative routes. Furthermore;

b2) denying these routes to make Taipei just a spoke of any Mainland-based flight and relegating Taiwan to the frontiers does not take advantage of Taiwan’s already developed capital. Therefore, it is not good for the integrated Chinese economy that the KMT-CCP wants of having Taipei, Shanghai, and Hong Kong working together. For Beijing to hollow out Taiwan — a place that by comparison is 2% of the Mainland by population and 30% by economic size, would be Beijing shooting itself in the foot. Taiwan is a money-maker. Let’s keep Taiwan that way.

c) My personal opinion is to allow ships and planes of any flag to able to use the cross-strait routes. I think freer trade in general is good, and that protectionist measures that prevent “outsiders” from using these routes only denies ourselves more money-making opportunities. I also think that similar laws in other countries (that exclude outsiders from trading inside their borders) are silly.

WHA news:

Exciting that Taiwan will have some international space, although the name Chinese Taipei was to be expected, as was the renewal. It would be unlike Beijing to allow Taipei its own international space, knowing that the DPP could be elected and suddenly the space Beijing gave Taipei would be used against them. I would like to see something more meaningful in the future. Perhaps a formal end to military hostilities across the strait?

* Why have the negotiations between the Dalai Lama and the CCP not been going well? Because the Dalai Lama doesn’t have enough material leverage to make Beijing pay attention to him. He can rally peoples’ sympathies, but until he has something to show to make Beijing pay attention, they won’t. Let this be a lesson to Taiwan. Keep a good cards to play while dealing with Beijing to ensure a sweeter resolution to this situation.

Dear President Ma,

Yesterday was the 62nd anniversary of the terrible tragedy of 28 February 1947. While I appreciate your efforts in making amends to all people who were affected by the terrible events of that day, I think the KMT can do better in its sincerity about its responsibility for what happened.

While you are promising to get to the bottom of who was responsible for 228, what progress have you made in the other February 28th tragedy? Remember when you were running for president, you promised that you would find the culprits behind the Lin Family murders? Please don’t forget to keep your promise to do so. Those responsible for this terrible crime and tragedy must be brought to justice.

Mr. President, you have said that we need to learn from the past to have a better future, but we must investigate it thoroughly in order to do so. I sincerely hope that uncovering the truth about what happened can resolve the social divide that splits and polarizes Taiwan.

Sincerely,
James

Happy Lunar New Year everyone!

Here’s light-hearted cultural exchange idea:

One of the assumptions of Taiwanese cuisine is the Taiwan has best Chinese food and the highest-concentration of it anywhere in the world. In recent years, however, bloggers and reviewers have complained that the current generation of Chinese food just isn’t as good.

“Chinese cuisine has traveled to Taiwan for years. And just like the rivers that eventually flow into the sea, it’s all the same in the end.” - Eat Drink Man Woman

In light of these complaints, perhaps the government could create a grant system where chefs could apply to go to the place of their ethnic cuisine’s origin on the Mainland to get back in touch with the roots and reasons for why their food is prepared the way it is. Of course, the people who get these grants have to prove their intention of opening restaurants so they’re not just scamming the government into a free food-tasting trip.

In light of the recent attacks in the Middle East, B@Taiwan makes and interesting comparison between Gaza and Taiwan and proposes a worthwhile solution: develop Gaza’s economy to end violence.

Gaza has a geographical advantage as it’s at the crossroads of Asia, Europe, and Africa, with easy access to the Suez Canal, and could easily export to all these places if the infrastructure and economy were built.

Could a developed Gaza be at peace with Israel? Well, let’s look at PRC and ROC for a rough analogy:

Despite the fact that the Mainland Chinese and Taiwanese governments don’t see eye-to-eye, and that Beijing reiterates anti-secession rhetoric every now and then, economic development and interdependence has prevented outright war across the strait. Both sides have invested too much in each others’ economies, and the middle class too used to the resultant stable and affluent living, that war has become almost (but not quite) unthinkable. Strangely enough, the modern version of mutually assured destruction is mutually assured prosperity.

Can the same economic development end — or at least, dramatically reduce — conflict between Israel and Palestine? I can’t presume to know the answer to this, as I cannot speak for cultures different from mine. But I do know that money, and lots of it, can cover and heal a surprising number of wounds, no matter how extreme the differences are. Developing Gaza would be a worthwhile experiment in peace.

Being that Taiwan’s political status is so volatile on the island and off and how the polarization of national identities has obscured real socioeconomic issues, can’t we just have easy referenda to solidify that we agree to disagree? Here are two such low-hanging fruit that can be easily picked.

Issue: The Republic of China is the current legal government of Taiwan.
[Yes] [No]

Why is this even being asked? Because even though the Cairo Declaration stated that the Allies intended to hand Taiwan to the Republic of China at the end of World War II, the Chinese Civil War prevented the ROC from being present at the Treaty of San Francisco where Japan renounced all rights to Taiwan. As a result, some Taiwanese activists say this lapse in the ROC’s acceptance nullifies the ROC government’s jurisdiction over Taiwan.

As it is, not many people dispute that the ROC is the government of Taiwan, as the ROC has been co-opted by the mostly native-Taiwanese Democratic Progressives and Taiwan Solidarity Union. These parties have elected officials and sent them to participate in the ROC government; the DPP has even had a member become ROC president! These facts alone should testify to the ROC’s legitimacy to Taiwan, but to make it official, why not have the referendum? We know how the results will turn out, and it will solidify the ROC’s legitimacy.

Issue: Taiwan shall maintain the status quo for the next 20 years, status quo being defined as not changing the legal name of the country to move towards either unification or independence. At the end of 20 years, the issue will be reopened for debate.
[Yes] [No]

This is a slightly different take of Sun Bin’s Pinning Taiwan. While Sun Bin’s referendum plan is a vote on unification vs. independence that is deliberately set up to lapse into status quo, this setup is pretty straightforward. Agree to keep the status quo or keep debating in polarizing nationalistic circles as we do now. Considering the high support for maintaining the status quo, this again, should be another easy pass. According to the linked poll, “keep status quo indefinitely” and “keep status quo, decide later” together are already at 63.5%. Throw in “status quo now, unification later,” the figure goes up to 74.0%, and “status quo, independence later” bumps up the figure again to 91.1%

Granted, if such a vote were to take place, the vote totals for “yes” may not be a whopping 91%, but it could easily pass 50% or even 75%.

Solidifying the status quo would also be another means of getting Beijing to remove the missiles currently pointed at Taiwan. If Taiwan has no intention to declare independence for 20 years, then the missiles have no need to be there. Don’t be fooled by the warmongers who say that Beijing will launch a preemptive strike for unification. Beijing is not stupid; without Taiwan declaring independence, the Communists will not sacrifice their revenue-generating coastal cities whose wealth keeps the Communists in power. Stop the flow of money into China (because all the ports are destroyed and foreign companies see both sides of the strait as too unstable to outsource to) and the Communists lose their legitimacy. A Pyrrhic victory for the CCP would be no victory at all.

The added bonus of the 20-year status quo freeze period co-existing with cross-strait disarmament is that it provides a stable framework (at least, more stable than currently) for both sides of the strait to repair official relations, facilitate greater cultural exchanges, and bring about better mutual understanding.

The Pan-Blue camp needs to stop being afraid of referenda and use them for their political ends, as the Pan-Green camp has done. Beijing and Washington would have no reason to be concerned because 1) Beijing has learned that interfering only backfires and 2) they’d know what the results would be anyway — a solidification of the status quo. We already know what the referenda results will be, so isn’t that all the more reason to do it?