The simple truth about the Chinese KMT and Taiwanese

[Luby Liao]

The Chinese KMT's strategy to annex Taiwan to China is simple: 

• open the floodgate of Chinese immigrants to Taiwan, and simultaneously entice Taiwanese people to flock to China.
• weaken Taiwan's defence by cutting the defense budget and reducing conscription.

During Ma Ying-jeou's reign, he cut the defense budget to under 2% of GDP and reduced conscription to four months.  

His Cross-Strait Service Trade Agreement was the framework for mass cross-migration. He nearly succeeded, only to be thwarted at the last minute by the unexpected Sunflower movement.  If Ma had succeeded, today's Taipei would feel like a Chinese city like Shenzhen 深圳, with Chinese everywhere, overwhelming the local population.  It could turn into Urumqi, the capital of East Turkistan, or Sinkiang, 新疆維吾爾自治區, where the Han have overrun the natives.  See what the mass cross-immigration does to the city.  Now, Han constitutes the absolute majority, while the natives make up a paltry 24% minority.  

乌鲁木齐市的人口以汉族为主，约占总人口的76%，其次是维吾尔族，约占11%，回族约占9%。

Even today, most Taiwanese remain unaware that they nearly lost their country in 2014. 

The Chinese KMT follows Ma's playbook to this day.

Cheers, Luby

Sent with Mixmax

[Luby Liao]

Taiwanese! Listen up!

 

台灣人不要再選出讓台灣淪為中國內政、讓中國「移民實邊」的中共代言人！

（李筱峰專欄）中國「移民實邊」的現代版

2025/09/15 05:30

國共兩黨的教育，最愛吹噓「中華民族是愛好和平的民族」。然而，一個原本只是在今河南一帶及黃河中下游流域的「中原」地區，後來能發展成偌大的中華帝國，絕非「愛好和平」所致，相反的，大帝國的完成，靠的是武力擴張，亦即中國國民黨課本所吹噓的「武功蓋世，聲威遠播」。在「武功蓋世，聲威遠播」的過程中，除了傳統帝國的武力之外，還有「移民實邊」的措施。

何謂「移民實邊」？即統治者派遣移民到邊疆地區，以增加統治及防衛力量，同時也對當地產生文化同化、經濟控制作用。

例如，公元前二世紀，漢武帝實施屯田制，派遣漢族移民到西域、南越等邊疆進行拓墾；唐朝時大量漢族移民進入河西走廊、四川、雲南等地；滿清政權也大量派遣漢族移民到俄羅斯邊區，以及東突（「新疆」）等地進行「開荒」，加強對邊疆的控制。

以上都是中國「移民實邊」的史例，對擴展領土、加強統治和文化同化都有既深且鉅的影響。

當今中華人民共和國有無「移民實邊」的政策呢？當然有，而且於今尤烈！中共政權除了對圖博（「西藏」）、東突（「新疆」）進行高壓屠殺之外，也大量移入漢人。

以重新劃分「西藏」版圖的方式，將原有的東藏和前藏的大部土地劃入四川、雲南、甘肅和青海等省份，並移入大量漢人，企圖讓藏人成為少數，以利控制。

對「新疆」亦然，中國大肆移入漢人（一九九六年期間，曾一天移入一萬人），讓維吾兒的本地人成為少數。而且中國移民分配到容易取得水源之地，以致當地農民的土地缺水，不得已棄耕他去找工作。

台灣不是中華人民共和國的領土，中共管轄不到，能「移民實邊」嗎？他們以變相的途徑，例如結婚，移民來台。根據內政部移民署資料，截至二○二四年二月底，台灣共有卅八萬四千多名中國配偶移入。如果真與台灣人兩情相悅結婚來台，我們也只能祝福。然而，台灣本土離婚率僅十％，而中配的離婚率竟高達四十五％，原來他們買台灣人頭假結婚做為移民台灣的途徑，拿到台灣身份後立即離婚。目前中配來台離婚的人口已達十五萬人，且還不斷增加中。

她（他）們為了能享用台灣健保，和勞退制度，甚至為了繼承遺產，可以不擇手段，當起收屍大隊！離婚後還能讓家屬依親，家屬也繼續享用健保。台灣健保會被這些移民搞垮！

而且他們離婚後依舊擁有投票權，影響台灣大選。本地台灣人必須滿廿歲才有投票權，而中配只需來台六年就能投票。況且藍白黨現在還立法要讓他們從六年縮短為四年，加速中配取得台灣身份證，幫中共加速洗人口。這變相的「移民實邊」策略，竟然是透過中共在台的代言人在立法院執行。

