Changing China
Giant on the move
Why Taiwan mentioned China’s missiles
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Taiwan and China, once bitter political rivals, jubilantly exchanged gifts after upbeat trade talks this week. But the festive atmosphere faded when Taiwan’s top policymaker Lai Shin-yuan reminded visiting Chinese negotiator Chen Yunlin of an ominous, obvious fact: Taiwan’s public feels “uncomfortable” with China aiming missiles at it.
Taiwan accuses China of pointing 1,000 to 1,500 short-range or mid-range missiles in its direction to deter any move toward de jure independence. Taiwan is self-ruled today but China claims it. Missiles, however, weren’t on this week’s can-do agenda. Taiwan’s Beijing-friendly President Ma Ying-jeou has said China-Taiwan talks for now should avoid political issues until more mutual trust accumulates through discussion of lighter topics such as trade.
And Lai’s statement did little good on the surface. Taiwan’s Chinese-language China Times newspaper said the Chinese negotiator replied that Beijing is in no hurry to discuss political issues. Another Taiwan paper, the United Daily News, reported that negotiator told Lai the missile issue would take time to solve.
Was the missile remark another gaffe like this? Or was Lai, who has something to prove, rushing ahead several years or decades, assuming that the two sides had already accumulated enough mutual trust?
There’s another explanation. Taiwan’s image-conscious government, often accused of cozying up to China because of the recent trade talks, just wanted to gain points at home by raising a populist issue. Otherwise, one blogger argues, the anti-China opposition party stands to gain. The party has drawn attention to itself by leading tens of thousands to protest against the Chinese negotiator’s Dec. 21-25 visit to Taiwan.
Argues George Tsai, a political scientist at Chinese Cultural University in Taipei: “It’s to convince the public, hey, we can stand up. You are going to see more of this kind of statement. Ma Ying-jeou has been accused too much of leaning toward the other side.”
When the two sides meet in early 2010 to negotiate a free trade-related deal and discuss intellectual property rights protection, what other surprise issues will Taiwan raise?
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Why would you even consider mentioning missiles a gaffe? If you had a gun pointed at me, is it really that bad for me to ask you to remove it? Don’t mistake the victim for the perpetrator. China is the one with the missiles.
Since Taiwan’s President stated that the govt was avoiding political discussions until more “mutual trust” was developed, the gaffe was diplomatic. So, is Lai an uber-patriot who can barely contain his Taiwanese zeal or did he have some sort of ulterior motive for bringing this up to be unsurprisingly rebuffed by the mainland counterpart, causing waves in the otherwise calm, yet rich waters of trade talks? Comrade JGrb, do you not know that to get rich is glorious: the nirvana of every red-blooded Chinese marxist?? Besides, the said missiles are probably painted red and green to symbolize X-mas – not the new Chinese Communism of the resurgent Middle Kingdom.