DANNY MOK DANNY.MOK@SCMP.COM
PUBLISHED : Thursday, 12 November, 2015, 7:02am
UPDATED : Thursday, 12 November, 2015, 7:02am
Former Hong Kong governor Chris Patten on a post-handover visit to the city
A peaceful reunification of the mainland and Taiwan remains unlikely, says former Hong Kong governor Chris Patten, in an analysis of the historic recent meeting between presidents Xi Jinping and Ma Ying-jeou.
In an article titled “A Chinese Dinner For Two” on theProject Syndicate, the former EU commissioner for external affairs and now the chancellor of the University of Oxford says a peaceful reunification is still unlikely unless done on the basis of “one country, two systems”.
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“But the Taiwanese cannot be very reassured by what they see happening today in Hong Kong, which was promised the same thing before its return to China in 1997,” he adds.
Patten also says the example of Hong Kong had suggested that China would have to force Taiwan to give up democracy and the rule of law, or embrace both itself, before it could welcome its “renegade province” back into the fold.
“Xi’s initiative [to meet Taiwan’s leader Ma] shows the extent to which he dominates Chinese politics. A weaker leader could not have taken such an ambitious step, which represents a real break with past Communist orthodoxy,” he writes.
Patten says there appear to be two reasons why Xi would meet Ma.
One is that Xi is worried about Taiwan’s ruling Kuomintang party, which lost last year’s local elections in a landslide and might face repeated blows in the presidential and legislative elections in January. In meeting Ma, Patten says, Xi may have been trying to bring the Beijing-friendly party electoral benefits by showing both sides could get along without too much trouble.
The other reason, he says, may have been that Xi was eager to radiate peace-loving ambitions when the Chinese economy was slowing amid rising regional tensions.
The Prague-based Project Syndicate publishes and syndicates commentary and analysis on global affairs from academics, scientists, activists, economists, politicians and world-known figures
Its membership includes about 500 media outlets in more than 150 countries.
http://m.scmp.com/news/hong-kong/politics/article/1878041/peaceful-reunification-mainland-and-taiwan-unlikely-despite
