a rare pro-government posting ... well almost,

... perhaps:

TT: Premier defends move to allow Chinese students in

Recruiting Chinese students to study in Taiwan will help boost cross-strait ties, Premier Liu Chao-shiuan (劉兆玄)said yesterday.

I’m not sure about that, and I don’t know what kind of students will come (though hopefully not student-spies), and I’m sure the majority of Taiwanese students going to the PRC are just getting a cheap poor-quality education, but the bit I do agree with Liu is:

… “If Chinese college students are allowed to study in Taiwan, it will provide good opportunities for students from the two sides to learn from each other,” he said.

When the former Yugoslavia broke up and the various new states and factions within the states began fighting each other, I remember thinking that the European Union (and in particular, the peoples of individual European nations) would intervene to help keep peace or even take sides.

My conviction was based on the fact that every (“every”) German I’d met had lain on the beach at Dubrovnik (Croatia), and every Dutch I’d met had had a skiing holiday at Sarajevo (Bosnia and Herzegovina). These millions of individual vacations add up to a lot more influence than government-to-government relations, which tend to wilt when economic winds change direction.

Similarly, no country could ever invade Thailand, because every European paedophile and backpacker has made friends there. I’ve long suggested, therefore, that Taiwan promote its tourism more effectively in the West (not, of course, by promoting child prostitution), so that holiday-makers’ memories of Taiwan’s “friendlier-than-Chinese” inhabitants will save the country from PRC invasion.

And it can only help to have PRC students learning about the functioning of an open and democratic society, where ideas start from the ground up rather than the government down. The more that come and take classes and make friends with Taiwanese students, the more voices there will be in China cautioning against military action, and the more chance that China will change for the better.