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On August 3, Chen Shuibian made a speech on “Two Countries, Taiwan and the Mainland, One On Each Side” and called for legislation to enable a “referendum” on Taiwan's future. His action has suddenly heated up the largely tranquil situation in the Taiwan Strait and greatly increased the likelihood of an ultimate military solution to the Taiwan problem.
Chen's action was an obvious and wilful provocation and a high-stake gamble. One can only speculate on its timing. In view of the economic situation on both sides of the Taiwan Strait, its timing was absurd. For one can fairly say that ties between the two sides have undergone a sea change in recent years and Taiwan's economic future is now bound closely to the Mainland.
As the New York Times has pointed out, 25% of Taiwan's export goes to the Mainland - the largest and fastest growing export market for Taiwan's goods. And nearly half of Taiwan's major manufacturers have invested in the Mainland, with a total investment of more than US$50 billion. With Taiwan's economy at a low ebb, doing anything to provoke China into taking punitive action could be economically, if not politically, suicidal for Chen.
From the standpoint of the US, on which any “Taiwan Independence” must depend, Chen's timing is also wrong. Heading the US' list of priorities is the War Against Terror, followed by the economy and critical financial problems, which have eliminated at least for the time being any interest in a second front in Western Pacific.
Before long, the scale of the Mainland economy will reach overwhelming superiority over Taiwan. Since any country's military might and comprehensive national strength depend ultimately on its economy, by that time, even if Taiwan were willing to retain its role as the chief constantly-cheated customer of the American arms industry, given the vast difference in strength between the economies on either side of the Strait, it would be hard to see how any talk about “one country on each side” could be at all realistic.
Worse still, with the War on Terror soon becoming a Conflict of Civilisations, American military power, no matter how strong or irresistible, will still fail to win the hearts and minds of the more than one billion Muslims. More and more people have predicted that the War on Terror will become a new, long cold war, greatly reducing any appetite Washington might have for any war across the Taiwan Strait.
The New York Times was right when it said that Chen's gamble was in fact suicidal. Nevertheless, it is precisely this irrational trait that outsiders find so baffling in the Taiwanese Independence movement: an inherent urge to gamble with the basic interests of the people of Taiwan.
It is well known that the original source of the Taiwan Independence movement is Japan together with the Japanese campaign to reverse the outcome of World War II. It is not
surprising at all that Chen's “one country on each side” assertion was made to a meeting of the World Taiwanese Congress in Tokyo. The irrational fanaticism of the Taiwan Independence movement is in fact a legacy of the suicidal fanaticism so characteristic of Japanese militarism. The fact that the French media generally use the Japanese term kamikaze to label the Palestinian and Arab suicide bombers should help explain the similar fanaticism of the Taiwan Independence movement, the direct descendants of the Japanese Imperial Subjects community.
Anyone with even a minimal understanding of the Taiwan Independence movement knows that its fanatic adherents believe that as a result of their blood relations to the Japanese Imperial Subjects community they are somehow of a race different from the “Shina Jin” and naturally superior to the “Shina Jin”. That kind of a mindset and its owners' echo of Japan's on-going campaign to reverse the outcome of World War II have caused Taiwan to suffer frequent and embarrassing incidents born of Nazi worship.
A similar phenomenon can be seen elsewhere. According to a New York Times dispatch from Tokyo on July 21, quite a few militarist organisations in Japan quietly approve of the September 11 terrorist attacks and support the Palestinian suicidal assaults against Jews.
Regrettably, in its efforts and propaganda against the Taiwan Independence movement, Beijing does not seem to have ever learnt to exploit the movement's Imperial Subjects Nazi-like tendencies. Just as regrettably, its own internal vulnerabilities have made Beijing unable so far to deal via firm diplomatic means with that movement's current main source of support so as to “pull firewood from under a boiling kettle”, i.e. to remove trouble from its ultimate source.
