There may be good reasons to do this, but this decision will make it easier for the Chinese to invade Taiwan:
Taiwan plans to sign a pact with China next month on weekend charter flights, the first move towards dropping Taipei's five-decade ban on direct flights with China, according to a newspaper report Sunday. The Economic Daily News said Taiwan plans to send Chiang Ping-kun, KMT party's vice chairman and chairman of the Straits Exchange Foundation (SEF), to Beijing next month to sign the charter flight pact.
A surprise invasion would be led off by Chinese units unloading from civilian ships in Taiwanese ports and could now be supplemented by chartered flights of softball teams, and bowling teams, and chess teams from China that all seem to be made up of burly young men with short hair.
Don't be confused about a charm offensive by Peking exploiting their dead when the mainland Chinese believe they own Taiwan and the present status quo is just something to be changed.
And with this development on Taiwan, the clock is ticking for China to absorb the island democracy without too much resistance:
His wife may have been indicted for graft and his anti-China rage upset major ally the United States, but departing President Chen Shui-bian charted Taiwan's future by firming up its self-identity and cooling down Beijing.
Chen's local identity push and his pressure on China, which claims Taiwan as its own, are likely to endure, forcing incoming President Ma Ying-jeou to co-opt some of those issues if he wants to reach out to opponents, experts say.
That is, China was put on defense to ward off formal independence moves by Taiwan rather than pressing Taiwan for absorption talks; and the people on Taiwan feel more Taiwanese than Chinese now.
For the Taiwan question, time is not on China's side, I think. But should it come to an invasion, the Chinese will make up some of that time by using civilian assets to put the first wave on the ground before the Taiwanese defenses can be alerted.
