Taiwan presidential hopeful wants peace treaty with mainlnd China

[yoMAMA]

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601089&sid=aKmMwJfeOJZk&refer=china

[kimpossible]

Taiwan's opposition Nationalist Party wants to negotiate a peace agreement with China if it wins the presidential election in 2008, seeking to end five decades of hostility, Chairman Ma Ying-jeou said.

Ma Ying-jeou's the Chairman of the Nationalist Party? Not that I should have known that but nonetheless, wow.

[friedfishribs]

At least from what I've heard from my Taiwanese friends, this reflects the sentiment of the general public. Nobody wants any aggressive policy regarding independence, they just want to preserve the status quo.

Still, there does seem to be a class disparity in Taiwan. I think most indigenous Taiwanese people (mostly poor farmers outside of the main cities) are in support of independence, while the more recent arrivals (when the KMT was ousted by the PRC) view any stance towards independence as being slightly conspiratorial.

I hope nothing comes of this. I know that China wants to create a pan-Asian empire, but I doubt America will sit idly in the wings waiting for that to happen - it'll be much more likely that the US will read any form of unification as a threat on global security, and use that as an excuse to wage war with China. In a lot of ways, Taiwan is a neo-colony of the US, and I doubt the US would want to cede it to China.

[bluemonq]

Peace agreement? Normalization? So either they're angling to gain a little on being even more de facto independent, or they want to be like the IRA...

[shane]

I wonder where Taiwan would be today if the KMT learned from their loss of the mainland that appealing to the urban elite is not enough to stave off the opposition party. Oh well.

From what I can tell by watching their news, a majority of Taiwan's Chinese urban citizens have been clamoring for President Chen's resignation amid the allegations of corruption. Can anyone give any background information on this? And how likely is it that KMT will win in 2008, or is it too soon to tell?