From: joe@astro.as.utexas.edu (Joe Wang)
Newsgroups: soc.culture.taiwan,soc.culture.china
Subject: Re: Is TI so rossy?
Date: 27 Jan 93 18:35:23 GMT
Followup-To: soc.culture.taiwan,soc.culture.china
Organization: McDonald Observatory, University of Texas @ Austin

In article <C16EIE.2qs@ulowell.ulowell.edu> cshi@cs.ulowell.edu (Chunde Shi) writes:
>Only demand mainland wants from Taiwan is that
>Taiwan recognize Mainland government as sole government of China, Taiwan is 
>part of China.

Many mainlanders think that current mainland government ought to be
changed.  Given that this is the case, I don't think that it is likely
that you can convince Taiwanese to recognize the current Mainland
government as having any authority over Taiwan, even if this authority
is mixed with promises of autonomy.

>As to the difference in the political and economical system across the Strait
>need not to be a obsticle for above purpose, unless people involved want to
>make it an issue.

But it's impossible not to make it an issue.  If the People's Republic
allows a local multi-party democratic government to exist on Taiwan
(or Hong Kong), the question will arise as to why it will not allow
such a government to exist in Beijing or Hunan, or why it will not
allow an all-China government to be founded on those principles.

>As to Taiwan's system, you have to filter out the factor that
>U.S. provided massive aid and more importantly market, to be able to
>objectively talking about so called "Taiwan experience". 

The United States has not provided economic aid to Taiwan since the
1960's, and as for markets, who is buying a lot of Cantonese products
now?

The basic problem with "one country, two systems" is that Taiwan and
the Mainland have too many fundamental similiarities for there to be
any real reason to have two systems, either political or economic.

>I agree, but that is only "soft" mechanism. Some kind of agrement may
>nail it down and make it impossible for TI and can argument more forcefully
>against any nations attemp to split China.

All the Mainland has to do to kill TI is to recognize the Republic of
China (perhaps in some confederal Greater Chinese Community).  The
only remaining (and in my opinion incorrect) argument that TI now has
is that "one China, one Taiwan" is the only way Taiwan can participate
in international affairs without compromising its security.  Once that
argument goes, there's nothing left, and Taiwanese politics will be
influenced by other issues (such as the relationship between business
and government).

>China
>become major target for West to go after, no matter what China does. That is
>a conclusion I draw from my observation, and from past West history.

If the West is foolish enough try and take over China now, it will
lose.  In the nineteenth century, the West had the temporary advantage
of being industrialized while China was not.  Even under those
circumstances, the West was never able to colonize China in the way
that Africa and India were colonized.

Today, the West still has a technological advantage, but it is not
decisive enough to allow the West to overwhelm China.  Furthermore,
that techonological advantage is disappearing rapidly, and we are
rapidly approaching the point in history in which there will be more
reason for the West to be afraid of China than there will be for China
to be afraid of the West.

>Chinese leadership are more aware what is going on than outsiders
>think. 

A leadership that is aware of what is going should have been able to
figure out a better way to deal with mass demonstration than by
sending in tanks.  There certainly lots of people in the top
leadership who realize what is going on, but they are keeping their
mouths shut for now, after what happened to Zhao Ziyang and Hu
Yaobang.

>There was a poll month ago, 60% of  Chinese are satisfied economically,
>50% politically. I do not know how poll was conducted, how the question
>was phrased. But it did give some hint on Mainlanders's public opinion.

One of the problems with shooting demonstrations in the name of
restoring order is that afterwards, in becomes very, very difficult
for the government to figure out what people really think.







Newsgroups: soc.culture.taiwan,soc.culture.china