Would Taiwan have peace if it allowed China to annex it?

One blog comment asks basically: "Why not let China annex Taiwan? Then the Taiwanese people could have peace."

We must constantly remind both our Taiwanese friends and those from other countries. The specifics of the answer need to be ever present in the foreground of their sight and thinking:

If China would leave Taiwan alone, the Taiwanese would never choose to invade China or go to war with China.

The problem is, for Taiwan at the moment there is no choice between peace and war. Peace is not the absence of war, but instead true peace is the presence of justice.

China taking over Taiwan would take away peace, democracy and human rights. China taking Taiwan would be an injustice that begets more injustice.

So the choice is between slavery or fighting for freedom -- currently in non-military ways but perhaps one day with weapons of war.

Unfortunately many in Taiwan delude themselves into thinking that being annexed by China is better than fighting for their freedom. People from many other countries share the same delusion about China and Taiwan.

So did Neville Chamberlain regarding Nazi Germany.

Allowing China to annex Taiwan will lead to more war in the future as China's aggressive expansionism and militant nationalism and leninist imperialism is felt by other neighboring countries, and not just ones on the border.

Not only this, but the entire world would be affected as other brutish authoritarian regimes are emboldened by the lack of consequences over China's actions. Many other wars would be started as these regimes think they can get away with anything with impunity.
- JL

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Allowing China to do such a seemingly trifling little thing (to-some-people) like annexing Taiwan would be the first step down the path to World War III. In this current era of history, if China is not disciplined by the world community, it will continue down the path, and will ultimately be defeated in a world war, but because of said war, there will be untold misery, death and destruction for billions of people. (Note: billions, not millions.)

Nations of the world, do you think Taiwan is a small matter? Think again, very carefully.

China's "National" Day of Infamy -- October 1, the World's Day of shame for not standing against China's authoritarian regime

While China celebrates is brutish dictatorship, people in Taiwan can support those whom the Chinese regime oppresses. Watch the following:

"Ten Conditions of Love" will be screened in Daan park tomorrow nigh (Thursday, Oct. 1) at 7pm to coincide with China's 60th National Day. A recent documentary about Tibet "Leaving Fear Behind" will also be shown. The film's director Dhondup Wangchen has been jailed since March in China on charges of inciting separatism. The films will be shown at the outdoor theater. To access the outside theater, enter the park on the east side of Xinsheng S. Road across from Jinhua St. Here is a map. The nearest MRT station is Guting Station, about a 20 minute walk. Entrance begins at 6:30pm and is free althoiugh donations will be accepted.

There will also be screenings tomorrow evening in Taichung, Tainan, Kaoshiung, and Pingtung at the following locations:

Taichung: Taichung Broadcast Station (放送局) No. 1 Diantai St.
Tainan: Tainan Theological College and Seminary
Kaohsiung: Central Park
Pingtung: Pingtung County Cultural Center

------->NOT SURE of the accuracy REGARDING THE FOLLOWING INFORMATION about the city council building screening: "There will be also showings tonight (Wed.) and Thursday , starting at 7:30 both times, at the Taipei City Council building. located at No. 507 Renai Rd. Sec. 4. That's just next to the SYS Memorial park's Renai entrance. The nearest MRT is also SYS Memorial Hall station."<------------

For more locations around Taiwan: see Taiwan Matters blog

See how the KMT subverts every democratic institution

First the KMT subverted democratic elections by its use of overwhelming advantage in stolen money as well as control of all the major media... It subverted the 2008 elections by refusing to work with the duly elected DPP administration from 2000 to 2008 but instead passed laws, and blocked laws all with a view of destroying any meaningful reform or action by the DPP government. With its control of the legislature during those years, it did nothing to help Taiwan, but did only to help create a negative impression on the DPP and to lay the groundwork for 2008.

Second the KMT subverted democratic referendums by setting such a high threshold that the referendum would not pass...

Third, the KMT subverted the justice system to cause not-guilty verdicts for its own party members. Then it used the judicial system to attack any former members of the DPP administration whether or not there was any real evidence. And finally, it corrupted the judiciary to control the outcome of verdicts related to former President Chen. (Democratic institutions were doubly subverted because the lack of impartiality both renders untrustworthy any decisions of the judiciary as well as prevents true justice from being done in the Chen case for any actual offenses he may have committed. Because of the lack of impartiality from the justices, Chen's guilt will forever remain a question.)

