Resolution for 2009: Put everything in focus internationally

Across the Taiwan Strait, there were the Sichuan earthquake that killed 80,000 people; the tainted milk scandal that killed many infants and sickened thousands. There were a few bright spots, however. The Beijing Olympics and their million-strong volunteers were praised by International Olympic Committee President Jacques Rogge as “exceptional”; Ma Ying-jeou's triumph in the March election in Taiwan that was a moment of pride for Taiwan's democracy; and America's election of Barack Obama, the first black presidential candidate, to the White House.

When we say adieu to the tumultuous Year of the Rat and are embracing the Year of the Ox, we should look into the future, especially with regard to the development of our relations with mainland China and with the United States in a historical perspective, well beyond the phenomena that distract us from the locus of the problem. In short, we should stop being shortsighted.

Thirty or 40 years from now, people would view the anti-Chen Yunlin protest in November 2008 as laughable. Why? Because time will have changed a lot of things and solved many of the problems confronting us today, like the one-China issue, the 1992 consensus, the one country, two system controversy. Fifty years ago, Mao Zedong vowed to “liberate Taiwan” with a bloodbath, while Chiang Kai-shek swore to “counterattack and retake” the mainland he lost to Mao in 1949. Even as recent as two decades ago, the so-called “three-no's” was still the be-all, end-all in dealing with the mainland. Now “three links” has become the order of the day. Is that Taiwan has betrayed Chiang? Or has the mainland spurned Mao?

No. Times have changed. And they will keep changing. That's why we should stop being shortsighted, and dare to look farther, a decade or two from now, and beyond. The China problem, or the Taiwan problem for that matter, will not be a problem if it is put into historical perspective. Taiwan's pro-independence, pan-green separatists need not fear so much of the mainland and be so paranoid about being “swallowed” by China which is preoccupied with more pressing matters at home.

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