Taiwan’s voters are inching towards a kind of closer union with the mainland

It is clear. Taiwan wants to engage in mutually beneficial trade with China - just like any other country, but does not want political integration. China should not use trade as a weapon and it should remember and be grateful that much of its own development has been fueled by Taiwanese money, technology and know-how. China has joined the WTO because it believes in free trade, so it should not a hypocrite and restrict free trade with Taiwan or condition trade with Taiwan on Taipei acceding to various Beijing demands.

What do you expect from brothers? Integration of various levels will be inevitable. Despite his harping, my DPP brothers are still that, brothers, and in their hearts.

The most important thing in China is to do something about our still miserly $3800 income. Given the intellects and hardwork of the Chinese people it is also inevitable.

The only thing can derail it is the Chinese government messes it up, but that will only delay it somewhat. Even if we fail in one attempt, it will occur again and again until it is done. Taiwan island is not going to run away.

@huyu

I am not a DPP supporter, but I am pretty sure that they don't consider you a brother...a distant cousin, maybe? Anyway, long live Free Taiwan! China will not swallow you without a fight like it did Hong Kong or Macau because we are a free country with our own military AND the backing of the US military.

Looks like the ruling KMT party is encouraging more economic and cultural union with the mainland.

But even KMT would not seek political union with the mainland, if that means its own demise.

http://www.acus.org/event/taiwan-democracy-home-abroad-domestic-election...
Some of the same thoughts as contained in the article

Taiwan's official news agency CNA just reported that 700,000 Taiwanese citizens (mostly businesspeople and their families) live in Shanghai alone, which would make it the sixth most populous Taiwanese city. These mainland Taiwanese do not vote in Taiwan's mayoral elections, but many of them will vote in the presidential election, almost all for President Ma. The process of economic integration has surely reached a point of no return.

On the political front, there has been persistent rumour that Taiwan's former vice president Lien Chan will be appointed vice president of mainland China. It's unlikely to happen, but the mere fact that such a scenario is considered possible shows how close the political relationship has grown in recent years. It's quite conceivable that within two or three decades a mutually beneficial solution would be found for the Taiwan issue, maybe a sort of federation?

Taiwan can only avoid unfication with China by refraining from closer economic partnership. Which is extremely unlikely to happen. In Taiwan's immature democracy the only real issue that sways the election towards KMT or DPP is the economy. And the easy solution for improving the economy is to continue working closer with China.

China will continue working to integrate the two economies to make them inseparable. This includes investing in Taiwan. When the China's economy is as critical to Taiwan as a main artery in your neck is to your life, China can threaten to cut off connections unless Taiwan accepts the unification. China can afford to lose Taiwan's tiny market. Taiwan will be dead without China.

It may take 10 years, it may take 50 year. It doesn't matter. In the end, Taiwan will unify with China. We can only pray that China will be a more developed country by the time the unification happens, or we will witness the death of a great democracy.

The Economist says: “At the same time most Taiwanese see the economic integration with China as inevitable.”

That’s certainly true and there is no turning back. Once economic integration is some threshold level, can the political integration by far away?

The hardcore Taiwan independence group is now a bankrupt idea among most Taiwanese as even DPP has been distancing itself from them.

Convict Chen Shui Bian’s son had to run Kaoxiong city councilman, not as a candidate of DPP but was brushed off by DPP to run as an independent candidate. He won handily with his die hard Taiwan independence group support, despite his recent court certified record of buying prostitution in Kaoxiong city.

It’s also interesting to note, some web news from Hong Kong have reported the unconfirmed possibility of electing Mr. Lien Chan, the KMT’s honorary chairman, as the Vice President of China within next few years.

@respectTaiwan'schoice

'our own military AND the backing of the US military'?

What a downtrodden slave minded no good talk is that!

http://focustaiwan.tw/ShowNews/WebNews_Detail.aspx?ID=201012030006&Type=...

