Dec 19th, 2008 | BEIJING -- China said Saturday it is willing to help Taiwan boost its economy if it requires assistance to weather the world economic slowdown.A détente? How did the two get off their respective rhetorical ledges and pledge this kind of collaboration? Is this a form of realpolitik from China- that better a KMT you know than the DPP you don't? Or has the consequence of the international financial meltdown been so severe that it brought down, among other things, 60 years of animosity?
Regardless, this is most definitely a positive development, to say nothing of the economic complementarity between a capital-rich country and a labor-rich country. It is a mutually beneficial economic collaboration.
What is the ultimate end game politically? I suppose one possibility is that the Taiwan joins China on the condition that KMT can contest in all elections against the CCP (C in name only, as it were). Is this likely? Will the CCP willing to let go that much power. I want to say no, but I also didn't think this kind of cooperation was going to happen any time soon, so what do I know?
2 comments:
isn't it the case that when people are put in a life or death (in this case a financial life or death) situation, that animosity and competition go out the window and the gratitious nature of man is exposed. I seem to recall reading that during the Great Depression friends and foes alike banded together to weather the dust bowl and help each other with food and shelter even when they had barely enough for themselves. Maybe this is a global reminder that even the mighty fall and in the end, rich or poor, we are all just human.
Nothing like financial armageddon so as to remind us our shared frailty eh?
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