The Competing Clowns for Plotting Taiwan Independence: Short Selling or Doing Something Foolish by Getting Themselves Burned?

The Competing Clowns for Plotting Taiwan Independence: Short Selling or Doing Something Foolish by Getting Themselves Burned?

United Daily News Editorial (Taipei, Taiwan)

May 18, 2020

 Translation of an Excerpt

Legislator Tsai Yi-yu et al. introduced an amendment bill to the "Statute Governing Cross-Strait People’s Relations" and another amendment bill to the "Additional Articles of the Constitution", attempting to delete the wording "prior to national reunification", changing them to "national development". In the end, because the dispute was too enormous, they recently withdrew the bill on their own initiative. For this, Tsai Yi-yu called himself a "clown" in order to dissipate the embarrassment, as if it were political reverberations that occurred accidentally. In reality, the degree of danger could be compared to dancing on the brink of a deep abyss.

This was a drama involving constitutional reform that died in its sleep; for Tsai Ing-wen, it could be either short-selling, or it could also be doing something foolish for the DPP by getting itself burned. In the former, it was fabricating external pressure through the action of amending the constitution, then exhibiting goodwill on the pretext of external pressure, meaning that at the crucial moment of the forthcoming second term, it hoped to secure bargaining chips for interaction with Beijing. In the latter, if the original goal was doing something foolish by getting the DPP itself burned, it was only a failed attempt, then in such a case, it would only leave more markings of a knife for the shorter and shorter salami.

Whether it is short selling or doing something foolish by getting itself burned, once Pandora's box of de jure Taiwan independence is opened, many politicians would continue to manipulate, each seeking what he wants. On the May 20^th inaugural, Tsai Ing-wen should be on double alert: Taiwan is glaring at the abyss of war, and the abyss is beckoning Taiwan.

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