呼籲政府，離婚後的中配必須取消其台灣身份和健保，才能終結買人頭假結婚現象。或問，他國配偶離婚為何不比照？答曰，其他國家沒有要併吞台灣，不會對台「移民實邊」。

此外，也該杜絕變相服貿貨貿的離島建設條例，引進中國醫院、中資、替中國洗產地。因為這也是異曲同工的「移民實邊」。

台灣人不要再選出讓台灣淪為中國內政、讓中國「移民實邊」的中共代言人！

（作者李筱峰是台北教育大學名譽教授）

Sent with Mixmax

[Luby Liao]

Some voices have been calling for more US dialogue with the KMT. The truth is the US has been shouting at the KMT for months now. The party is well aware of the US position and obviously, well aware of what it is doing. There is no point in further dialogue, since it merely hands the KMT another opportunity to delay and divide.
It is long past time for the US to take serious, meaningful action against the KMT.

 

The defense budget Taiwan needs — and the one the KMT killed

Taiwan has the technology to build a devastating asymmetric defense against a Chinese invasion — but the KMT’s proposed budget removes the very programs designed to make it possible

• By Michael Turton / Contributing reporter
• • 
   
  • 
   
  • 

Last week the government announced that by year’s end Taiwan will have the highest density of anti-ship missiles in the world. Its inventory could exceed 1,400, or enough for the opening two hours of an invasion from the People’s Republic of China (PRC). Snark aside, it sounds impressive. But an important piece is missing.

Lost in all the “dialogues” and “debates” and “discussions” whose sole purpose is simply to dawdle and delay is what the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) alternative special defense budget proposal means for the defense of Taiwan. It is a betrayal of both Taiwan and the US.

IT’S THE MINES, STUPID

Graphic: TT

Wen Lang-tung (溫朗東), a political commentator who writes at Fount Media, published a long piece last week explaining why the KMT’s proposed budget is so wrong.

In its opening attacks on Iran, the US destroyed Iran’s navy and air force. However, Iran still has powerful asymmetric capabilities, among them small fast boats that drop 2-3 mines each in the Strait of Hormuz. These mines have shut the Strait down, and the US lacks a counter to them. Kill a few, and many remain, with many possible launching points, Wen writes.

Ukraine has similarly pioneered the use of small unmanned craft to destroy ships. With that technology in mind, unmanned mine-laying drones have been developed. They can be pre-positioned, Wen writes, operate despite GPS and communications jamming, and navigate autonomously.

A soldier launches an attack drone during exercises last month

Photo: Wang Yi-sung, Taipei Times

American defense authorities last year spoke of turning the Taiwan Strait into a “Hellscape” in the event of a PRC invasion. Wen writes that last month the Center for a New American Security (CNAS) released a set of recommendations for creating that Hellscape in the Strait. The report recommended that Taiwan deploy drones to mine the sea. Once mines are in the water, ships can be channeled into areas where missiles can sink them.

We have the missiles, as noted at the outset of this column. And we could have the drones. Wen says Taiwan’s Jong Shyn Shipbuilding Group (中信造船) has already constructed a prototype drone that can engage in mine-sweeping, mine-laying and suicide attacks. National Chung-Shan Institute of Science and Technology (NCSIST) has plans for mass production starting this year, with a budget of NT$18 billion for 1,320 vessels.

WHERE IS THE BUDGET, KMT?

“The technology is ready. The concept is ready. America’s top defense think tank published the playbook. All Taiwan needs is the budget,” Wen says.

The budget? The KMT has blocked the Democratic Progressive Party’s (DPP) special budget proposal that would have funded this. The KMT’s own budget proposal, 70 percent smaller, mandates purchase of existing US weapons systems, and defunds the undersea drone program.

Track that. When the invasion begins, because Taiwan’s unmanned vessels are in place, ready to go, sophisticated US technology can handle their control, meaning that (according to CNAS) Taiwan can be defended without committing US military units. Instead, it relies on Taiwan creating a robust inventory of asymmetric firepower systems. To that end, NCSIST has also allocated NT$28 billion for undersea suicide drones. In June last year it held a competition for such drones, attended by officials from the American Institute in Taiwan (AIT), the officially-unofficial representative office of the US.

Moreover, as a Storm media piece on the drones pointed out, small unmanned vessels offer greater returns for local shipyards than conventional warships or submarines. This implies they would be more willing to construct them. I might add that they have a variety of peacetime applications, from oceanic survey work to supplying Taiwan’s islands. Further, Taiwan’s shipyards would find a ready market abroad for such vessels.

