Beijing is seeking to undermine the authority of Taiwan’s central government by creating bilateral dependencies and sowing division within society. It has been going on for quite a while.
The News Lens
Date: 2016/09/19
By: J. Michael Cole
Top representatives from eight municipalities in Taiwan controlled by the pan-blue camp visited China at
Photo Credit: 徐耀昌
the weekend for talks with Chinese officials and to promote tourism and agricultural produce as Beijing shows Taipei the cold shoulder for its refusal to acknowledge the so-called 1992 consensus.
Besides belonging to the same camp — six of the eight city and county government heads belong to the Kuomintang (KMT) and two others are blue-leaning independents — all eight representatives have stated they recognize the “1992 consensus,” which an inflexible Beijing has set as a precondition for cross-Strait exchanges.
Having frozen most (albeit not all) the official communication mechanisms between the central governments on both sides of the Taiwan Strait, Beijing is now accelerating its efforts to bypass the central government in Taipei and rewarding local governments that agree to say what it wants. In return, the heads of those eight municipalities hope to reap the benefits of Chinese tourism and better market access for their produce. In other words, they are agreeing to form a clientelistic relationship with China. [FULL STORY]
