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Should Taiwan be United with China?

Peter Kao

In 1972, the Taiwan government was reluctant to see the joining of the People’s Republic China into the World Health Organization and gave up its membership. From that time on, we have been the main target aimed by the P.R.C. and they have blocked away what we should deserve, including medical information, assistance, and basic humane care from international communities.

In 1979, Taiwan announced to withdraw from the United Nations because of the joining of the People’s Republic of China. From that time on, we have been facing a series of diplomatic, economic, and political setbacks due to China’s suppression. From that time on, we have been ruled out from many international communities and lost our country’s status in the world.

On May 14^th 2001, we were disappointed and frustrated at the World Health Organization again because of China’s intentional interference and suppression.

“To be or not to be, that is a question,” said Shakespeare. “To be united as a part of China or to be separated as an independent country is an extremely controversial issue for Taiwan,” I said. For a long period of time, Taiwan has been facing this dilemma. Whether or not Taiwan should be united with China is always a question because we were once together as a whole country and once separate from each other. Around ninety five years ago, there was just one China with two major political parties: the Kuomintang Party and the Communist Party, and they even fought together against the arch-rival, the Japan Empire. Later, unfortunately, when the Communist Party rebelled and decided to take over the whole country and established their own government, the Kuomintang Party gave up and left mainland China for Taiwan in 1949. Since then the Kuomintang Party has put down their roots in Taiwan for over five decades.

The general public has different viewpoints regarding the issue of uniting Taiwan and China. Some say that our identity of Taiwan would be obscured by China once Taiwan is united with China. Others warm us that we would be strictly ruled by the Communist system in which the dwellers in mainland China have suffered greatly and been tortured for years. Thus, we would lose freedom and decline the efforts we have put toward the democratic system. We are deeply concerned about all the potential problems that may occur if we are united with China, because we unceasingly advocate the value of democracy. As for my personal point of view, I think that we should   consider the possibility of uniting Taiwan and China. My reasons can be boiled down to two points. One is aiming at the development of international relationships with other countries, and the other is targeting for the domestic welfare. 

Some people may assert that the international recognition of Taiwan would be obscured or veiled by China once Taiwan is united with China. Nevertheless, I would emphasize that “Union is strength.” According to the record, we using Taiwan as our national identity have been declined for nearly ten times when we applied for the membership of the World Health Organization (WHO). The reason is that Taiwan is regarded as a province, not as a country, by China and many other countries in the WHO. As we know, the first requirement for a country to join the WHO as a member is that it must be a real country. As a result of it, we have been declined by the committee of WHO for several times. Under this circumstance, have you ever thought about what benefits we could get if we are untied with China? As a matter of fact, the benefits of uniting Taiwan and China would be far more than what we could get if we become an independent country. We would no longer need to “shed our blood” and drown into a whirl pool of a series of uncertainties for our self-identity.

Do you still remember the over-spread epidemic disease, Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS), which stroke Taiwan devastatingly in 2003? Thousands of Taiwan dwellers were quarantined in the hospitals in every city or county. During that time, although people vowed that we would fight against SARS, we lost over ten nurses and medical technicians. Not only did we feel fearful of the disease, but we also felt angry at the WHO because they did not offer hands to assist us. “How come they do not help us,” we questioned. That is because we were and we are not a member of the WHO. If both the Communist Party and the Democratic Progressive Party could meet halfway and be united with each other, what would it be like? The answer is clear. We would be recognized as a whole nation and therefore get our feet into the WHO and gain our recognition from many other international communities. If we are in one nation, we could improve our diplomatic relationships worldwide.

Second, although some people would say that, if being united, we would be ruled by the Communist Party and suffer terribly from the authoritarian regime, I would say it may not exactly be the case. I do not think that uniting Taiwan and China means that we are going to be completely ruled by the Communist Party. Why? The reason is quite simple. We still want to maintain our self-identity of being Taiwan people and never surrender to China. We can follow the way China is using now to govern Hong Kang: “One Country, Two Systems.” That is, we admit that there is only one China while at the same time we self-rule ourselves using the democratic system that we have carried out for over five decades. By doing so, we can enjoy much more domestic resources than before. As everybody knows the fact, China’s population is over 1.3 billion, which would help us speak even louder than any other countries in the world. As for the mutual relationships between mainland China and Taiwan, both sides would benefit from each other. To illustrate, because of the low birth rate in Taiwan in recent years, more and more elementary and junior high school teachers are worried about losing their jobs and many “teachers-on-the-street” who already have a teacher’s license cannot find a teaching job in public schools. If we are in one nation, those teachers can be hired to teach in mainland China and solve the problem of having too many teachers in Taiwan. Furthermore, since Taiwan is becoming an aging society, we can hire young people from China to work here and impose taxes on their income after being united. Then the government can use a large sum of taxes to promote social welfare particularly for the elderly. If so, we do not need to worry that the number of the youth is getting lower than the number of the elderly in Taiwan. We can have young people from China take care of the elderly and work in Taiwan.

To sum up, what I must emphasize is all the benefits that we can get after being united with China. One is that we will make a great progress in our international relationships with other countries, and the other is that we can effectively expand our inland resources. For the development of international relations, we will raise the recognition of Taiwan in many international communities. With regard to the domestic benefit, we can solve the problems of low birth rates and high life expectancy. Since many people in the world say that mainland China is an “Awakened Giant,” why should we be afraid of him? Why not break the ice and share the bright future together with them? Then, we will be the best country in the world.