Word: taiwan
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...growing numbers of tourists, scholars, journalists, businesspeople and even senior officials crossing the Strait in both directions have enabled China to better understand what makes Taiwan tick. Now Beijing's strategy is more nuanced. That's partly tactical: the hard-line approach was driving people to the DPP. But it's also an effort to win Taiwan hearts and minds and to show that China, too, is more complex than a caricature of a totalitarian state...
...Take the Dalai Lama episode. The opposition DPP invited him to Taiwan in order to put Ma in a spot - he'd be damned by his own people as a mainland lackey if he did not okay the visit and condemned by Beijing if he did. Ma took a gamble: he approved the trip - and bet on China's leaders appreciating his dilemma. They did. Their censure was directed solely at the DPP, with no mention of Ma whatsoever. Far from harming cross-strait relations, the Dalai Lama's visit revealed how mature those relations have become...
...less-than-stellar Morakot relief efforts. While Beijing has a big stake in Ma's political survival, it should start looking beyond the current President and the KMT and build bridges certainly to moderate DPP politicians. After all, the party could come back to power. As for those in Taiwan who still believe they can live apart from China - well, they need to get real. In today's world, no place can flourish without having a meaningful relationship with China, least of all Taiwan. In today's world, no economy can be an island...
...Strait of Taiwan was long one of the world's flash points, with the potential to draw even the U.S. into conflict. It's hard to predict the future China and Taiwan have with each other, but it's easy to imagine, given all the progress that has occurred, that war is no longer a possibility. That's something to be thankful for - and something truly deserving of a Dalai Lama's blessing...
...Read "Dalai Lama Meets Protests, Tears in Taiwan...