Before the Lunar New Year, an alarming news story quietly circulated in the Chinese-language Internet. Preoccupied with holiday celebrations, no one paid much attention to it. Reportedly, the intelligence unit of Taiwan's military learned that, in January, the US had intercepted a "facts" report on Taiwan prepared by the General Staff Headquarters of the Chinese People's Liberation Army (PLA).
The report pointed out that entry-level military officers in the PLA, especially recent graduates from military schools or programs, uniformly hail the slogan "great unification of the motherland on the one-century anniversary of the 1911 Revolution (
Irrespective of what the real motive for making the report may have been, it would be outlandish for the PLA to use this report to brainwash its entry-level military officers and thereby build a consensus for Chinese unification in 8 years. At that time, China will be facing a post-Olympic-Games economic upheaval. With its hands full, how can it possibly unify with Taiwan?
A news story appearing in the Liberty Times after the Lunar New Year pointed out that, despite local semiconductor manufacturers' intention to open up 8-inch wafer fabs across the Strait, China is actively plotting to undermine world praise for them. President of the Taiwan Semiconductor Industry Association (TSIA) Morris Chang (張忠謀) revealed that China's government body which regulates its semiconductor businesses also wants to join the World Semiconductor Council (WSC), but demands that TSIA's membership name be revised to reflect its "local" status. Both Chang and the members of the TSIA Board oppose the name change. Whether the Chinese side will join the WSC in May remains unknown.
Chang said he went to Beijing to communicate with Chinese officials. TSIA also sent other representatives to negotiate with China, expressing their objections to the proposed name change. But they report that China won't accept it. Chang believes WSC members are like allies who work together to promote the chipmakers as a whole. TSIA truly welcomes China's entry into the WSC, but, if as a member, China is thinking about dwarfing Taiwan politically, then TSIA finds it unacceptable. In particular, since WSC members are mostly private organizations, there is really no reason to drag politics into it.
Beijing lusts after Taiwan's semiconductor technologies and investment money, but at the same time makes a lot of under-the-table moves to demean Taipei. This is despicable. Hopefully, China can realize its own priorities, focus on its economy, improve its standard of living, and deal with its widening income gap.
Before the 2008 Olympics Games are held in Beijing it would also do well to polish its "backward" image. China should take care of its domestic affairs before it begins to make a fuss over the cross-strait issues and fantasize about a "great Chinese unification."
Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) caucus whip Fu Kun-chi (傅?萁) has caused havoc with his attempts to overturn the democratic and constitutional order in the legislature. If we look at this devolution from the context of a transition to democracy from authoritarianism in a culturally Chinese sense — that of zhonghua (中華) — then we are playing witness to a servile spirit from a millennia-old form of totalitarianism that is intent on damaging the nation’s hard-won democracy. This servile spirit is ingrained in Chinese culture. About a century ago, Chinese satirist and author Lu Xun (魯迅) saw through the servile nature of
In their New York Times bestseller How Democracies Die, Harvard political scientists Steven Levitsky and Daniel Ziblatt said that democracies today “may die at the hands not of generals but of elected leaders. Many government efforts to subvert democracy are ‘legal,’ in the sense that they are approved by the legislature or accepted by the courts. They may even be portrayed as efforts to improve democracy — making the judiciary more efficient, combating corruption, or cleaning up the electoral process.” Moreover, the two authors observe that those who denounce such legal threats to democracy are often “dismissed as exaggerating or
Monday was the 37th anniversary of former president Chiang Ching-kuo’s (蔣經國) death. Chiang — a son of former president Chiang Kai-shek (蔣介石), who had implemented party-state rule and martial law in Taiwan — has a complicated legacy. Whether one looks at his time in power in a positive or negative light depends very much on who they are, and what their relationship with the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) is. Although toward the end of his life Chiang Ching-kuo lifted martial law and steered Taiwan onto the path of democratization, these changes were forced upon him by internal and external pressures,
The Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) caucus in the Legislative Yuan has made an internal decision to freeze NT$1.8 billion (US$54.7 million) of the indigenous submarine project’s NT$2 billion budget. This means that up to 90 percent of the budget cannot be utilized. It would only be accessible if the legislature agrees to lift the freeze sometime in the future. However, for Taiwan to construct its own submarines, it must rely on foreign support for several key pieces of equipment and technology. These foreign supporters would also be forced to endure significant pressure, infiltration and influence from Beijing. In other words,
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