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| China-Japan-Koreas |
| China fury at Chen's Taiwan call |
| 2007-03-06 |
| China has hit out at Taiwan's President Chen Shui-bian after he made a strongly pro-independence speech on Sunday. Mr Chen said Taiwan should pursue independence, write a new constitution and change its official name from "Republic of China" to Taiwan. China's Foreign Minister Li Zhaoxing said anyone wanting to split Taiwan from the mainland was a "criminal". Mr Chen, in a speech to a pro-independence group on Sunday, said: "Taiwan should be independent". "Taiwan is a country whose sovereignty lies outside the People's Republic of China," he added, referring to China by its formal name. He spoke of a "four wants" policy - namely independence, a new constitution, further development and a change to the country's officially designated name. Since taking office, President Chen has sought to emphasise the island's separate identity, the BBC's Caroline Gluck in Taipei says. But his latest comments are his strongest since taking office and raise new worries of increased tensions with China as well as Taiwan's main ally, the US, our correspondent adds. Those fears contributed to falls on Taiwan's stock market on Monday and a weakening of the Taiwan dollar against the US dollar. Opposition leaders accused him of being irresponsible and putting Taiwan at risk of a possible war with China. In response to Mr Chen's comments, China's Foreign Minister Li Zhaoxing told Taiwanese reporters in Beijing: "Don't listen to local leaders". "Whoever wants to split away will become a criminal in history". |
| Posted by:Steve White |
| #4 Personally I think the Chinese should declare Tiawan (and Tibet) a Unique area the way they did Hong Kong and let them do whatever they want but continue their own fiction of one china without the threats. Investment would increase and the two nations would become further tied together. I thought the Chinese were the ones saying they look at the long range view all the time. |
| Posted by: rjschwarz 2007-03-06 14:54 |
| #3 My advice, China? Leave Taiwan alone. Link |
| Posted by: newc 2007-03-06 09:12 |
| #2 If Chen was serious about this, he could start the ball rolling away from China in a multitude of different ways. First and foremost, he could start all sorts of cultural initiatives to culturally move Taiwan away from "the Chinese Way" of doing things. A difficult concept to explain, the Chinese Way is culturally distinct from "the western Way". It has long been seen on the mainland as critical to expand China's 'cultural hegemony' outside its borders. As long as its neighbors were doing things the Chinese Way, much anything else they did was tolerable. Otherwise they were dangerous barbarians. More than anything else, changing how Taiwan does business, how the Taiwanese and Chinese on Taiwan live their lives, their social units, familial relationships, etc. A hundred thousand different things comprise the Chinese Way. And only when Taiwan stops doing things the Chinese Way will it every free itself from China. |
| Posted by: Anonymoose 2007-03-06 08:23 |
| #1 As argued long ago, iff Beijing = China disavows any claims of sovereignty over Taiwan, America can let Taiwan go and will want to foster trade -commercial relations wid both, which in turn means that where China is concerned, America will PROTECT MAINLAND CHINA from TAIWAN's extremist elements. |
| Posted by: JosephMendiola 2007-03-06 00:20 |