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China’s National People’s Congress is set to pass the anti-secession law on 14 March. It is a piece of legislation with a specific applicable target – Taiwan, and it should perhaps be more appropriately known as the Anti-Taiwan Independence Law. From a rough reading of the information carried on China-Daily’s website, there’s nothing new in terms of China’s determination in unifying Taiwan with the mainland, the preferred means of achieving it, non-ruling out of the use of force as a last resort, etc. Probably it is just as the government says, a necessary step towards the rule of law, legalization of the previous polices.
But the US is not happy about it and has called on China to reconsider it. Will China listen? Probably not. Not in the current balance of power. And the US, of course, knows it, but it needs to say something for the sake of old friends in Taiwan.
In my opinion, the best way forward for China and Taiwan and the US, is for Taiwan to maintain the status quo, to keep this ambiguous status for as long as possible. Fighting a war for unification or independence would be the biggest tragedy for the Chinese people all over the world in this century. As long as China can maintain the current level of defence capability, and the US does not succeed in the missile shield defence system, then it would also be in the best interest of the US not to encourage or sending mixed signals to Taiwan to do anything stupid. But if the day the US successfully shields itself, Taiwan, Japan and South Korea under the missile defence system, China should worry about real possibility of Taiwan’s decleration of independence. There’s no doubt about it, especially if by then the US has another president like Bush.
With China’s gradual democratization and economic prosperity, plus the US’s resposible behaviour towards Taiwan, peaceful unification of China and Taiwan should be a possibility.