Republic of China’s Opposition Leader, on Visit in U.S., Seeks Dialogue With People’s Republic on the Mainland, Stirs Controversy

The leader of the Republic of China’s opposition party, Cheng Li-wun , winds up a 2-week-long American campaign tour this weekend looking not for votes but for support for peace and reconciliation with the Communist regime on the mainland.America would “inevitably get involved” if war were to erupt in the Taiwan Strait that separates the island democracy from the mainland, Ms. Cheng said in an interview with NPR at the outset of her tour. The result could be “World War III,” she warned. “The whole world will suffer.”In the wake of an extraordinary meeting with the president of Communist China, Xi Jinping, whom she saw in Beijing one month before Mr. Xi’s summit with President Trump, Ms. Chang has carried a message of peace and reconciliation with Communist China to San Francisco and Los Angeles from New York, Boston and Washington.Ms. Cheng’s session with Mr. Xi was all sweetness and light, no sign of the threats that Mr. Xi loves to level against the Free Chinese government, led by a Taiwanese nationalist, President Lai Ching-te. Unlike Ms. Cheng, Mr. Lai wants to build up Taiwan’s military so it can withstand invasion by far superior Chinese forces backed up by ships and planes that encircle the island, 90 miles from the Chinese mainland.Ms. Cheng, whose Kuomintang, or Nationalist Party, has in the national assembly a slight majority over Mr. Lai’s Democratic Progressive Party, does not disagree outright with that view. Rather, in talks with members of Congress in Washington, she’s been calling for dialogue across the Taiwan Strait. Her basic message is that Mr. Xi would prefer to achieve his ultimate goal of unification with Taiwan by “peaceful means” rather than “war.”Ms. Cheng had difficulty impressing that message on Senator Dan Sullivan, a member of the Armed Services Committee, looking for a third term in November’s elections. The Taipei Times reported he had told her, “We need the KMT to join with the DPP to finish the defense budget.” Thanks to Ms. Cheng, the assembly passed a budget for $26 billion in arms purchases, way below the $40 billion advocated by Mr. Lai.Ms. Cheng’s position would seem to jibe with that of Mr. Trump, who described arms sales to Taiwan as a negotiating point with China, which is always upset by American support of the Taiwan regime.The issue is as complicated as it is controversial. Since President Carter withdrew diplomatic recognition of the Republic of China and recognized the “People’s Republic of China” in December 1978, America has provided arms and advice to Taiwan under the Taiwan Relations Act.Ms. Cheng’s opposition to Mr. Lai reflects another fact of political life in Taiwan. Her Kuomintang Party historically was helmed by Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek, who led his army together with hundreds of thousands of civilians to Taiwan from the mainland as Mao Zedong’s Red Army was pressing its victory in 1949.The KMT then waged what’s called the “White Terror” against the majority of native-born Taiwanese, who opposed the KMT and wanted to run the government. Chiang’s son, Chiang Ching-kuo, finally lifted martial law in 1987 before dying a year later.The chasm between Mr. Lai’s Democratic Progressive Party and Ms. Cheng’s KMT is an outgrowth of that era of repression of dissent. Now the differences between the DPP and KMY appear to be deepening.Ms. Cheng, in Washington, sought to show she hadn’t been taken in by Mr. Xi when they met in Beijing. No, she said, they had not talked about reunifying Taiwan with the mainland. Just talking to one another, she said, “does not mean we will give up Taiwan’s national defense capabilities.”She also said she’d like to meet Mr. Trump but left without seeing him. For that matter, Mr. Lai has yet to chat with Mr. Trump by phone even though the president, when asked about calling him, said “I talk to everybody, I believe in communication.”

Republic of China’s Opposition Leader, on Visit in U.S., Seeks Dialogue With People’s Republic on the Mainland, Stirs Controversy

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