海角大神

China hasn鈥檛 started a military war with Taiwan 鈥� as has been feared since the 1940s 鈥� but a battle that began on paper last month has met with a fiery pulp-and-ink response that could burn a hole in goodwill between the two once-hostile governments.

Pictures on Beijing鈥檚 latest passports show a map of China that includes two parts of Taiwan, including its scenic showpiece Sun Moon Lake. The travel documents also depict islets in the South China Sea as China's, despite competing claims by Taiwan and several Southeast Asian countries.

China, already a regional heavyweight, is believed to have issued 5 million of the passports between April and November when they inflamed a regional dispute with neighbors. Now Taiwan is joining the chorus of protest, not by refusing to stamp them as Vietnam has announced it is doing, and not by issuing their own maps as India has done, but with some provocative stickers with a message to China. 聽

China has claimed Taiwan as part of its turf since the 1940s, when Chiang Kai-shek鈥檚 Nationalists set up a government to rival mainland China's about 100 miles offshore after losing the Chinese civil war to Mao Zedong鈥檚 Communists. The relationship between China and Taiwan has been up and down for the past few decades: Both聽formal reunification with the mainland and full Taiwanese independence have been suggested,聽but a tempering of relations has kept many content with the middle ground status quo, with Taiwan considering itself an effectively independent territory.聽

Still, the maps in China鈥檚 passports were taken as a bold affront to that. In response, Taiwan鈥檚 main opposition Democratic Progressive Party gave away 10,000 pink stickers at the foreign ministry consular office in Taipei. The stickers that read 鈥淭aiwan is my Country鈥� can be slapped onto the back cover of a Taiwan passport or onto a plastic passport protector.聽

The stickers went fast two weeks ago, so the party copied off another 20,000. 鈥淧eople just love them,鈥� says its policy coordination executive director Joseph Wu. 鈥淚t鈥檚 quite clear that what China is doing trespasses into our sovereignty. Taiwan is not under any country鈥檚 jurisdiction.鈥�

Across town, the smaller Taiwan Solidarity Union Party printed out oversized paper effigies of the Chinese passports and marred or burned them at a rally, according to local media.

Taiwan and China have set aside differences over sovereignty since 2008, when the island鈥檚 conciliatory President Ma Ying-jeou took office. Mr. Ma鈥檚 government has signed 18 deals with China, drawing Taiwan closer to the world economic powerhouse. Talks on those agreements built mutual trust that didn鈥檛 exist before.

The island鈥檚 foreign ministry says聽that trust is now being questioned. The ministry鈥檚 news release calls China鈥檚 passport issue 鈥渁 provocative act that will 鈥� damage the mutual trust laboriously built by the two sides in recent years.鈥�

Taiwanese opposition forces are protesting the Chinese passports because they worry that the government is courting China rather than standing up to it, but analysts say officials in Taipei are just as irked as their skeptics.

鈥淥ur government thinks that China betrayed common ground, which is that there鈥檚 one China but subject to different interpretations,鈥� says Nathan Liu, an associate international affairs professor at Ming Chuan University in Taiwan, citing the basis for talks and deals since 2008.