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DIVINE INTERVENTION
Trucks carrying balloons representing gods drive through Jhonghe, Taipei County, yesterday to show support for Taiwan's bid to join the UN. The parade, which will drive around the country, was organized by the National Cultural Association and non-governmental organizations and was joined by members of Democratic Progressive Party presidential candidate Frank Hsieh's campaign team.


PHOTO: CHIU SHAO-WEN, TAIPEI TIMES

　

　

DPP plans nationwide pro-democracy parade

STAFF WRITER, WITH CNA
Saturday, Mar 01, 2008, Page 3

　

Democratic Progressive Party members dance around a map of Taiwan at a media conference yesterday to promote the ``Democratic Taiwan, 100 Action'' parade scheduled to be held on March 16.


PHOTO: CNA


The Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) announced yesterday that it plans to hold a parade entitled "Democratic Taiwan, 100 Action" on March 16 in which 1 million people are expected to encircle Taiwan before walking along the island to voice their determination to protect the nation with democracy.

Participants will be asked to walk along the coastline in an anti-clockwise direction when the march starts at 3:14pm under the slogan "protecting Taiwan with democracy, joining the UN and opposing a one-China market," DPP Secretary-General Lee Ying-yuan (李應元) told a press conference.

Lee said the activity originated from the party's 2004 "Hand-in-Hand to Safeguard Taiwan" and recent "Reversing the Tide: Protecting Taiwan" campaigns.

They hope to "walk toward the bright future of Taiwan" and "make the international community aware of Taiwan's existence," Lee said.

The "100" in the title of the latest parade symbolizes voting for the DPP presidential and vice presidential ticket, which is listed as No. 1 on the ballot, while the two zeroes represent the vote to support the two referendums related to the nation's bid for its seat in the UN, he said.

While March 14 marks the third anniversary of China's adoption of its "Anti-Secession" Law, which gives Beijing a legal excuse to invade Taiwan by force, Lee said that one of the reasons the DPP wanted to hold the event was to declare the party's determination to "protect Taiwan with democracy."

Two separate 500km chains will line Taiwan's eastern and western coasts. Gathering points for the chains will be set up every 5km, he said.

Lin Kuo-ching (林國慶), director of DPP presidential candidate Frank Hsieh's (謝長廷) campaign department, said the southernmost points of the eastern and western lines will be Fugang (富岡) in Taitung County and Donggang (東港) in Pingtung County.

The two lines will join up in Taipei.

Once the two lines are formed, participants will begin a 5km walk at 3:14pm, moving in a counter-clockwise direction around the island, Lin said.

　

　

　

　

What Taiwan can offer China


Saturday, Mar 01, 2008, Page 8

The sight and sound of British Foreign Secretary David Miliband bowing and scraping to Beijing this week on the issue of cross-strait tensions and the relationship between the Olympics and human rights was disgusting, though expected.

But Miliband's parroting of Chinese slogans -- instead of sober reference to the complicated problems of the region -- reminds us that there is a more complex relationship waiting to develop between Taiwan and China.

Close Taiwanese engagement with China is inevitable; equitable engagement is not. But on the assumption that Taiwan can engage with China from a position of strength, it is clear that the Taiwanese government can express this strength through many means -- not just defensiveness.

Taiwanese-Chinese links are largely limited to the commercial sector, but this will eventually change as the two governments become more comfortable with each others' civic and political groups.

It is easy to overstate a potential Taiwanese contribution to a liberalizing China; certainly, considerations of face dictate that Beijing should never need assistance from Taiwanese on matters that would point to deficiencies in governance.

But provincial and lower governments may take a different attitude. It is therefore also easy to underestimate the good that could come of a Taiwanese presence in China on any number of issues.

Eventually, if Taiwan is to fully enter the diplomatic network and enjoy international recognition and membership of world bodies, it must have a long-term strategy of adaptation to a deepening relationship with China and the complex range of links with Chinese society that this requires.

Cultivating goodwill with scrupulous Chinese individuals and organizations wishing to strengthen civic society and democratic institutions should be embraced, and the sooner the better.

Taiwan must retain its sovereignty and its democracy. This is non-negotiable. But sovereignty and democracy do not equal isolationism and parochialism. Neither do these remove the need to project a more virtuous picture of Taiwanese as constructive, humane and concerned for their closest neighbors.

How to deal with the enemy is the dominant discourse in cross-strait relations. But ordinary, struggling Chinese have never been the enemy; it is the Chinese Communist Party's (CCP) ultranationalism and system of exploitation and suppression that threatens Taiwan, though nowhere near as much as its own people and future.

The Democratic Progressive Party government has not been able to explore this issue adequately lest it weaken the party's support base. And the build-up to the presidential election is not the time to expect level-headed discussion of this problem.

Yet it is also too early to say that a Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) government would be any more level-headed. With so many abysmal legislators in the game to rake in the dollars -- regardless of the consequences for Taiwan -- the idea that a Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) government could rely on legislative action to cultivate a healthier relationship with ordinary Chinese is laughable.

Most of the opportunities outside the commercial sector that China offers to Taiwan, and vice versa, rely on the foundation of a democratic political mechanism, or at the very least, a massive loosening of restrictions on speech and political activity.

May that day come soon. But until then, when Taiwanese can contribute to a healthier and wiser China, they should feel no guilt at being remote from the wretchedness of so many Chinese. This burden belongs to the CCP, which promised the world to the peasantry but consistently delivers to urban dwellers and party hacks at the peasants' expense.

　

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