Changing China

Why Taiwan mentioned China’s missiles

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.”

A Hu-Ma summit in 2012?

When Taiwan President Ma Ying-jeou was elected ruling Nationalist Party (KMT) chairman in July, pundits jumped on the idea that he would use his new title to help secure a meeting with China’s President Hu Jintao. The first-of-a-kind summit would follow six decades of strained relations including China’s threats of military force against the island.

Ma’s new job, which he will take in mid-October, allows him to meet Communist Party Chairman Hu in a party-to-party role, laying aside each side’s presidential title. China does not recognise Taiwan’s presidency or other government institutions as it claims sovereignty over the self-ruled island.

Beijing’s state-run China Daily newspaper said such a meeting would signal “great reconciliation.”

A meeting would best take place in 2012, according to a KMT spokesman, Lee Chien-jung.

Before then, Ma will be wary of Taiwan’s divided public, Lee said. Taiwanese generally favour closer economic ties with China but oppose rushing into a relationship with the long-distrusted Communist government on fears that Beijing would compromise Taiwan’s self-rule, including its democracy. Ma will monitor opinion polls for any change in sentiment, the spokesman said, ruling out any meeting in the short term.

Ma could also be embarrased at home if Hu declined to acknowledge his title as president.

Odds of a meeting will surge in 2012 if Ma wins re-election by a big margin in March of that year, which would be an endorsement of China-friendly economic policies that have characterised his administration since he took office in May 2008.

Cooling period for Taiwan, China

Chronically isolated Taiwan found a powerful new friend over the past year – its once bitter adversary China. But as Taiwan President Ma Ying-jeou, a leading figure behind that friendship, reaches his first anniversary in office on May 20, the two sides have shown they’re ready to back away from each other again.

Ma’s first year saw what few could have imagined even two years ago, never mind 60, when Chiang Kai-shek’s Nationalists fled to Taiwan from China after losing the Chinese civil war to Mao Zedong’s Communists. China still claims sovereignty over democratic, self-ruled Taiwan and has threatened to take it by force if necessary. It has said the two sides must ultimately be united.

Dropping the hardball that characterised previous Taiwan presidents, Ma’s government has met counterparts from Beijing to work out the first direct flights, a new tourism accord and investment in each other’s markets, all of particular benefit to recession-hit Taiwan.

Talks leading to those deals lifted mutual confidence to where China has thundered about fighting problems overseas under Beijing’s ethnic unity banner. China has asked Taiwan, which is 98 percent ethnic Chinese, to help combat the world financial crisis, implying that both were victims of the U.S. economy. More recently it suggested uniting to fight influenza A, which also started overseas.

But due to dips in his opinion polls, Ma may take on China again to court Taiwan voters who distrust their Communist neighbour regardless of its contributions to the island economy. Taiwan Outlook magazine found that 28.6 percent of the public was dissatisfied with Ma in March, up 4.6 percent. The satisfaction rate declined 8.1 percent, the magazine said.

Ahead of a high-profile, highly ceremonial anniversary of his first year in office, the soft-spoken but ever-telegenic Ma just signed two United Nations covenants on human rights, an obvious weakness in China. His foreign ministry issued an unusually harsh news release condemning Beijing’s claim to Taiwan, which is just 160 km away. The island government has also come out hard lately in defending its claim to the South China Sea’s disputed Spratly Islands as China, Vietnam and others ramp up their own.

Economic benefits aside, no one on the island is rushing to unify with China. An overnight street protest from late Sunday, drawing tens if not hundreds of thousands of people, shows Ma faces continued strong dissent. “I don’t understand politics, but China really likes us, we can cooperate, and if not, we’ve got to strike off on our own,” said a typically cautious Hsiao Yu-chi, 50, a shopkeeper in the southern Taiwan city Kaohsiung. “We like happiness and freedom. It’s that simple.”

China, Taiwan hold talks — hello?

Police should have brought sandwiches and sodas to the park outside a Taipei hotel where Taiwan negotiators and counterparts from old foe China held talks. Hardly anyone demonstrated against the mid-April meeting.

What’s more, over the weekend, as the two sides met more formally in China to sign agreements on trade and finance, Taiwan TV viewers watched news about swine flu in Mexico and the United States or celebrity scandal reruns. Monday morning newspapers’ editorials barely raised the usual spectre of Taiwan sacrificing its democratic self-rule to Communist China in exchange for lucrative trade deals.

What a change. Last year as the administration of China-friendly Taiwan President Ma Ying-jeou began meeting with Beijing after a decade of frozen relations marked by occasional war threats, Taiwan’s China-hostile opposition thundered against what they saw as a sell-out to Beijing and led massive demonstrations during the second round of talks, in Taipei.

Does anyone care anymore? The short answer is “yes”, but many people have accepted the idea that China, which has threatened to use force to end Taiwan’s self-rule, can talk with Taiwan on non-political issues such as trade without rattling the political status quo.

“The third round of talks is just part of a process,” said Wu Chia-jung, 23, a law student at National Taipei University. “I approve of this method of dialogue. Taiwan is in a weak position. No one wants to fight.”

The latest, muted reaction also shows that Ma’s government has learned basic public relations skills, including recent newspaper and TV ads spelling out the economic benefits of closer relations with China.

“They’ve certainly done a better job of communicating with the public,” said Taipei-based political risk analyst Raymond Wu. “It’s a start. It’s something they didn’t do last time.”