"... at the results of Taiwan's recent municipal elections the ruling Kuomintang won three of the five mayoral seats up for grabs.

The narrow victory achieved by the China-friendly KMT indicates that the Taiwan people are generally satisfied with President Ma Ying-jeou's conciliatory approach to relations across the Taiwan Strait.

Nevertheless, the opposition Democratic Progressive Party (DPP), known for its pro-independence policy line, managed to overtake the KMT in the overall vote count.

This indicates that Taiwan's leaders might not be able to maintain their grip on power solely with a correct and effective cross-strait policy. If there is another change in ruling parties, the issues of national identity and cross-strait relations could be at the forefront again.

The problem lies mainly in Beijing's denial of the Republic of China's existence as a sovereign state and its relentless suppression of the ROC's international profile. The stronger Beijing's oppressive moves, the higher the pro-independence sentiment in Taiwan. This is why even though President Ma's modus vivendi approach has improved Taiwan's status at home and abroad, many people still feel the DPP's pro-independence policy could serve as a safety valve in Taiwan's engagement with China."

Anything that comes from DPP and its leader Tsai about their China policy is all rhetoric. As long as the DPP do not accept the "1992 consensus", there is no way whatsoever China is going to open the dialogue. Let's see what DPP has up on its sleeve to go around it (and time is definitely not on their side). If they do not accept the 1992 consensus, their China policy is simply a mirage, and they will consequently never ever be in government again.

Hongkong was separated for 156 years before it returned to China.

If Taiwan needs 100 years, it means another 40 years in 2050.

I can imagine what will mainland China be like in 2050 in terms of its economy, politics, and military.

It is pretty interesting to see how things have turned out for the Taiwan-China issue that has reemerged once again, but it is clear that as China grows stronger economically, more and more countries will be pressured to create stronger economic ties with China including Taiwan. If anything, it is likely that Taiwan will try to pull something similar to Hong Kong's politically-united-economically-separate deal with China except the other way around because Taiwan is a democracy whereas China is a communist nation.

This inevitable integration will affect ties between the US and China if anything because of the US's conflicting wish to protect and promote democracies (such as Taiwan) while maintaining a close relationship with China. The issue will probably lessen only because the US's hold on international issues is weakening and provoking the Chinese would only hurt them, democracy or not.

For people like "respectTaiwan'schoice", it is definitely their prerogative to claim their self-perceived superiority for a "Freedom Taiwan". It is important to note, realistically, that the future of Taiwan, freedom or not, is not going to be a choice merely by Taiwan itself, but rather a bargained outcome between powers, i.e., China and the US.

I would imagine that from Beijing's perspective, any economic or political talks with Taipei would always be "unconditional" - unconditional in the sense that the eventual merger of mainland and Taiwan would be inevitable, but not in the sense that cross straits talks would be "no-string-attached" or without preconditions. It is easy for China to maintain a "Freedom Taiwan" afer the integration, as long as such phrase of "Freedom Taiwan" is always kept under the common umbrella of Chinese sovereignty. The Chinese government has done well playing around these lines with Hong Kong. And it is just so apparent that the Chinese government is, and will be, willing to grant whatever "freedoms" to Taiwan, for so long as the sovereignty issue is tightly adhered to.

Being a financier for many years, I have witnessed the drastic change of the mainland over the past decades, as well as the internal strife that brought down the KMT government and the poor Taiwanese economy since 2000. If Taiwan is really needed to make its own choice, it would need to make a choice now, on its economic future. I don't see any panacea to heal the structural diseases of a Taiwanese economy, and the only way left to deal with this economic and social cancer is to merge with the larger, and more prosperous, mainland economy. The very trend of economic development, as it is so hard to deny that, is that it has really driven the building of superstructures. On a non-prejudice basis, I would say that Taiwan (or Taiwanese people) alone are powerless in fighting its own economic and political impasse.

