The following information is from Jerry Stryker’s email:
If one can judge from the output of People’s Daily Online, Beijing is bending over backward, as the old song goes, to accentuate the positive and eliminate the negative in its follow-on treatment of ASL.
The following items appear in today’s table of contents:
* Editorial: A law of peaceful reunification, protection of Taiwan compatriots and opposition to ‘Taiwan independence’
* Anti-secession Law to benefit cross-Straits ties
* Anti-Secession Law welcomed by Taiwan business people
* Roundup: Overseas Chinese communities back Anti-Secession Law
* International community backs China’s adoption of Anti-Secession Law
* International scholars say China’s Anti-Secession Law for peaceThe editorial stresses that “This law fully embodies our consistent stand on striving for peaceful reunification with the utmost sincerity and the greatest effort” and that ” it is not a law of war, but is a law for the peaceful reunification of the country”.
The second item, which reports a press conference by Wang Zaixi, is larded with reassurances of peaceful intent, like:
— the passage of the Anti-Secession Law does not mean the toughening of its attitude towards Taiwan and it will not fuel tensions across the Straits
— the law is meant to promote peaceful reunification rather than undermine bilateral relations
— we will adhere to our long-standing and consistent principle of settling the Taiwan question through peaceful means
— the law will benefit stable development of bilateral ties rather than cause tension in cross-Straits situation
— the bill creates a legal framework to promote a peaceful reunification between Taiwan and the Chinese mainland
— non-peaceful means and other necessary measures would be employed only as a last resort should all efforts
for a peaceful reunification prove futileThe military threat is still there all right, but it’s being put in the background for the moment. Given all the adverse reaction, it looks as if Beijing is trying to grapple its way up onto the high road.
