"We hope one day that all descendants of Emperors Yen and Huang will enjoy freedom, democracy and rule of law, as we do here in Taiwan," Ma said in a New Year's address.
"Descendants of Emperors Yen and Huang" is a poetic and politically neutral reference to people who are linguistically and culturally Chinese.
"This is not a far-off dream, because these values have all been realised in Taiwan. They are not exclusive to the West. Taiwan?s experience can serve as a reference for the future development of mainland China," Ma said.
I don't dismiss this as starry-eyed wishful thinking. Indeed, given the geography of the situation and the balance of power between China on the one hand and Taiwan, America, and Japan on the other, this call for democracy is really the only way to secure Taiwan's independence and democracy in the long run.
And this is why an autocratic China simply cannot allow a democratic Taiwan to exist, despite the charm offensive that Peking aimed at Taiwan in recent years that makes it appear that China has downgraded the chances of war to bring Taiwan into mother China.
China has fallen to a Northern Expedition before. Peking's rulers don't want to be the second victim of such a small threat snowballing into defeat of communist China's rulers. There's a reason Taiwan is a core interest of China.
UPDATE: I should make it clear that the threat Taiwan poses to China does not depend on what Taiwan does (Ma can act as nice as he likes)--it is simply inherent in Taiwan's existence as a democracy while China remains communist in political organization.