Finally, it must be pointed out that many Chinese-language authors commenting on the “one country on each side” assertion have toed the Taiwan Independence movement's propaganda line and described the Min Nan dialect used by Chen as “Tai Yu”. It is an irresponsible practice helpful to the Taiwan Independence movment. In linguistics, Tai Yu means a language family including modern Thai, and the native languages of the Dai, the Yao and other minority ethnic groups in Southern China. The late Professor Li Fang-gui, the linguist who hailed from Xiyang and worked in the US, was the modern authority on Tai Yu.
The writer is engaged in scientific research in North America.
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8月3日，陈水扁发表“台湾、大陆一边一国”的演说，并提出要对台湾前途进行立法“公民投票”， 使得大致平静的台海局势，温度骤然上升，而台湾问题最终以军事手段解决的可能性也大幅增加。
陈水扁此举是明显的蓄意挑衅，也是一场豪赌。这使人不得不质疑陈氏这场赌搏的选时问题。从台海两岸的经济形势看来，他实在是选错了时机。可以说在过去几年来，两岸的关系已经发生了质变，台湾的经济前途，已经和大陆密切相关。
正如《纽约时报》指出，台湾的出口四分之一卖给大陆，大陆是台湾出口商品最大也成长最快的市场，台湾主要 厂商几乎一半在大陆投资，总额超过五百亿美元。台湾经济正处于低潮，陈水扁刺激中国采取惩罚性的举动，可能对自己即使不是政治自杀，也是经济自杀。
“台湾独立”必须靠美国，可是就美国的情况而言，陈水扁选的也实在不是时机。美国目前的当务之急是“反恐”战争，再加上经济和财政危机，至少暂时没有兴趣在西太平洋开辟“第二战线”。
中国大陆的经济规模不久就会达到对台湾的压倒性优势，一国的军力和综合实力，说到底取决于经济。届时即使台湾愿意继续做美国军火商的冤大头，海峡两岸如此悬殊的经济对比，“一边一国”的实际基础，从何谈起？
更糟糕的，是“反恐”战争将演变为一场“文明冲突”，美国再是船坚炮利，无往不摧，仍然无法取得对十几亿穆斯林的“攻心”胜利。越来越多的人预言“反恐”战争将是一场新的长期“冷战”，大大减少华盛顿卷入台海冲突的长远胃口。
《纽约时报》说得不错，陈水扁铤而走险，确属自杀性行为。但是外人不了解的，正是台独运动的这一非理性特征，以台湾人民的根本利益作赌注，根本不在话下。
人人都知道，台独运动的根源，在于日本，以及日本的二战翻案运动。陈水扁的“一边一国论”，乃是出自向在东京召开的“世界台湾人大会”（世台会）年会发表讲话，良有以也。而台独运动的非理性狂热，正是继承了日本军国主义的自杀性狂热。法语媒体今天普遍用“神风”的日文训读kamikaze来称呼巴勒斯坦的自杀“肉弹”，可以帮助说明日本“皇民”传人的类似狂热。
对台独运动稍有了解的人都知道，台独狂热人士认为，由于其日本“皇民”历史，他们和“支那人”属于不同的种族，而且两相比较，他们比“支那人”优越。这一心理，以及对日本的二战翻案活动的附和，使得台湾 屡屡出现崇拜纳粹的尴尬事例。
无独有偶，据《纽约时报》7月21日自东京报道，日本的不少军国主义组织暗地里赞同九一一恐怖袭击事件，并支持巴勒斯坦人对犹太人的自杀性攻击。
遗憾的是北京在其反台独努力和国际宣传中，似乎从来不曾学会利用台独的“皇民”纳粹倾向。同样遗憾的，是北京因为内部弱点，无法有效地与台独目前的靠山作强硬的外交周旋，以收釜底抽薪之效。
最后必须指出，许多华文论者在评论“一边一国论”之时，顺应台独宣传而将陈水扁演讲所用的闽南话称之为“台语”，这是不负责任地为台独张目。在语言学上，“台语”指的是包括现代泰语、中国南方傣族瑶族等少数民族语在内的语族，原籍昔阳的已故旅美语言学家李方桂教授，是台语研究的现代权威。
作者在北美从事科研工作
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