China Contradicts its own Policy -- What's the Deal?

Politics Taiwan Politics
1

[quote]China has expressed its concerns directly to UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan about Taiwan scrapping the National Unification Council and unification guidelines, Chinese state press reported yesterday.

Chinese Ambassador to the UN Wang Guangya (王光亞), met with Annan and UN General Assembly President Jan Eliasson on Wednesday in New York to brief them on the actions led by President Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁), Xinhua said.

“Chen’s move poses a serious threat to the current peaceful situation between the Chinese mainland and Taiwan,” Xinhua quoted Wang as saying in the meetings. “The move is an affront to the `one China’ principle which has been endorsed by the international community.”

China’s approach to Annan and the UN comes despite its insistence that Taiwan is an internal issue and that it tolerates no interference from outside forces.[/quote]

taipeitimes.com/News/front/a … 2003295466

Hmm…what’s going on here?

Any of you pro-“Taiwan is the internal affairs of China and should not be discussed by any foreign power” want to weigh in?

2

“The move is an affront to the `one China’ principle which has been endorsed by the international community.” - under China pressure, ofc… and, for most people in the world, there is only one China… Taiwan is either known as Taiwan or Formosa…

3

If you know the PRC and its diplomatic history, you’ll know this is the PRC way of serving notice, done only when it believes it is approaching conflict. This is unprecedented on the issue of Taiwan. Hu Jintao also publicly spoke out about “grave concerns” on the NUC issue; that level of warning is unprecedented. This has up to now only been dealt with by lower level officials. The NUC issue has now entered the highest levels of policy-making in the PRC. It bears pointing out that Hu is the head of the CMC.

In other news today:

[quote]Press Statement
Adam Ereli, Deputy Spokesman
Washington, DC
March 2, 2006

Taiwan Senior Taiwan Officials

4

[quote=“zeugmite”]
Looks like CSB has his work cut out for him.[/quote]

It seems that your press statement is old news:

[quote]QUESTION: Sorry. I have one question about Taiwan. After the U.S. expressed a certain level of relief or a satisfaction about Taiwan’s authority, not abolishing the Unification Council. Some officials in Taiwan stated that there’s no difference between abolish and cease to function. The reality is the Council is terminated and President Chen hardly made any compromise. He still did what he said he would do. So is there any gap between the U.S. understanding and Taiwanese understanding about the wording in the final outcome?

MR. ERELI: No. There’s no – there shouldn’t be any gap or difference of opinion here. President Chen’s assurances were quite clear that the NUC had not been abolished. We’ve seen the reports of comments attributed to other party officials. We’ve been informed by the Taiwanese that these officials have been misquoted and the reports are not accurate. And it is our understanding from the authorities in Taiwan that the action they took on February 27th was deliberately designed not to change the status quo, and that was made clear in a statement by President Chen and that – We have every confidence and assurance that President Chen – the statements made by President Chen are reflective of his policy and his party’s policy.

QUESTION: And have you reached out then to express your displeasure about his cabinet members or officials to have a statement like that?

MR. ERELI: We think that the statements and assurances of the president are – as I said, reflect the policy and position of the government and those in the president’s party.[/quote]

scoop.co.nz/stories/WO0603/S00084.htm

5

Whew, I’m so glad the deputy spokeman in Washington DC cleared that up.

I’m mean if only the people in Taipei had a better command of Chinese like those people in Washington DC.

6

[quote=“ac_dropout”]Whew, I’m so glad the deputy spokeman in Washington DC cleared that up.

I’m mean if only the people in Taipei had a better command of Chinese like those people in Washington DC.[/quote]

So, your snide comments aside – what do you think about the policy contradiction of the Chinese government?

7

I’m still contemplating CSB contradiction of his own Chinese policy when he came into office in the ROC.

8

So you have no opinion.

9

I have some difficulty understanding posts predicting doom from China when the writers are still in Taiwan. If I believed that China was in the midst of a final warning, I’d be on the next plane out of here. But not only are the local prophets of doom not getting on those planes, no one is. It’s business as usual in Taiwan and East Asia.

10

I’ll be out of here with a lot of business people next week…

11

That’s interesting perhaps. Can you give some examples?

China must be getting pretty sick of Chen behaving as if he is the leader of a free country. But I don’t think they’d let Chen choose the timing of any conflict. This was Chen’s political maneuvering, and they can see that. It would be stupid for China to go to war prematurely over such a thing. If they ever do, it will be the culmination of a long, detailed plan rather than a knee-jerk reaction.

I am also puzzled by China’s taking this to the UN. This is gonna raise some eyebrows I expect, which will draw even more attention to Taiwan’s situation. It’s kind of like China is helping Chen in this respect. Weird.

12

In terms of “China serving notice”, I assume zeugmite is probably speaking about Chinese intervention in the Korean war, which followed explicit warnings made through India (one of China’s only diplomatic partners at the time). China hasn’t really fought a lot of wars in the post-UN era, so I don’t know if there are other examples.

