Accepting one-China principle the only way out for Tsai
West African nation Burkina Faso’s resumption of diplomatic relations with China on Saturday is anything but a surprise. Admitting that there is only one China and Taiwan is an inalienable part of China is non-negotiable if any country wants to develop diplomatic ties with China.
What Taiwan’s secessionists feel about the island’s declining number of “diplomatic allies” and what the island’s leader Tsai Ing-wen says about it makes no difference. There is nothing her administration can do to turn the tide.
As an increasing number of Taiwan’s “diplomatic allies” sever official ties with the island and seek diplomatic relations with the Chinese mainland, the island will become increasingly isolated and its international space will further shrink.
It has become increasingly evident that it is in the interests of the island for Tsai to acknowledge the 1992 Consensus and accept the fact that there is only one China and Taiwan is part of China. On that basis, amicable relations across the Taiwan Straits would be able to resume.
It is high time that Tsai reflected on her refusal to acknowledge the 1992 Consensus. Although it has given the island’s secessionists a shot in the arm, it has chilled cross-Straits relations. Without her ill-oriented mainland policy, the island’s executive head Lai Ching-te would not have gone so far as to explicitly declare himself as a “worker for Taiwan independence” and claimed that the island is a “sovereign and independent country”.
What the secessionists have been up to is at the expense of the well-being of Chinese compatriots on the island and of the future of the island as well.
But the rapid shrinking of its international space and worsening of its economy in the past two years since Tsai Ing-wen took office as the leader in 2016 suggests that seeking “Taiwan independence” is a dead end and the room in which the secessionists can maneuver is becoming increasingly small.
For the well-being of the people on the island and for its peaceful reunification with the mainland, accepting the one-China principle is the only way out.
There is no chance at all for the island to secede from China whatever the secessionists do.