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An Ancient Cure for Chinese Woe 157
An Ancient Cure for Chinese Woe
HUNG, Chien-chao
Abstract
China must know the days of empires are gone. It has been an empire since 221 B.C.
What President Ronald Reagan called an evil empire of the Soviet Union crumbled with the
fall of the Berlin Wall. The British Empire came to an end much earlier. In its place has
evolved the British Commonwealth of Nations, which dropped the word “British” in 1949.
Taiwan has been a de facto independent, sovereign state since 1950 after Chiang
Kai-shek’s defeat in the Chinese civil war. China considers Taiwan a renegade province,
which has to be taken back to its fold, by force if necessary. They both want peaceful unification,
however. So does the rest of the world, at least on the record.
Peaceful unification or reunification is not impossible, if the example of the British
Commonwealth of Nations is followed. Just as Great Britain made Canada a dominion in
1867, the People’s Republic of China can give Taiwan dominion status now in preparation
for a full-fledged Chinese commonwealth. The People’s Republic and the Republic of China
in Taiwan may be united in the name of the Chinese nation. They will be equal in status
and in no way subordinate one to the other, albeit the People’s Republic may be the ex officio
head of the commonwealth. A dominion is recognized as a separate state entitled to
have separate representation in the United Nations and other world organizations, to appoint
its own ambassadors and to conclude its own treaties. At the same time, it is not considered
to stand in the same relation to the People’s Republic as foreign countries.
The Chinese commonwealth, on the other hand, may help Beijing to solve the questions
of Tibet, Xinjiang (Chinese Turkistan) and Hong Kong. They may join the Chinese
commonwealth as dominions like Taiwan. The time may come in the not-too-distant future
for Taiwan to become a dominion to keep the virtual status quo across the Taiwan Strait for
the common benefit of the whole world community.