In sum, like other developed economies, Taiwan needs China - but unlike others, Taiwan badly, indispensably, and inevitably needs China, which could only be possible if Taiwan integrates with the mainland.

http://focustaiwan.tw/ShowNews/WebNews_Detail.aspx?Type=aIPL&ID=20101206...

'Democracy, sovereignty, security and the right of free choice on the future of cross-Taiwan Strait relations rank among Taiwan's seven core interests in engaging with China, Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) Chairwoman Lai Shin-yuan said Monday.

Democracy is Taiwan's "basic prerequisite in addressing cross-strait relations, " said Lai at the seminar, organized by the MAC and the Institute for National Policy Research.

"We are absolutely adamant that no development in cross-strait relations and no connection between us will or can be allowed to harm the democratic way of life of the Taiwanese people."

That is why Taiwan's people should be able to freely decide their own future, she said.'

What does China, already the world's largest country in terms of population, want with yet another island?

Why doesn't China have the Confucian wisdom to let Taiwanese determine their own future?

There are plenty of comments here on long term views for the future of this island. What has been rightly pointed is that it will indeed depend a lot on China's attitude.
But what i believe many are missing is that China itself will have changed. And it will probably be profound changes. You can already see that the Chinese population is asking for a different society. Since we can assume that a bust will come after the economic boom (history seems to be always happening this way), the communist, who are already struggling to keep control of the country, will have to make changes to the current system. These changes could be profound, since most of China's society has already been transformed, except for politics.
This will be the China that will be dealing with Taiwan. Not today's odd mix of nationalism, communism, and hysteria.

I am Taiwanese but rarely do I recognise the supposed sentiments your correspondent ascribe to the Taiwanese (e.g. the PRC our "brother"? Sure, brothers the world over regularly aim thousands of SRBMs at one another 24/7), in my peers. Ditto much of what your correspondent(s) lazily claim to be factual.

Then, there's the constant disrespect your correspondent(s) show my country - by not understanding our history nor recognising that we've never been a part of the PRC. Ditto, by unwavering in your belitting of politicians in and voters of, the DPP (e.g. uneducated and working-class; I am neither).

It would be appreciated if you could at least stay neutral and, not offloading assignments to correspondents on KMT/PRC payroll.

Thank you.

I'm not Taiwanese, I'm French, but I've been living here for a while, and living with these people for even longer. And I got to say, dear Economist, Liv8 has a point.

I've never heard of any Taiwanese talking of the Chinese as "brothers". It's rather the other way around ("invaders", "colonisers", are words I heard instead, and sometime the kind "cousins" was uttered to smooth one's opinion).
It has apparently been difficult for TWese to relate to the Chinese as a big brother for a while, since even when Chang Kai Shek landed in the country with his troops, the level of education and health of the general Taiwanese population was far superior (thanks to the Japanese) to that of the soldiers following the generalissimo.
In the Taiwanese mind, at the most, China is a drunken wife-beater ("house jaguar" in Mandarin) brother that live in half of a slum and left home a long time ago to mingle with the bad kids.

Yes, it's true that most DPPs supporters are not exactly paragons of refinement (and the "Gan Ma Ying Jiou" that was recently shouted by a speaker at a recent rally didn't help too much with that).
These people, from local and lower-classes, pop-out as the strongest DPP supporters since they are those that have been the most wronged by the current state of affair (I'll pass the list of atrocities and oppression the KMT bestowed on the south and the Taiwanese identity during the dictatorship).
But it is also very clear that there is a new class of young and educated professionals that are hardcore supporters of independence. And clearly they are not happy about how they are being regarded, and how politics evolve at the moment. One can hope that they will provide the intellectual and marketing ammo to equal the KMT's propaganda machine in futures elections. Taiwan needs proper political competition to finally get a "classe dirigeante" that does its job.

Finally, yes, there is a KMT propaganda machine. And unfortunately most magasine and newspapers abroad seem to only refer to it when writing about Taiwan. I believe I have a certain legitimacy as an expatriate living here to say that the reports of the Taiwanese news we get to see abroad are lopsided.