Sunday, June 8, 2008

Taipei-Shanghai Direct Flights Soon?

Contrary to what I thought, it seems like direct flights between Taiwan and China may actually meet the initial July deadline that the Ma administration set out during it's campaigning. A few possibilities as to why these negotiations are happening so quickly:
  1. The KMT and CCP have been negotiating for years behind backdoors, eagerly waiting for when the KMT would regain power in Taiwan once again.
  2. Ma has conceded that Taiwan's sovereignty is not important, and effectively demoted Taiwan to a status that equals Hong Kong, a territory/province of China. (The main issue with direct flights commencing with the previous administration was that Chen wanted to negotiate with no "preconditions." i.e. not agreeing on things such as a so-called "1992 consensus" that states there is one-China, with each side differing on opinion of the one-China.)
  3. The KMT chairman, Wu, has been running the show and has completely bypassed president Ma. Even going as far as appeasing Presdient Hu by only referring to Ma as, Mr. Ma, not President Ma. The voice and opinion of 23 million Taiwanese are not being heard if the KMT chairman is deciding Taiwan's future and sovereignty. Taiwan elected Ma Ying-Jeou as president. But, Taiwan did not elect the KMT chairman. See the problem now?
Anyways, decided to check out what was on the mainly pro-KMT Taiwan e-news from Chinapost.com.tw, and saw this article on direct flights. Not surprising, but the article quotes an unnamed source as saying:
There will be no "danger" to Taiwan's national security after the direct flights begin, the source said. "Because the previous administration did not want to set the direct flight link in place," he added, "the military used to say Taiwan's air security would be at risk."
Fact: Chen did want to set direct flights with China on the condition of, no preconditions. China rejected the notion of negotiation on no preconditions.

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