Here is the relevant immigration law regarding aliens who may be rejected from entering Taiwan:
Does kadeer fit the bill? What evidence is there that she would endanger public security? Denying her a visa seems more likely to cause the later.
As for national interests, well, if our relations with Beijing are so strained, so precarious, that allowing Kadeer in would jeopardize them then there is no rational sense for engaging China as closely as the Ma government is attempting. If our interests are defined so heavily toward “peaceful” relations with China, at all costs, then this too is irrational and the opposition should be engaged in tempering it as needed.
So, the people who voted for Ma had every reason to believe that his foreign policy, while Beijing friendly, would not involve banning those who were critical of China from coming to Taiwan, and would not mean that Taiwan could not be critical of China’s human rights record.
Despite the nonsense written on this thread, Ma does not have a mandate to pursue a policy that requires Taiwan to be silent on human rights issues in China. Nor to pursue a policy that rejects those unpopular with Beijing from entering the country. By his own words, inviting Kadeer in to taiwan should not hamper cross-strait relations.
The opposition should hold his feet to the fire over the above statements and promises.
Not making any sense.
You implied that the KMT decided they wanted to be swallowed up by CCP in 2005 because they lost the election, this is “the current path” you are talking about right?
In fact CCP-KMT contacts go along way back-at least to the 1992 consensus and before. Lien and Soong couldn’t suddenly have decided to go to China without years of preparations before.
Wow. Never seen a grown man sulk and shout VICTORY at the same time.
Do you have anything further to say on the Kadeer issue? Perhaps on how Ma promised his foreign policy would not be hampered by inviting controversial figures into Taiwan.
Well obviously political reality has intervened.
Anti-Chinese rhetoric around election time and more pragmatic politics in between. Not much different from US presidents.
In other words, the opposition has every right to hold Ma to the fire and to attempt to temper his policies so that they match more closely what the public actually voted for.
In other words, they are behaving exactly as an opposition should in a democratic country. Ma has no mandate for his current policy of engaging at the expense of criticism of China’s human rights. No mandate for engaging in close relations if it means forbidding controversial figures from entering Taiwan.
Yep, agreed. I can obviously see the utility in not inviting Kadeer, but I think it is the wrong tack to take, not simply because the Taiwanese did not vote for such a supine foreign policy, but because I see no end to it.
If you believe this is good diplomacy then you must have an idea what it is supposed to accomplish in the end. What is the end game for Taiwan under the Ma government’s foreign policy? Where will good relations take us and how are they defined?
I think what they are pursuing at the moment is a functional exchange which should be beneficial to both sides. There is no end game at the moment.
I think many in the KMT would like Chinese reunification, but only under certain political conditions that are a long way from being realized. Even some in the DPP could accept reunification with a democratic China, but not with the CCP. They were also negotiating closer relations with Beijing during Chen’s first term, but eventually Beijing decided it didn’t want to give the DPP credit for delivering this.
But the end game will be years away…
And this is way off topic…
Well, I think you are dead wrong about no end game in sight, given that Chinese statements are unequivocal. But I appreciate you aren’t a troll on this and are arguing in good faith.
6 pages and I still don’t know why she was coming. :raspberry:
Surely it would have been more sensible to have invited her in conjunction with the film, or to announce some kind of human rights convention or something and have her come for that. I’d have thought that it’d be much harder to deny a visa under those circumstances.
Inviting her in December when the next round of Taiwan-China talks are scheduled here is just inviting the visa to be denied. Or was that the point?
(I don’t know much about the situation at all, so forgive my simple questions. Also about to head out so may not reply for a couple of hours).
http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5g-7sc17Id8xsWMi6N0M-opaTroFA
What I don’t understand is why people keep blaming Ma for this, I hardly think that he personally looked at her application and said don’t let her come even close to the border… It is more likely that one of his Party officials did some thinking on his own and now the gov have to toe the line.
Personally I think they should have let her come, how bad could it be. Seriously thou another “I’m going to kiss 100 guys in France” story and I’m throwing the TV of the balcony. TVBS and the other cronies need some news to air, give them some…
Thanks! Just because I’m not a greenie doesn’t mean I’m a troll…
I don’t know how you can read an end game in the near future from “unequivocal” Chinese statements. They’ve been promising to “liberate” Taiwan for the last 50 years. They have actually taken a softer approach in recent years-no threats have been issued since the Anti-Succession Law was passed.
So when do you see the endgame coming, and how will it come about?
So you’re saying that the President does not make government decisions, random KMT officials do? Sounds like a good reason for him to be ejected in 2012 - people voted for him to lead the country, not be a public relations spokesman.
Indeed. Sometimes it’s good to remind China they are not masters of the universe. If Taiwan won’t conduct its own affairs independently of Chinese temper-tantrums on a minor issue like this, how on earth can it resist Beijing’s attempts to negotiate agreements that are mostly in China’s interest and not Taiwan’s?