Now with the referendum on gambling casinos in the Penghu Islands of Taiwan, the KMT has rigged the "referendum" so that it has little chance of being thwarted by concerned citizens through a normal democratic process of persuasion and public debate. It did not follow the same rules that it did for the referendums it wished to block. It also brought all the resources of government, media, etc. to push its side and block any debate or hearing of the opposition.

Please read Michael Turton's blog post.

Don't be fooled by sham democracy. The KMT fooled much of the world for over 50 years that it was supposedly "Free China" and that Chiang Kai-shek was supposedly a "Champion of Democracy."

China's values: seizing the lands of other nations by force

Two new English words to learn:

irredentism
revanchism

Both of these ideologies are part of the driving force of China's attempts at annexing Taiwan as well as its claims to territories of other nations. (A similar thing is driving part of Russia's foreign policy these days.)

What this government in China needs to relearn is that the Manchu Empire was not Chinese. If they want to rebuild the territory of the Manchu Empire, perhaps they should return to wearing the cue and also speaking and writing in the Manchu Language as the language of government.

But China is more greedy than simply reclaiming supposedly lost territory, China demands all of Taiwan, not simply the western half of the island that the Manchu Empire nominally controlled.

We are thankful that Japan is not irredentist or revanchist. But then again, Japan is a free democracy. In this era of history, democracies tend to be peaceful instead of expansionist. The authoritarian dictatorships tend to seek war to seize territory by violence.

Sever your links with the KMT and its organized crime before it is too late

Click on this link to read the sad story of a man who seems to have gotten connected with the Chiang Kai-shek's Chinese Nationalist Party - spawned mafia -- the Bamboo United. Dead at age: 42. Ten years ago, his wife was murdered at age 33.

Corruption hovers around the KMT and its mafia-connected organizations like flies over a rotting carcass.

Addendum: When people pick one example of a DPP corrupt politician and say, "See, the DPP is corrupt, too," they fail to make the accurate distinction between individuals and systematic corruption in an organization. They also fail to realize that the ability of the few corrupt individuals who have associated themselves with the DPP to profit from the political system is because the KMT with its 60 years of one-party rule specifically design the system to be profited from by corrupt politicians in the KMT party. The KMT multiplied positions, even putting an entire redundant "provincial" bureaucracy covering the same territory as the national government so that even more KMT party elites could put government money into their pockets.

To extend the metaphor further, one could say that flies will try hang around any animal, but the animal will continue to try to swat them away with its tail, so there are never many. But a rotting carcass no longer tries to stop them. They swarm without being resisted. The dead carcass's state encourages the flies, and they multiply.

It is interesting that the word "corrupt" can refer to a political organization, and also to dead rotting flesh.

Did Ma know ahead of time?

It was quite revealing that several days before the announcement of the verdict against former-president Chen Shui-bian, current President Ma spoke in multiple ways about how he wanted to be law abiding, and that the ROC was a country with the rule of law, that he respected the law, etc.

One can infer that Ma already knew what the verdict would be, so he was preparing the political spin on it with his statements. It does not take much stretch to conclude that there were a group of KMT elites who colluded with the prosecutors and the judges (after first doing a bit of judge-shopping) to decide politically what they thought would be the best verdict for the KMT and so they as a group decided what verdict to hand down which then the judges announced.

Naturally, anyone in on that group of KMT elites' deliberations would know the verdict ahead of time, and so someone like Ma would then begin talking big about the rule of law -- since the "law" would in a day or two give Chen a life-sentence.

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Hopefully, the Taiwanese people will come to realize the necessity of a multiparty democracy and a balance of power. They also must realize that the KMT has not changed at all from its old authoritarian ways; this "Chinese" Nationalist Party, its legislatures and President Ma do not at all value democracy. Whenever they get a chance, they replace true democracy with a sham facade of democracy so that they can keep control in their elitist hands. For Taiwan's future national health, the unrepentant KMT itself perhaps needs to be done away with as the Baathist Party in Iraq whose decades of privilege and loyalty to a dictator gave it a destabilizing and democratically destructive advantage in manipulating elections and shutting down any separate voices. More and more, as the months go by, it seems their ilk and the ROC-in-exile KMT regime ultimately will need to be expelled from Taiwan, because they as an organization have not been able to repent of their past Leninist-Fascist authoritarianism.

Some in the international media are skeptical of the verdict. For example:
Agence France Presse (AFP)
Economist
Vancouver Sun

Taiwan News gives a good summary of the situation comparing Ma's acquittal on similar charges with Chen's conviction.
Global Voices Online has some comments by individuals responding to the verdict.