Chinese Officers Say Taiwan's Leaders Are Near 'Abyss of War': Chinese military officers said Wednesday that Taiwan's leadership had pushed the island toward an "abyss of war" with its talk of independence. They made it clear that China would consider a popular vote on Taiwan's political status — which a faction of Taiwan's governing party recently urged — as a cause for war. The PRC is really giving Chen Shuibian a boost with this retoric; I suppose they realize that this threatening talk only grows support for Chen, but I don't think they care. And let me point out that I scooped the New York Times on this one; plus the fact that they clearly sourced only the English version of the article, which does not mention actual warfare on the mainland as one of the costs that the Chinese government is willing to bear if an armed conflict happens. ##The United Front Work Department In class this evening, James Lee mentioned that the United Front Work Department's budget has increased several-fold over the last couple of decades. Curiously, the main title of the Xinhuanet news service this evening talks about an unprecedented news conference given by this department at which Liu Mingkang, chairman of the China Banking Regulatory Commission, answered questions, and at which it was declared that the United Front Work Department (UFWD) was going to resume playing an active role in China; this coming from a department that has largely been put on the back burner during the Reform era. When asked about the purpose of the department, department chief Chen Xiqing made several observations. First he linked the purpose of the UFWD today to its purpose in post-1949 China: to keep the spirit of the revolution alive. In the new era of reform, he said, it is especially important to maintain a united front. Maintaining this unity is especially important in a country where only 5% of the population is a communisty party member. Since the Chinese Communist Party has worked so hard to become the party of all the people, the different groups of people in China should strive together to build the middle-class society (小康社会). The UFWD will serve all levels of Party committees in four functions: gathering opinions, formulating policy, coordinating intra-committee relations, and fulfill various personnel duties. Finally, Chen stresses that the UFWD is not a branch of the People's Liberation Army (PLA). There are two points here that I find interesting. When he calls on the people of China to unite in building the new society, Chen illustrates by naming different political, religious, and ethnic pairs: Marxists and non-Marxists, atheists and religious people, and Han and ethnic minorities. This is an acknowledgement of the different interest groups that co-exist in today's China, and expresses the willingness of the government to listen to their views and synthesize them into a single national policy. The first part is new, but the second harkens back to the process of forming the mass line through consultation and discussion. The second part that struck me was the final and rather abrupt denial of being a "united front command post" of the PLA (解放军的统一作战指挥部). I imagine there is a historical precedent specific to the UFWD that he wants to dispel in emphasizing that this is a civilian operation.