Ma China Times Ad Says Taiwan's Fate is for Taiwanese to Decide

Feiren alerted me to this ad by KMT Presidential candidate Ma Ying-jeou on the second page of the China Times to mark the 3rd Anniversary of the Anti-Secession Law. Feiren did a quickie translation of it:

We firmly hold that Taiwan's future must be decided by people of Taiwan.
Defend the Republic of China's sovereignty and firmly oppose the Anti-Secession Law.
The Republic of China is a sovereign and independent country nation.
The people of Taiwan have concretely realized democratic government and are masters of their own fate.
We hereby declare that Taiwan's future and development must be ratified and determined by the people of Taiwan themselves.

Feiren -- too busy to blog -- pointed out to me that this language subsumes ROC and Taiwan in a way that many Taiwanese have become used to seeing and is accepted by them. This move, he noted, is a page out of LTH's book: borrowing DPP ideas but subtly altering the language. He further observed that the CW is that sovereignty issues are allegedly having less impact because everyone is disgusted with Chen Shui-bian -- but in reality, it is because the KMT is becoming better at defusing them. Nice observations, man.

If you were Beijing, would you growl at Ma to make him look even more native? In a world where the KMT and Beijing are coordinating policy, what do you think they will do?

A-gu has a great followup to this post: with an interview with Chen pointing out that the DPP has made the KMT 'greener.'

UPDATE: A a brutal Chinese crackdown in Tibet as the elections in Taiwan approach. Peking Duck collects some of the news reports. ADDENDA: People have asked me to reword this for clarity. So I did.

[Taiwan]

A-bian interviewed in Chicago Trib

President Chen Shui-bian is interviewed in the Chicago Tribune by long-time Taiwan scholar Dennis Hickey. An excerpt:

Q Why wouldn't a return to the "one-China principle" lead to peace with China?

A Past presidents of Taiwan supported the idea of eventual unification with China. Did this lead to peace? In the 1950s, [Chinese leaders] threatened to "wash Taiwan with blood." In the 1990s, they fired missiles at Taiwan. China's threats and diplomatic oppression of Taiwan did not stop because the KMT accepted the one-China principle and the goal of ultimate unification.

Q Taiwan's opposition Chinese Nationalist Party, known as the KMT, is reaching out to the Chinese Communist Party, and leaders of the two parties have met. Any comment?

A This is just part of China's "united front" tactics and divide-and-conquer strategy. The KMT has not learned any lessons from the past. When they are of no use or value anymore, the CCP will throw them away like rubbish.

So true....

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China Threat To Taiwan Grave

Reuters becomes the latest news service to treat Chinese propaganda on the Anti-Secession Law as something meaningful and important. First, the news story itself:

China cannot compromise on its claim to Taiwan and is ready for "grave" scenarios, a top adviser said, days after the island's ruling party resolved to recommend a new constitution, with implications of independence from China.

The Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) approved the controversial "Normal Country Resolution" on Sunday, calling for a new constitution for Taiwan as an independent sovereign state to replace its current one, which still binds the two sides.

China has claimed sovereignty over self-ruled Taiwan since the end of the Chinese civil war in 1949 and pledged to bring the democratic island's 23 million people under its rule, by force if necessary.

"The essence of the resolution is to pursue de jure Taiwan independence," wrote Yu Keli, a prominent Taiwan expert at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences (CASS), in a signed commentary run by the official Xinhua news agency on Wednesday.

"The Taiwan issue concerns China's core interests and the mainland does not have any room for compromise," Yu wrote. CASS is the government's top think tank.

It's always worth pointing out: China can bluntly say (1) we're threatening war and (2) we're not going to negotiate even one little bit but you can read in actual analysis from thinking human beings that -- I'm not making this up -- President Chen Shui-bian of Taiwan is a radical. I suppose, from the point of view of a human history that offers us about 100,000 years of conflict settled by force, that democracy and referendums are a rather radical approach....

The great thing about this report is its final paragraph, in which the reporter simply regurgitates one of China's most brilliant propaganda ploys, the Anti-Secession Law, in a completely thoughtless manner:

Analysts say China is obliged by the 2005 Anti-Secession Law to react if the referendum is passed, but any decision will be tricky because it does not want to ruin the Summer Olympics, which Beijing will host in August next year.

Now imagine if you had read in a foreign newspaper articles containing the following statements.

Analysts say China is obliged by its security laws to execute dissidents.

Analysts say China is obliged by its Constitution to permit freedom of religion.

Analysts say that China is obliged by its legal framework to give full faith and credence to all contracts signed in China.

Should any reader who knows anything about China stumble across such a sentence in an article about dissent, missionary work, or Chinese contract behavior, respectively, no doubt either laughter or distress would ensue. But our Reuters reporter can scribble the paragraph above without ever stopping to think that the Anti-Secession Law obligates Beijing no more than any other law on the books in China does -- that enforcement of that law, like all other law in China, is the result of a political calculus, rather than a response to the normative status of law, as it is typically treated in the West.

Please, foreign correspondents, stop pretending that piece of political propaganda actually means something as law.

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