Jul
5
Can Cross-Straits Tourism Help Communist China Become More Like Democratic Taiwan?
Filed Under China, Taiwan, Tibet | 5 Comments
The China Post describes the first day of a new cross-strait commercial air travel arrangement between Taiwan and Mainland China:
More than 700 Chinese tourists arrived in Taiwan while about an equal number of Taiwanese passengers flew to China yesterday in the first wave of regular cross-straits commercial flights in nearly six decades that could transform ties between the old foes.
On the first day of the operation, a total of 753 Chinese people, including 622 tourists, 31 officials and 60 news reporters and photographers, arrived in Taiwan on nine flights from China.
This is pretty significant. Keep in mind that the communist regime in Beijing claims sovereignty over Taiwan, even though is is plainly obvious that Taiwan functions as an independent state, and that Taiwanese go about their daily lives under threat of annihilation by Chinese ballistic missiles pointed at the island. So what good can possibly come from this? Well, hopefully a great many Chinese tourists will decide that life in a liberal democracy beats life under communism. Or as Michael Turton notes his blog, The View From Taiwan:
No doubt China is pondering the consequences of letting loose thousands of middle and upper class Chinese on a nation where Asians refute every day the lie that Asians are not suited for democracy.
In fact, that refutation may have already begun. From Saturday’s Taipei Times:
Tibetans, Falun Gong practitioners and unificationists took the opportunity to highlight their causes yesterday as the first cross-strait charter flights arrived.
The groups welcomed Chinese tourists with placards proclaiming their views outside Taipei Songshan Airport on Dunhua N Road.
“Human rights for China, independence for Tibet,” Tibetans and their supporters shouted, waving the Tibetan flag as buses carrying Chinese tourists passed by. “We welcome Chinese tourists to breathe the air of freedom in Taiwan!”
Chinese visitors waved at the Tibetan demonstrators and took pictures.
As has been on display to the world recently, under Beijing’s thuggish occupation of Tibet, advocating Tibetan independence (or even going on about human rights) gets you beaten down or killed in the streets by Chinese security forces. In contemporary Taiwan, an Asian nation that only a few decades ago was a one-party dictatorship, Tibetans and advocates for independence can invite Chinese to “breathe the air of freedom.”
That’s great stuff.
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[...] Can Cross-Straits Tourism Help Communist China Become More Like …The China Post describes the first day of a new cross-strait commercial air travel arrangement between Taiwan and Mainland China:. More than 700 Chinese tourists arrived in Taiwan while about an equal number of Taiwanese passengers flew … [...]
[...] Can Cross-Straits Tourism Help Communist China Become More Like …The China Post describes the first day of a new cross-strait commercial air travel arrangement between Taiwan and Mainland China:. More than 700 Chinese tourists arrived in Taiwan while about an equal number of Taiwanese passengers flew … [...]
[...] About the author « Can Cross-Straits Tourism Help Communist China Become More Like Democratic Taiwan? [...]
[...] mike wrote an interesting post today on Can Cross-Straits Tourism Help Communist China Become More Like …. Here’s a quick excerpt: [...]
[...] notes that China has been willing to play along around the edges, such as the establishment of direct air links between Taiwan and Mainland China. But what about the big things…like Beijing’s threats of annihilation against [...]