China and Taiwan
William R. Stimson Taiwan
"We should be particularly careful of Taiwan authorities trying to use so-called constitutional or legal means through referendum or constitutional re-engineering to back up their secessionist attempt with so-called legality," reads the draft text of China's new anti-secession law. In other words, China doesn't think the elected officials of Taiwan should use their positions to carry out the will of the people. What a telling statement, coming from a government that filters out any information it doesn't want its people to know about and does everything else it can to control their thoughts. The passage hints at what the world can expect from China in the years to come. To an increasing extent even those outside China's historic borders - in America, Europe, Taiwan and elsewhere - must also begin to let the way they think, even about democracy and legality, be defined by un-elected leaders of China who operate largely outside of the law. Except for Taiwan, which has a vibrant and contentious democracy, a prospering free enterprise economy and a president of exceptional probity and authenticity, the governments of the world are cravenly kowtowing to China so as not to risk their chance at the Chinese market. Even the few tiny island nations of the Caribbean and banana republics of Central America that in the past have recognised Taiwan are now turning instead to China and its "One China" dictates. It would seem One China has won the day. The alternative for Taiwan is to be invaded. Let's not here dissect the fiction of the One China idea, show it up to be the lie that it obviously is. Rather let us entertain the notion to see if Taiwan can find a way to live with it, if this is what must be. The only way I can see that this can be done is if we reframe the tenet in a way that's truthful to the situation between the two nations today. If the people of Taiwan are to be coerced by the world into letting China define the terms of their thinking, then let's at least not deprive the situation entirely of logic. Clearly, if there is to be one China, it should be ruled by the democratic government in Taipei, not the totalitarian one in Beijing. If there is to be one system it should be the advanced one based on law, constitutionality and sound business, banking and copyright practice - the one currently prospering in Taipei, not the archaic lawless hodgepodge of warlords reigning in Beijing, whose main interest is in making themselves rich, no matter the cost to the working classes, the farmers, or the nation as a whole.
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