The DPP budget provides the funding to sustain production of the weapons and technologies to support the Hellscape concept and its associated weapons systems. The KMT has gutted that in its smaller package.

FALLING SHORT ON HELLSCAPE

The only real beneficiary of the KMT’s smaller budget is PRC war planners. If the KMT budget passes, they will not have to face the asymmetric weapons of the type the US is facing against Iran. It be should noted that the Iran war is not only providing an avalanche of intel on US military practices, it is also showing the PRC how a great power should go about subduing a middle power which has top-notch engineers and significant asymmetric capabilities.

The KMT proposal is for a package totaling US$11.1 billion, including High Mobility Artillery Rocket Systems (HIMARS), Javelin missiles, Altius-700M and Altius-600 drones, TOW missiles, M109A7 self-propelled howitzers, C5ISR systems, Harpoon missile follow-on support and helicopter parts. These are necessary, but not the core of the Hellscape system as envisioned by CNAS.

What is the KMT’s offer to buy weapons systems from the US? A cynical reading of US venality. It is a bribe disguised as an arms package, saying in effect: we’ll buy your weapons if you pretend you can’t see what we offer is a hollow fraud.

Later, when the PRC invades, more Americans will be killed as a result of this budget, if it is adopted. More Taiwanese too. No doubt that is a sacrifice the KMT is willing to make.

The KMT’s slashing of defense budgets is complemented by its delaying tactics in the legislature. As the DPP put it in its international newsletter: “In effect, the KMT is filibustering Taiwan’s defense.”

The defense committee’s agenda, the DPP says, is filled with political spectacle.

For example, the recent KMT noises about Premier Cho Jung-tai’s (卓榮泰) trip to Japan are part of that circus of distraction. Another set of distractions are the constantly mutating proposals of various individual legislators, as well as added conditions, such as demanding new Letters of Offer and Acceptance (LOA) from the US for the weapons systems before the KMT will fund new weapons. If that condition is accepted, a new one will appear.

Taichung Mayor Lu Shiow-yen (盧秀燕) left on a tour of US east coast cities last week. She has positioned herself as a moderate on defense, recently saying she was concerned that the KMT’s obstruction of the defense budget could affect US-Taiwan relations.

There may be quiet meetings with US officials, who may ask her pointed questions about the KMT’s defense budget stance. She will probably express regret and dismay at the behavior of her colleagues. Her job is to sow division and delay, to be the moderate face of what appears to be a PRC-aligned insurgency.

Some voices have been calling for more US dialogue with the KMT. The truth is the US has been shouting at the KMT for months now. The party is well aware of the US position and obviously, well aware of what it is doing. There is no point in further dialogue, since it merely hands the KMT another opportunity to delay and divide.

It is long past time for the US to take serious, meaningful action against the KMT.

Notes from Central Taiwan is a column written by long-term resident Michael Turton, who provides incisive commentary informed by three decades of living in and writing about his adoptive country. The views expressed here are his own.

Sent with Mixmax

[Luby Liao]

The KMT has long struggled to flood Taiwan with people from the PRC.
2028 is just two years away.

 

Taiwan is running out of Taiwanese

As births plunge and young workers vanish, labor shortages are colliding with old KMT dreams of opening the door to Chinese labor, goods and influence

• By Michael Turton / Contributing Reporter
• • 
   
  • 
   
  • 

What was the population of Taiwan when the first Negritos arrived? In 500BC? The 1st century? The 18th? These questions are important, because they can contextualize the number of babies born last month, 6,523, to all the people on Taiwan, indigenous and colonial alike.

That figure represents a year on year drop of 3,884 babies, prefiguring total births under 90,000 for the year. It also represents the 26th straight month of deaths exceeding births. Why isn’t this a bigger crisis? Because we don’t experience it. Instead, what we experience is a growing and more diverse population.

POPULATION

With Taiwan’s low birthrate, a future Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) president may be able to convince the public to import labor from China.

Photo courtesy of Eslite Bookstore

What is Taiwan’s actual population? According to the Directorate-General of Budget and Statistics (DGBAS) it is 23,280,273. To that total, however, must be added a varied collection of residents and visitors.

There were roughly 8.6 million tourism arrivals last year. That adds roughly 750,000 warm bodies a month. Of course, around 1.8 million Taiwanese leave each month, but we don’t notice who is gone, only who is here. Most of the tourists are from Japan, South Korea and other Asian states. They blend right in.

When we think of the foreigners working in Taiwan, migrant workers from southeast Asia, roughly 860,000, stand out. But there is also a growing group of professionals and international student workers, creating a total foreign workforce of well over a million. As of the end of last year, 74,000 students held work visas. Another 90,000 migrant workers are runaways, and they likely have over 10,000, perhaps as many as 20,000, children.

