{"id":4120,"date":"2019-02-02T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2019-02-02T08:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/us-chinaforum.com\/archives\/4120"},"modified":"2019-02-02T00:00:00","modified_gmt":"2019-02-02T08:00:00","slug":"286-2-2-dr-wordman-analysis-of-xis-new-year-speech-to-taiwan-and-her-reaction","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/us-chinaforum.com\/en\/2019\/4120\/","title":{"rendered":"#286 2\/2\u00a0 \u00a0Dr. Wordman\u00a0\u00a0Analysis of Xi\u2019s New Year Speech to Taiwan and her reaction"},"content":{"rendered":"
Chinese leader has been delivering a New Year speech to the people in Taiwan ever since 1980. Xi\u2019s 40th Anniversary speech to Taiwan contains a lot of sincere words and rational statements. He emphasized China\u2019s unwavering goal of reunification across the strait and offered concrete suggestions for a peaceful reunification. Xi\u2019s speech, to every Chinese people, is a speech of compassion, moral and justice and full of Chinese national sentiments. He explained the history of Taiwan as an inseparable part of China. He warns sternly against the external interference about the cross-strait affairs. Xi thoughtfully explained the international situation, the significance of the Chinese cultural revitalization and the resolve of reunification in the hearts of Chinese. He recalled the political changes in the past 70 years and pointed out \u2018the 1992 Consensus’ and \u2018seeking common ground and tolerating differences\u2019 is the only right approach. He also pointed out the mutual benefits achieved since the three links of post, commerce and travel opened across the strait. He said from now on the mainland\u2019s Taiwan policy would be more mutual help, mutual win and mutual exploration of development opportunities, offering young people chances to achieve peaceful reunification. <\/p>\n

However, as an observer of Taiwan issues, I noticed Taiwan\u2019s political changes towards anti-China and pro- independence and the current Tsai Administration\u2019s rejection of \u2018the 1992 Consensus\u2019. The world witnessed China\u2019s rise despite of the suppression attempts from the U.S., especially in her military development and industrial accomplishments. It seems that the \u2018Taiwan Card\u2019 which the U.S., Japan and Korea played had become uncoordinated and unsynchronized strategy probably futile but confusing. All of the above make the peaceful reunification very remote and uncertain. So, Xi\u2019s speech although contained sincere words and compassion but also delivered an ultimatum. If Taiwan would not stop the independence push, reunification by military force would become the necessary alternative to peaceful reunification.<\/p>\n

In Xi\u2019s speech, there were five concrete points. We condense them below to facilitate our discussion on Taiwan\u2019s response to them:
Pt. 1, work together for national revitalization and to realize peaceful reunification.
Pt. 2, research \u2018a second political system\u2019 for Taiwan (different from that of the Mainland) and enrich the possibility of peaceful reunification.
Pt. 3, insist on One China Principle and protect the future of peaceful reunification.
Pt. 4, deepen cooperation and integration across the strait and build the foundation of peaceful reunification.
Pt. 5, realize heart to heart and soul to soul reunion between people and increase acceptance of peaceful reunification. <\/p>\n

Xi called for open-arm interaction with any party, any business and any person for peaceful reunification but did not rule out using force if pro-independence activities would persist. The above points obviously aimed at achieving a peaceful reunification. However, whether the people in Taiwan will understand and accept these points or not really depends on I. how the Taiwanese feel as they are a part of China, II. how strongly they believe that their \u2018West\u2019 value system and liberal democracy will be forever superior, III. how deeply they believe that the U.S., Japan and South Korea will protect Taiwan in case of a military force reunification occurring, and IV. whether the Taiwanese have a Chinese national sentiment and a growing trust in Chinese communist party\u2019s grand plan of revitalization and joint development. Unfortunately, The Taiwanese so far are fuzzy and unclear on these issues.<\/p>\n

The official response from Taiwan to Xi\u2019s speech was rapid as if they had prepared for it. Tsai Ying Wen for the first time delivered a New Year speech and she also made immediate response to Xi\u2019s speech. In 2016 during her campaign and after she won the presidential election, she made fuzzy statements regarding cross-strait issue but her actions were clear, avoiding discussion of \u2018the 1992 Consensus\u2019 but gearing up more anti-China and divorcing Chinese activities, following her party\u2019s (DPP) strategy of buying time and deepening \u2018Taiwan Independence\u2019 policy. The 2018 local elections turned out a big defeat to DPP. Tsai regrettably resigned her party chairmanship but seemingly leaning more towards the deep-green pro-independence faction. Her response to Xi\u2019s speech had revealed her political intention. For the first time, she openly denied \u2018the 1992 Consensus\u2019. Although her words (four yes and four no conditions) were soft but she elected to take harder approach. Being afraid that Taiwan\u2019s political parties, businesses and individuals would respond to Mainland China\u2019s call for dialogue and cooperation, she declared that the cross strait issue and interaction is within national government jurisdiction, any dialogue must be between governments, \u2018endorsed by the Taiwan people\u2019. <\/p>\n