As far as China’s supposed contradiction… hello, welcome to the 21st century, STOP_Ma. The current administration under Hu has obviously decided to go in a different direction with Taiwan. Believing now that the international system at large has little to be gained in fostering Taiwanese independence, over the past 3 years Beijing has made an active effort to engage international partners on this issue.

Sino-US relations are the most obvious examples of this. China is not only “allowing”, it is actively encouraging Washington DC to play a very active role in controlling Chen Shui-bian. This is a policy decision absolutely unthinkable even 5 years ago. Beijing’s obviously setting up another relationship where the United Nations itself will play an active role in “encouraging” peace, stability, and status quo aross the Taiwan straits.

Peace, stability, and the status quo serves Beijing’s purposes very well at this point. It makes a winner of just about everyone involved: 80% of the Taiwanese are winners, 100% of the mainland Chinese are winners, Americans/Europeans/Asians are all winners. The only losers are the 20% of Taiwanese who advocate for independence.

13

PRC is just trying to show it is exhausting all its “peaceful” options to resolve the Strait Issue. In case the situation escalates the PRC can then say,

“Look we really tried. We worked with the USA (ROC most powerful allie), we worked with the UN (to talk to those other 26 most influential ROC allies). And we even tried to give them pandas (the cutest most adorable mammals ever known to man).”

14

Has Somebody Missed the Esssential of Politics/History 101?

ALL policies & poltics, just as ALL histories, are subject to change at ALL times, and without notice.

Maybe if some people read the fine print every once in a while…

15

[quote]Press Statement
Adam Ereli, Deputy Spokesman
Washington, DC
March 2, 2006

Our understanding from the authorities in Taiwan was that the action Taiwan took on February 27 was deliberately designed not to change the status quo, as Chen Shui-bian made clear in his 7-point statement.

Abrogating an assurance would be changing the status quo, and that would be contrary to that understanding.

… Released on March 2, 2006 [/quote]
Wow. That’s as firm as it gets. Screw all of the fig-leaf attempts to describe what changing the status quo means; the US state department is making it concretely clear with the above sentence in bold.

Now what, Chen/Lu?

EDIT: Chinese-language press also points out that the statement refers to CSB by name directly, rather than calling him ‘President’ Chen Shui-bian.

16

The PRC ambassador is merely explaining a facet of PRC internal affairs to the world community which is one of the roles of an ambassador. I don’t think he’s inviting the UN to intervene. :wink:

17

But TI spin master will say Status Quo = Taiwan is independent of China.
We would never think about annulling any assurances to our supporters about how independent Taiwan is of China. Not in a million years.

18

[quote=“cctang”]
As far as China’s supposed contradiction… hello, welcome to the 21st century, STOP_Ma. The current administration under Hu has obviously decided to go in a different direction with Taiwan. Believing now that the international system at large has little to be gained in fostering Taiwanese independence, over the past 3 years Beijing has made an active effort to engage international partners on this issue. [/quote]

Yeah, by telling them to stay out of their “domestic” business. That’s why this is so bizarre.

Does that “encouragement” involve the arms package that the U.S. is trying to sell Taiwan? Seriously cctang, you’re choice of words is almost as funny as the propaganda I read from Xinhua. Substitute “encourage” with “pressure” and I think I would agree.

[quote]
This is a policy decision absolutely unthinkable even 5 years ago. Beijing’s obviously setting up another relationship where the United Nations itself will play an active role in “encouraging” peace, stability, and status quo aross the Taiwan straits. [/quote]

There’s that “e” word again. Is that the communist meme word of the day? And I would like to know how Koffi Annan is going to be pressured into doing anything regarding the straights issue – it is, afterall China’s “domestic” affairs. Koffi, please tell them to be more peaceful. What’s that? Oh, never mind that gun in my hand.

As long as the “status quo” means whatever China says it means. And, as long as the Taiwanese don’t have a say on what that means.

[quote]
It makes a winner of just about everyone involved: 80% of the Taiwanese are winners, [/quote]

…as long as they accept China’s version of the status quo – which they don’t.

…unless you don’t agree with Beijing policy – in which case your imprisoned or shot.

If you don’t mind being called hypocrites.

If by “status quo”, you mean that China’s sovereignty extends to Taiwan (the China version), you are incorrect. That would be 80%.

19

The PRC ambassador is merely explaining a facet of PRC internal affairs to the world community which is one of the roles of an ambassador. I don’t think he’s inviting the UN to intervene. :wink:[/quote]

“Lecturing” is more like it. As if China is going to listen to any view different to their own.

And since when is the NUC “a facet of PRC internal affairs”? How much of the $35 USD annual operating budget came from Beijing?

20

So are we saying we don’t appreciate PRC using diplomacy to voice their discontent with TI. That we would rather have them lob missiles into the Strait.

TI supporters are truly a nutty bunch.