Zhu Rongji scolds the Taiwanese electorate
on March 15, 2000.

They never learn, do they? (sigh)

In a Reuters article posted up on the ABC News site we learn this:

A Chinese major general-turned-vice minister, speaking days before Taiwan's parliamentary elections, warned the island against miscalculating Beijing's determination to crush its separatist dreams.

"There can be no peace (if) Taiwan (becomes) independent, there can be no stability (if) Taiwan splits," the official People's Daily on Thursday quoted Wang Zaixi, a vice minister of the policymaking Taiwan Affairs Office, as saying.

"It would be a serious, dangerous miscalculation if the Chen Shui-bian authorities…think the Chinese people will tolerate 'Taiwan independence' splittist activities for the sake of seeking a peaceful environment to develop," Wang told a seminar in Macau on Wednesday.

China has tried the admonishment strategy a number of times and each time it has failed miserably. In 1996, China fired missiles into the Strait to try and intimidate the Taiwanese electorate into voting for Ling Yang-kang of the New Party, rather than the KMT's Lee Teng-hui or the DPP's Peng Ming-min. To anyone in Taiwan this show of force hailed from the theater of the absurd. The New Party, which advocates unification with China, received 14.9 percent of the vote at the time.

Then in 2000, Chinese Premier Zhu Rongji wagged his finger at the Taiwanese electorate, this time around implying that the KMT were to be voted in rather than the DPP candidate Chen Shui-bian. Again it didn't work.

One would have thought the suits in Beijing would have changed their tactics, and indeed in this year's presidential election, perhaps because the communists were convinced that the KMT would win, there were no public dressing down of the Taiwanese electorate. Here we are on the cusp of this year's legislative election (the Taiwanese go to the polls on Dec. 11) and its the same song and dance all over again. Considering their record, do they still think they can affect the outcome of an election in Taiwan?