Los Angelese Times
March 2 6, 2017
By: Ralph Jennings

Wang Hao thrived during her semester as an exchange student in Taiwan. As a native

Wang Hao, left, a university undergraduate from northeastern China, poses with a fellow mainland Chinese student, center, and a local classmate at Ming Chuan University in Taipei, Taiwan. (Ralph Jennings / For The Times) (Ralph Jennings / For The Times)

of mainland China, she found it exotic to hang out with Taiwanese students, sitting under a thicket of banyan trees and listening to local bands.

Now a fourth-year undergraduate at Dalian University of Technology, Wang wants more people from the mainland to see Ming Chuan University, where she studied in Taipei. So she supports the Chinese government’s insistence that Taiwanese schools issue pro-Beijing statements to ensure that they can be trusted politically.

Taiwan and China have been at odds for seven decades and Beijing has never dropped the threat of military force. Taiwanese President Tsai Ing-wen contests Beijing’s idea that her island and China belong under one flag. Her refusal to honor the “one China” concept irritates the communist leadership and stopped earlier dialogue between the two sides.    [FULL  STORY]