Under the Ma Ying-jeou government’s policy of rapid economic, cultural and political integration with China, the nation could be annexed by China within the next few years through the signing of a “peace accord,” internal subversion orchestrated by Beijing, or a Chinese invasion of Taiwan to which the Ma government will acquiesce.
That's grim, although the author believes that Taiwan's absorption into China would lead to China's destruction, apparently by leading to war with the United States and Japan eventually (though moments later, the author says Japan could become a Chinese client state rather than being a war-time ally of America, so I'm not sure what the real worry is supposed to be).
I still find it hard to believe that someone who is elected to rule a free people would deliberately try to give away that freedom. Ma is surely naive, but could he really be that devious? A Manchurian Candidate of his own free will for China on Taiwan?
The author's "bright spot" that in the long run, China would be wrecked by taking Taiwan, isn't much to make the Taiwanese feel better. Even if Taiwan is a poison pill for China, the pill still gets dissolved in the process ...
This article has a better overview of Taiwanese politics, and even quotes the blogger Michael Turton. Things aren't quite as dire as the first article makes it. Yes, Taiwan under the KMT has some anti-democratic tendencies, but the KMT is likely fissured:
In an editorial in the Taipei Times last fall, Jacobs noted that "the KMT still remains unreformed, but party reform has become even more urgent".
In the editorial, Jacobs said, "The KMT center, and not the Democratic Progressive Party, has become the most important opposition to the Ma government." Jacobs cites open rebellion from KMT legislators, as well as harsh criticism of Ma appearing in pro-KMT newspapers - as well as on the KMT's own news website, KNN.
It seems to me that in the long run, the KMT will evolve more toward the DPP's positions (going native, so to speak) on maintaining de facto if not legal independence from China--assuming the KMT doesn't fatally weaken Taiwan's ability to defend itself in the short run. Right now the main problem is that the judiciary is politicized and pro-KMT. Hence, prosecutions of DPP politicians is suspiciously political.
Still, I don't think that events are running in China's favor in the long run--which is why I don't believe for one moment that China's communist rulers have decided to abandon the option of force and wait for Taiwan to voluntarily join the mainland.
