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Taiwan: It's Time to Choose a Real Relationship
 
By Jeon Ju-hee, Overseas Correspondent
 
What do you know about Taiwan? Before I came here as an exchange student, some of my friends asked me if Taiwan is a part of China, and they were serious. This might be the most stupid question to ask the Taiwanese. However, when we think about Taiwan, it is impossible to think about it without considering China as well.
Taiwan is an independent country and it has maintained an independent government for over 60 years.  However, Taiwan and China call their relationship “A cross-strait relationship” instead of a relationship based upon diplomatic relations. As you can imagine, a relationship between Taiwan and China is always the most sensitive and complicated issue in Taiwan, but the situation is gradually changing.
Nowadays, China is rising up as one of the strongest countries in the world as much as the U.S. is. Taiwan is very welcoming of this trend. Aside from the history between Taiwan and China, people in Taiwan speak Mandarin, the language of mainland China and the distance from China to Taiwan is also close just like it was one nation. Last October 10th, the President of Taiwan Ma Ying-jeou pledged the relaxation of restrictions on Chinese investment in local industries and that this would further open up local markets to overseas investments and “would not be too slight” in his Double Ten National Day address.
Liang Yuan-ting, a student of National Cheng Kung University in Taiwan, said “I’m glad to hear the news. If we make a good economic relationship with China, we could have a chance to get a good job in the future. It will be helpful to both Taiwan and China.”
According to the economic growth of China, some Taiwanese are even talking about perfect economic integration with China. They insist that the integration with China is unavoidable in the near future. The world is supposed to follow a tendency, and it will affect Korea as well. That’s why we need to watch the international trend. This is the time to keep our eyes on how Taiwan deals with the “real” relationship with China.
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