csua.org/u/mpw -> www.nytimes.com/aponline/world/AP-AS-Taiwan-Chinese-Scuffle.html?ref=world
Ma Ying-jeou's policy of greater engagement with Beijing. The attack on Vice Chairman Zhang Mingqing of the Association for Relations Across the Taiwan Strait is a personal embarrassment to Ma, who has made closer economic and political ties with the communist mainland the centerpiece of his new administration.
In Tuesday's attack, about a dozen protesters surrounded Zhang at a Confucian temple in the southern city of Tainan, then knocked him to the ground while shouting anti-communist and pro-independence slogans. Zhang was helped to his feet by an escort and rushed to a waiting vehicle. A middle-aged man stomped and banged on the vehicle but did not attempt to prevent it from leaving the scene. He was formerly the spokesman for Beijing on Taiwan affairs, often depicted on Taiwanese television as making strident comments that many Taiwanese regarded as offensive. The attack on Zhang comes several weeks before a more significant visit by Chen Yun-lin, Zhang's boss and the point man in pushing for unity across the 100-mile-wide Taiwan Strait. That visit is supposed to provide tangible evidence of reduced tensions between Taipei and Beijing and give Ma's program of greater engagement with the mainland a big boost. The program -- unveiled during Taiwan's lengthy election campaign -- features regular direct flights across the strait, increased Chinese tourism, and a more liberalized regime for bilateral investments. Ma has also advocated a formal peace treaty with Beijing -- though without going into specifics. China continues to claim the island as part of its territory and has threatened to invade if it ever moves toward formal independence. Promises of better relations with China helped propel Ma's Nationalists to an overwhelming victory in legislative elections in January, and the presidential poll two months later. A key factor was popular displeasure over Chen's China brinksmanship -- Beijing regularly excoriated him for insisting that the island and the mainland are two separate countries -- and a growing Taiwanese belief that closer links with Beijing would provide a much needed spark for the island's laggard economy. But since then, the bloom on the China rose has faded, as Ma's promises of a brighter economic day have largely fizzled, and Taiwanese have watched in dismay as health inspectors have stripped supermarket shelves of a succession of tainted Chinese food products. Tuesday's assault on Zhang reflected a profound lack of agreement among Taiwanese on how relations with China should proceed, said political scientist Hsu Yung-ming of Taipei's Soochow University. The DPP is particularly miffed at Ma's readiness to compromise with China on symbols that Chen put at the forefront of his own pro-independence administration -- particularly his insistence that the island should be referred to officially as ''Taiwan'' rather than the Nationalists' ''Republic of China'' formulation. The rally is seen as a litmus test of whether Ma can ride out the current wave of DPP-led China discontent, or whether his ambitious attempts to dampen one of the post-World War II world's most enduring political conflicts will come up short. A large crowd -- say in excess of 150,000 -- would provide ballast to the DPP's claims that Ma is out of touch with Taiwanese opinion, while a smaller turnout would suggest that notwithstanding Tuesday's incident in Tainan, the new president is well on course.
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