Quoted:“TAIPEI, Taiwan (AP) – Taiwan’s opposition Nationalist Party has won an overwhelming victory in island-wide municipal elections, putting it in position to push its agenda of reunification with China during the 2008 presidential campaign.”
Quoted: “Taiwan and China split at the end of a civil war in 1949. Beijing still claims sovereignty over the island and has refused to talk with Chen because it sees him as a strong supporter of Taiwanese independence, unalterably opposed to the Nationalist platform of eventual unification.”
Did you go to school in Taiwan? Even my generation had the usual lesson in history and geography of eventually retaking the mainland to free our Mainland compatroits.
Of course as you came of age to do military service most kids have the attitude, “What?!? Are you nuts, retake the Mainland. I hope I get the lucky lottery ticket for 2 years service instead of 3 years service.”
Followed by the shocker, “Circumcision done by an on base doctor to get out of basic training for 1 week, doesn’t seem that bad right now.”
Nah, he didn’t go to school in Taiwan. He gave us a brief bio summarization earlier, and I think his experience consists of… a year? a semester? abroad in Taiwan. (And my personal, irrelevant guess is still “love boat” refugee.)
The KMT has a reunification agenda like the DPP has an independence agenda. The goal is implicit in the party charter, and there’ve been numerous pronouncements along the way that forward its cause. Most recently, in the 10-pt agreement signed in Beijing:
[quote]Cross-strait ties are now at a crucial point in historical development; the two sides should not fall into a vicious circle of confrontation but instead enter a virtuous circle of cooperation, seek together opportunities for the peaceful and steady development of cross-strait ties, trust and help each other, and create a new situation of peaceful win-win, so as to bring about brilliant and splendid prospects for the Chinese nation.
The two parties agreed as follows:
It is the common proposition of the two parties to uphold the “Consensus of '92”, oppose “Taiwan independence”, pursue peace and stability in the Taiwan Strait, promote the development of cross-strait ties, and safeguard the interests of compatriots on both sides of the strait.
[/quote]
Thank goodness CSB is constitutionally barred from being elected for a 3rd term in office. The man has single handedly increase tension across the Strait in the most non-productive manner since LTH.
If pan-Green supporters have not figured it out yet. The “reunification” platform is the only platform that allows Taiwan to maintain its de facto independence without instigating further problems with Beijing.
Sure in ROC democracy one can pursue any political platform for giggles. Like that of Li Ao for instance, a platform of a non-platform.
The dangers of TI and the “independence” platform is of course it risk the lost of both de facto and de jure independence for Taiwan.
So one can site the flaw of “reunification,” ROC reclaiming the mainland, being unattainable. However, this position’s major benefit is that it is tolerated by Beijing and doesn’t elevated tensions between the Strait, which could lead to all out war.
Over the past two years, the big question has been whether the creation of the PFP would push the KMT’s position on reunification towards the center. That is, the PFP contained the more out-spoken legislators in favor of cross-strait reconcillation… and people were apporpriately questioning whether the ‘zhongguo KMT’ would be renamed the ‘taiwan KMT’.
But the good news of the day is that it looks like PFP/KMT reabsorption seems inevitable. Lien Chan took a hard turn to the left (or the right, depending on which political spectrum you want to use reference) with his visit to Beijing this spring, and the PFP has become increasingly irrelevant. While it’s still not clear that Ma will follow Lien’s legacy (seems obvious at this point that Ma won’t ‘risk’ his 2008 campaign chances by visiting the mainland before then)… it’ll be a positive for the PFP to rejoin the KMT, strengthen the pan-Blue alliance, and hopefully continue to point its policies in the unification direction.
I expect (and hope) that the PFP’s condition for a party-merger will be the KMT’s promise to push across the PFP’s cross-strait bill.
[quote=“ac_dropout”]Depending on the how the LY seat reduction works out, the PFP and TSU will lose a lot of their significance in Taiwan politics.
So I’m not too sure about the PFP ability to leverage the KMT.[/quote]
The next round of legislative elections are still 2+ years away, which represents an eternity. A PFP/DPP alliance could strip KMT of every last asset long before that period is up. So, the PFP has plenty of leverage over that time frame, at least.
EDIT: Looks like the PFP is holding out for joint pan-Blue support for a Soong run at the Taipei mayor position next year. That should be interesting.
Soong won’t win. He’s had a bit too many losses under his belt.
Anyway, I never thought I’d say this, but I’d have to agree with AC Dropout, I do not think the PFP has much ability at this point to leverage the KMT. The KMT is doing fine meeting with China without the PFP’s help. In addition even members of the United States Congress has blamed the PFP for the relations within and outside Taiwan, while the KMT got some credit for being capable of mending relations.
The PFP and TSU as a result seem to have become less popular over the years.
Wow you’ve guys posted quite a lot in a 1 hour period.