Graphic: Constance Chou

The missing children in Taiwan... are missing. We never saw them anyway, because they were either in school or in cram schools, six days a week. Especially in this last decade or so they are staying indoors playing on their computers and phones. We don’t notice their absence because we never experienced their presence.

Hence, at any given time, the total number of people in Taiwan probably exceeds the government’s population figure by a good million or so. This trend will continue as Taiwan ramps up its hiring of migrant workers. Permanent Taiwanese are being increasingly replaced by temporary foreigners. We don’t experience increasing emptiness, because the overall number of people is rising over time.

A recent report of labor shortages on the island of Matsu off the coast of the People’s Republic of China (PRC) is a glimpse into the future of Taiwan. A human resources survey by the local government showed that “workers aged 45 to 64 made up 51.43 percent of the workforce, while those aged 25 to 44 accounted for 37.19 percent.”

Young workers are extremely difficult to find at any price, and most would rather open up a business of their own than work for someone else. Since there is only a tiny supply of them, young people will have great leverage in future labor markets.

Matsu can attract workers because of its tourist potential, but what will happen to small towns in rural areas in southern Taiwan and similar? The Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) in the early 90s floated proposals to bring in workers from the PRC to address labor issues. The idea was shelved, but it has reappeared from time to time, most recently in the effort by KMT Legislator Chen Yu-jen (陳玉珍) to have the laws of the offshore islands amended to turn them into a special trade zone for the PRC this year.

This effort to expand PRC influence over the offshore islands go back years. “In earlier versions,” Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) Legislator Puma Shen (沈伯洋) observed, “the bills sought to eliminate all central government authority over the islands, to empower the local governments to directly negotiate with China.”

People have forgotten all the labor proposals floated by the KMT during the years Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) was president. Ma at one point suggested recognizing credentials from the PRC, a clear indicator that he was considering bringing in PRC workers. The proposed “free economic zones” and processing zones were obvious conduits for PRC goods and human smuggling, but they also appeared to target Taiwan’s cherished quality image. The KMT has returned again and again to these proposals, but as Taiwan ages and the supply of young people dries up, the pressure to implement some of them will only grow.

Consider the south. Ma proposed a “free economic pilot zone” for Kaohsiung. It never took off, but then-mayor Han Kuo-yu (韓國瑜) revived the issue under the DPP administration. Han wanted to expand the zones to include education, finance, international logistics and agricultural product processing. Those were all proposals of Ma, especially education and finance.

FLOODING TAIWAN WITH CHINESE LABOR

Last week I touched on the issue of state-owned land in Taiwan, with a focus on the incinerator project in Nantou County. For that project state-owned land was used, and the farmers leasing it booted off. The National Property Administration (NPA) gave permission for that project even before it had completed its environmental assessment. Its argument in support of this in-by-the-back-door administrative decision was that it had received permission by letter in 1993 to get around land use laws that tied proposed state land use to state land planning needs. The existence of such back doors suggests terrible possibilities.

Put all this together. At present the KMT legislature’s plans to flood Taiwan with PRC labor and goods are frustrated by a DPP administration. What does a KMT presidential win in 2028 augur? Among many things, a far stronger push to bring PRC labor and products into Taiwan. With so much land in government hands, so easily converted to other uses, and a shrinking, aging population that will free up much land as it dies off, especially in farming areas, a KMT administration may simply start designating free trade zones in areas away from the cities in the less densely populated, more pro-DPP south. Previous PRC/KMT policies, such as PRC purchases of Taiwan fruit production, have already targeted farmers in this manner.

In the mid-80s the Taiwan Sugar Corp (Taisugar, 台灣糖業), taking note of the growing wealth generated by niche floriculture enthusiasts in Taiwan, began investing in industrial flower production. It would later go on to create 16 floriculture parks around Taiwan, with cheap rents and imported greenhouse technology, including the massive 175 hectare Taiwan Orchid Plantation located in Tainan. Taiwan is dotted with such small single-industry, government-owned processing zones on state-owned land — effectively government islands — that could easily be re-designated “free economic zones” centered around the original industry, which could then be used as conduits for labor and goods from the PRC. The south, full of ailing traditional industries, could even be convinced that is a form of economic salvation.

Pressure to import labor is already strong, thanks to the government’s complete failure to make meaningful changes to the political economy. The KMT has long struggled to flood Taiwan with people from the PRC.

2028 is just two years away.

Sent with Mixmax