February 24, 2005
Old Enemies Becoming Friends
First the US and Russia, now this. Taiwan has softened their rhetoric towards China:
Taiwanese President Chen Shui-bian told an opposition leader Thursday that he would not shut the door on eventual unification with rival China if Beijing expressed goodwill.
China and Taiwan have always had close ties. Much like the US or Australia were very heavily “British” after gaining independence, or the former Soviet republics who still hold important cultural ties with Russia. Taiwan’s ties are even closer than the US and Britain, because there are still people alive who were around in the days of the revolution.
If it weren’t for that pesky communism thing, Taiwan and China likely never would have had a problem. I’ve thought for a long time that Taiwan would never be willing to rejoin the mainland if communism existed. Thankfully, however, China is starting to realize the folly of their grand experiment, and has been slowly moving away from communism for the last 10-15 years. China is on their way to becoming a global economic powerhouse, and Taiwan is slowly losing reasons not to re-unify.
Maybe it’s just a start, but if commercial airliners are crossing the Strait of Formosa, it’s grows ever less likely that missiles will do the same.
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The tremendous flow of capital from
Taiwan to the mainland makes the
political unification eventually
automatic.
“Maybe it’s just a start, but if commercial airliners are crossing the Strait of Formosa, it’s grows ever less likely that missiles will do the same.”
Indeed. A good recommendation and
reason for free trade everywhere.
Also, since China is basically a
de-facto partner in Wal-Mart, the
same reasons above apply.