Taiwan Tati Cultural and Educational Foundation

Despite the occasional suggestion by a handful of US academics that Washington should “abandon” Taiwan to its “inevitable” fate of unification with China, a good number of experts and officials maintain that the nation of 23 million cannot simply be willed out of existence and must therefore be dealt with.

Welcome though this defense of Taiwan may be, a surprisingly large number of such proponents, often in the same breath, add that democratic Taiwan is useful because it serves as an example for China, encouraging the incremental democratization and liberalization of the authoritarian giant next door.

On Oct. 17, President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) discussed the idea of a peace treaty with China within the next decade. He said that Taiwan would consider moving in the direction of such an agreement if it had strong public backing, met the genuine needs of the country and could be carried out under the supervision of the legislature.

In another press conference on Thursday, Ma tried to make the idea of a peace treaty more palatable to the voting public by saying that a referendum on the issue could be considered.