Yuan, along with several renowned Taiwanese scholars including Chiu Jung-chu, director of the Graduate Institute of National Development at National Taiwan University, Ming Chu-cheng, a political science professor at National Taiwan University, Lee Yeau-tarn, a professor of National Development at National Chengchi University, Tsai Chang-yen, a professor of East Asian Culture and Development at National Taiwan Normal University, and Hsu Szu-chien, an assistant research fellow at the Preparatory Office of the Institute of Political Science at Academia Sinica, participated in Yuan's book launch and seminar in Taipei yesterday on the disaster awaiting Taiwan in 2012.

"A calamity is approaching," Yuan said in his book. "The CCP, working with the Kuomintang, is using its political, economic and cultural influence to imprison free Taiwan." He urged professors and scholars of the island to help reverse this fate.

Yuan cited information gathered in China that 2012 could be the year when China takes over Taiwan without the use of military force.

Yuan said at yesterday's book launch that he met some obstacles when finding publishers for his new book in Taiwan, expressing worry that the book may be banned in the island. He said that the reason why the book terrifies people is because it reveals the truth of Taiwan's fate.

"If the book is banned, it is one of the indicators that Taiwan's democracy is going downhill," he said, "only by Taiwanese people's strong will to defend its democracy and freedom can they help fight against the upcoming disaster."

Last year during a visit here, the former president of Guizhou Teachers' College Law School said that Beijing convened a high-level meeting soon after Ma won the presidential election in May to form its Taiwan strategy.

He said China would offer Taiwan some benefits to show "goodwill" and help Ma win a second term and was prepared to expand political, economic and cultural exchanges. China would try not to confront Ma before 2012, Yuan said, but during Ma's second term, Beijing would bring highly political issues to the table and attempt to push Taiwan into a unification framework.

Yuan was an advocate of the rule of law and freedom in China. He was persecuted following the crackdown on China's pro-democracy movement in 1989.

In March 1994, he was arrested at Beijing University and secretly transferred to Guizhou and detained there for about six months.

Yuan escaped China in 2004 and now lives in Australia, where he is a voice for Chinese democracy.