Taiwanese Denounce Anti-Secession Plan

Chinese Foreign Minister Li Zhaoxing on Sunday adopted a hard line toward Taiwan in advance of the expected passage this week of a controversial law aimed at legally binding the island to the mainland.

A few hundred miles across the Taiwan Strait, thousands of demonstrators denounced the proposed law, burning Chinese flags and promising to fight what they said were Beijing’s heavy-handed tactics.

In a news conference during the annual, 10-day National People’s Congress, which opened Saturday, Li said China’s differences with the United States and Japan should be resolved through dialogue. But Beijing would not tolerate interference in its bid to reunite with Taiwan, he said.

Last month, Japan joined the United States in citing security in the Taiwan Strait as a concern, breaking with Tokyo’s tradition of remaining ambiguous about the issue.

“Any practice of putting Taiwan directly or indirectly into the scope of Japan-U.S. security cooperation constitutes an encroachment on China’s sovereignty and interference in internal affairs,” Li told reporters.

Taiwan fears that the anti-secession law could be used as a legal pretext to attack the self-governing island of 23 million if it formally declares independence. Washington also has expressed its reservations on the measure, fearing that it would alter the status quo between the two adversaries.

More than 15,000 people marched in Taiwan’s second-largest city of Kaohsiung, one of two demonstrations held Sunday.

“Taiwanese, stand up!” protesters chanted, wearing red headbands. “Oppose China’s hegemony!”

“You have a choice between becoming masters of your own democratic country, or being enslaved in the communist country,” former Taiwanese President Lee Teng-hui, a strong advocate for independence, told the demonstrators, which included young parents pushing baby strollers.

President Chen Shui-bian and Vice President Annette Lu did not attend the Kaohsiung demonstration or the second march, held by the ruling Democratic Progressive Party in Taipei, the capital, apparently not wanting to provoke Beijing.

But Su Tseng-chang, chairman of Chen’s party, told a group of 2,000 protesters in Taipei that the president would lead 500,000 Taiwanese in street marches if China passed the law.

Hsu Hao-jiun, a 27-year-old army officer walking in a Taipei night market, said he didn’t know a lot about the law but opposed the idea.

“This is a Chinese tactic to swallow up Taiwan,” he said.

Taiwan separated from the mainland politically in 1949 after a protracted civil war, but Beijing claims the island as part of its territory and has threatened to use force if Taipei formally declares independence.

Beijing has revealed little about the content of the legislation even as it oils the machinery to pass the law at the Communist Party’s convention.

Chen and officials in his administration have softened their rhetoric in recent weeks. This has led some to fear that a toughly worded law could anger the Taiwanese, reversing the recent modest easing of tensions and emboldening pro-independence candidates in the island’s National Assembly elections in May.

Some Chinese analysts said the law was a preemptive step sparked by Chen’s threat last year to hold a referendum on independence.

“When Chen Shui-bian talks about voting on a referendum, we’re saying, we can also take legal steps backed by 1.3 billion people,” said Mei Renyi, a professor with Beijing Foreign Studies University.

“That said, I still think there’s some maneuvering room on how Beijing implements it or brings it into practice.”

China appears to be struggling to find the right tone toward Taiwan.

On Saturday, Premier Wen Jiabao adopted what appeared to be a relatively accommodating line in his policy speech to the rubber-stamp legislature. That was followed by Li’s tougher language Sunday.

Li, a former ambassador to the United States, also tried to downplay concerns that China’s growing international clout would lead to a more confrontational approach in its foreign policy.

Washington has expressed concern that the possible end of a European Union ban on weapons sales to China, imposed after the bloody 1989 crackdown in Tiananmen Square, could destabilize cross-strait relations. The United States, Taiwan’s main arms supplier, is legally bound to defend the island if it comes under attack.

Analysts agreed that lifting the ban would probably not have a major effect on China’s effort to modernize its army, but said it could rattle the region in other ways.

“It is already producing further friction between the U.S. and Europe, which can rebound to China’s benefit,” said Michael Swaine, a senior associate with the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace in Washington. “And Japan’s movement toward a greater level of involvement in a potential Taiwan Strait conflict reinforces a larger deterioration in Sino-Japanese relations, which benefits no one.”

Li denied Sunday that China would go on a spending spree if the EU ban were lifted.

“China is a developing country, and we don’t have the money to buy a lot of weapons from your countries that are expensive and useless to us,” he said.

Magnier reported from Beijing and special correspondent Tsai from Taipei.