Tuesday, February 23, 2010

More Analysis of a Substantial Shift in the Taiwan Straits

"The elections could decide Taiwan's destiny." - Soochow University political science professor Lo Chih-cheng

Which elections do you think Lo is talking about here? The 2012 elections? How about the end of the year municipalities elections. Lo is on spot with his analysis here, as he believes that the year end elections will essentially pave the way for a DPP victory in 2012, or a defeat. Furthermore, a victory year-end will further cement the growing consensus that Ma Ying-jeou's China-obsessing policies are not what the majority of Taiwanese want.

Michael You (游盈隆), another professor at Soochow University and former vice chairman of the Straits Exchange Foundation, said: “If the DPP loses the 2012 election, there would be only one result for Taiwan, it would end up in the hands of the Chinese communists.”

These findings all fall in line with the potential for a substantial shift in the Taiwan Straits sometime before 2018 (my original time line for a substantial shift). It further reinforces the notion that the time to once again and speak out on behalf of Taiwan is quickly coming. I know many young Taiwanese (my generation) who simply are apathetic towards politics (due to the history in Taiwan). That may have been fine a decade ago, even five years ago, but with all the recent findings of China's attempt to take over Taiwan by 2012, the rapid pace of Ma's One-China policies, as well as the growing economic pains within Taiwan and globally, all point to a deteriorating situation for an autonomous and democratic Taiwan.

One comment I saw that really pissed me off during the University of Washington, "Taiwan, province of China" issue over the last couple weeks, was by someone that claimed to be Taiwanese, and yet basically said, "Who cares if Taiwan becomes a part of China. People will go on living their lives, partying, playing, drinking, KTVing."

Just because you see those kids in China partying, drinking, KTVing, does that necessarily mean that is all they want in life? Sure, if all you are concerned about in life is going to your Luxy and then hopping over to the local KTV, perhaps maybe so, Taiwan won't change much if it was under China. But for everyone else, real changes will occur for the worse. Take for example, internet usage. I know many friends who have studied abroad in China, or spent a week or so there and loved how they had to go through proxy servers just to connect to Facebook. Forget Facebook, I wouldn't even be able to blog on my own site. Sure, an inconvenience you may say - so what?

How about getting detained and arrested at the airport for carrying an "Alice in the Wonderland" book? And then proceeding to have to pay some ungodly amount to them just to let you be set free and shipped back to wherever you were coming from?

How about running your own business and one afternoon a couple PLA officers stroll by your store and basically tell you to give them free stuff or they will give you a hard time? Like that? I sure as hell wouldn't. Who would? Oh, communists.

Puh-lease. Are you kidding yourselves? Who in their right mind would rather have Taiwan under the control of China instead of being an independent and sovereign country? Let's leave the unification of Taiwan with China for another dimensional word and keep Taiwan as it is now.

2 comments:

墨點 said...

I'm a Taiwanese living overseas, too~

I've haven't been following the news for a long time, though... When I flip through newspapers and past articles, I start to worry about Taiwan's future; there doesn't seem to be *anything* we can do to...

Well, not with the KMT party in power, anyway

Richard said...

The best we can do as overseas Taiwanese is to continue to raise awareness of the issues in Taiwan. Such as the threat from China in its 1500+ missiles, as well as China blocking U.N. representation. Internal issues such as the fact that a majority of Taiwanese do not consider themselves Chinese. Things such as this, while as simple and little as they seem, can go a long ways if everyone does their part.

Thanks for stopping by.