In reality, the last local election in GaoXiong and other municipalities had already shown people wanting increased economic activities with Mainland and endorsing \u2018the 1992 Consensus\u2019; candidates accepted that got elected. But the national government may try to stop the interaction. Tsai and DPP still believe that more Taiwanese are pro-independence; they can be relied on though a risky call. Recently, some DPP members had voiced to replace Tsai for the 2020 election, that may be DPP\u2019s plan of buying time to get another term under another Deep-Green pro-independence candidate. I think when Tsai used the words, \u2018endorsement by the people of Taiwan\u2019, she wasn\u2019t very sure, but nevertheless, whether or not the people in Taiwan will have the will and guts to over-throw the DPP hold is still doubtful and deserve careful studies.<\/p>\n

The former President Ma Ying Jie of Taiwan had also responded to \u2018the 1992 Consensus\u2019 and Xi\u2019s speech, that is one China with two different views, to him it means the Republic of China (ROC). This has been Ma\u2019s claims all along but without the \u2018promoting reunification\u2019 which Hong Xiu Zhu advocated. Ma as a law student and practitioner like to interpret issues on legal grounds. The U.S. and China relation of course was with ROC, tracing back before WW II (Potsdam Declaration and San Francisco Peace Treaty, although ROC was not a signatory). But KMT party (Ma\u2019s party) can no longer represent ROC especially as an opposition party, thus in its contest with DPP, it had become a fuzzy party with no clear \u2018reunification\u2019 policy. In reality, the Constitution of ROC had lost its significance. Taiwan\u2019s education and textbook revision had destroyed Taiwan\u2019s history for young people. Legislature Yuan can only represent Taiwan, Penghu and King and Ma tiny islands, in no way supporting the Constitution\u2019s claim of the entire China. Under the circumstance that most Taiwanese have no strong attachment to their country name, ROC, nor its jurisdiction issue, and most of the international community do not recognize ROC, Taiwan\u2019s current political system clinching to ROC for fuzzy interpretation is a fool\u2019s game. That is why, Taiwan had been played by others, so called allies and friends, as a chess piece or an ATM card for quick cash. In Xi\u2019s speech, he said correctly, today belongs to young people, the young people across the strait must carry the burden to work for national revitalization and for reunification. But do the young people in Taiwan have that inspiration? Can the people in Taiwan correctly assess the chances and consequences of peaceful reunification versus reunification by force?<\/p>\n

Xi\u2019s 2019 New Year speech deserves all Taiwanese and Chinese people to read and ponder carefully!<\/p>\n

<\/div>\n

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\r\n \r\n <\/i>\r\n <\/a>\r\n <\/span>\r\n<\/div><\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Chinese leader has been delivering a New Year speech to the people in Taiwan ever since 1980. Xi\u2019s 40th Anniversary speech to Taiwan contains a lot of sincere words and rational statements. He emphasized China\u2019s unwavering goal of reunification across the strait and offered concrete suggestions for a peaceful reunification. Xi\u2019s speech, to every Chinese people, is a speech of compassion, moral and justice and full of Chinese national sentiments. He explained the history of Taiwan as an inseparable part of China. He warns sternly against the external interference about the cross-strait affairs. Xi thoughtfully explained the international situation, the significance of the Chinese cultural revitalization and the resolve of reunification in the hearts of Chinese. He recalled the political changes in the past 70 years and pointed out \u2018the 1992 Consensus’ and \u2018seeking common ground and tolerating differences\u2019 is the only right approach. He also pointed out the mutual …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[130],"tags":[110],"class_list":["post-4120","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-articles","tag-dr-wordman"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/us-chinaforum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4120","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/us-chinaforum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/us-chinaforum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/us-chinaforum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/us-chinaforum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4120"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/us-chinaforum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4120\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/us-chinaforum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4120"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/us-chinaforum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4120"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/us-chinaforum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4120"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}