News: China vows to crush Taiwan independence, offers rewards for reunification

Argh! Don’t do it Taiwan, if you reunify the “crushing” will be your rights as an autonomous territory, even if you gain economic incentives. Just think “Basic Law” “Hong Kong” “One Country Two Systems” “No direct elections in Hong Kong for 2007 and 2008!!!!” Hold on, I don’t need to get nervous. They’ve been ignoring China for a while, good thing the KMT didn’t win this election.

BEIJING, (AFP) – China has vowed to “crush” Taiwanese independence moves “at any cost” just days before President Chen Shui-bian is sworn in for a new four-year term, but it also offered to reward the island if it tows Beijing’s line.

Taiwan’s leaders must choose between recognising the island as part of the mainland or “following their separatist agenda to cut Taiwan from the rest of China and, in the end, meet their own destruction by playing with fire,” Beijing said in a tough statement carried by the official Xinhua news agency.

The state-run China Daily, on its website, put it in plain terms: “Taiwan’s leaders at crossroads — peace or war.”

While the rhetoric was fiery, the statement also spelled out incentives such as direct trade, transport links and increased access to mainland markets if Chen fell in line and acknowledged that Taiwan was part of ‘one China’.

Taiwan’s international status could also addressed as a reward for good behavior, the Communist Party’s Office for Taiwan Affairs and the Taiwan Affairs Office of the State Council said in a statement.

“However, if Taiwan leaders should move recklessly to provoke major incidents of ‘Taiwan independence’, the Chinese people will crush their schemes firmly and thoroughly at any cost,” the statement said.

Analysts said the carrot being offered indicated a policy change by Beijing after years of failing to get their way through threats.

“This is intended as a very aggressive position at a relatively sensitive time, but it also looks like Beijing is attempting a new recipe, to give Taiwan some actual choices,” said Paul Harris, a China specialist at Hong Kong’s Lingnan University.

“It is the culmination of analysis of what has and has not been achieved in the past. They are trying to remove some of the ambiguity that existed.

“I think a conscious decision has been taken by Beijing that something more concrete has to be done to resolve this situation.”

Gilles Guiheux, director of the Hong Kong-based French Center for Research in Contemporary China, saw conciliation in the statement.

“For me this is more a conciliatory statement. Yes, it is a very clear, hard warning but they are also trying to say that real progress on important issues can be made.”

Chen has angered China with his plans to write a new constitution for the island, a move Beijing thinks could snowball into demands for independence.

With tensions running high, the United States, which arms Taipei, has put pressure on Taiwan and China to map out a realistic plan for improving relations.

In the statement, Beijing described those relations as “severely tested” and said checking ‘Taiwan independence’ activities was “the most pressing task before the compatriots on both sides of the Straits”.

China sees the island as a province awaiting reunification, although it has been ruled separately since the end of a civil war in 1949.

The 950-word statement accused Chen of breaking pledges made four years ago not to change the status of Taiwan and of trying to promote independence through a referendum.

During March 20 elections, which he won by a slim margin, Chen also called on voters to back plans to strengthen military defences against 500 Chinese missiles pointed at the island and to push for peace talks with Beijing.

The referendum failed when too few people voted.

“Chen Shui-bian has left Taiwan society deeply torn with his vicious mischaracterisation of the popular will of the Taiwan people, his unbridled instigation of hostility and animosity towards the mainland, and his frenzied provocation to the status quo that both the mainland and Taiwan belong to the one and same China,” the statement said.

Chen is due to be sworn in for his next four-year term on Thursday with massive security in place following an assassination attempt on the eve of his razor-thin March election triumph.