Since US forces entered Baghdad and the regime of President Saddam Hussein collapsed, television channels have been showing images of Iraqi people welcoming the Americans and angrily trampling on Saddam's portraits and statues. Such images came as a big surprise to the academics and experts who had predicted a bloody battle on the streets of the Iraqi capital. They also astonished viewers around the world who were concerned about international affairs. Why was this?
Before Baghdad fell, Iraqi propaganda trumpeted the might of the country's army. So how could Saddam's troops so easily succumb? Television news channels showed Iraqi youths vowing to fight for Saddam against the US. So how come they seemed to be so quickly replaced by Iraqis welcoming Americans once Saddam's regime collapsed?
How could there be such a big difference between the Iraq of a few days ago and the one we see now? Which Iraq is the real one? Evidently the lies told by Saddam's regime over the past few decades were fragile. In a short three weeks, the US and British forces demolished the false impressions so sedulously built by Saddam's regime.
The astonishing images on television are reminiscent of the fall of the Berlin Wall and the Soviet Union. Before then, various US intelligence data had indicated that Soviet military power remained formidable and the Warsaw Pact still threatened NATO. The US and Western Europe had been living in the shadow of "red terror" since the end of World War II.
Remember Amerika, a TV miniseries produced in the US in the late 1980s which depicted the miserable lives of Americans after the US was invaded and occupied by the Soviet Union? Evidently some people were very pessimistic about US power.
Then suddenly the Berlin Wall came down and the East German regime collapsed and the two halves of Germany were unified. Then astonishing reports about the Soviet Union's collapse emerged. Many former members of the union declared independence. The "red terror" disappeared overnight. What was even more astonishing was the economic bankruptcy of the Soviet Union and Eastern European nations.
That chain of dramatic events came as a surprise to Western intelligence networks -- evidence that the ability of authoritarian regimes to create a facade of power far outweighed the ability of US intelligence agencies to detect the enemy's status.
Which brings us to the question of China. All the data we see about China at the moment paint a picture of a powerful, prosperous nation with high economic growth, where anti-West, anti-imperialist sentiments are on the rise and the determination to "retake" Taiwan remains strong. How true is this picture in a country where an authoritarian regime remains firmly in place and the people have no freedom of speech? Can we believe the images on television, the comments in newspapers or the figures provided by the authorities in Beijing?
Take the severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) outbreak for example. The spread of the disease can be very much attributed to the Chinese government's attempt to cover up the outbreak. For despots, truth is almost like poison. Which is why truth and despots never mix.
A democratic system can make a country's situation transparent. In a democratic country, voters will reject the government if it tells lies. This is why the people of Taiwan have been able to keep their heads up despite authoritarian China's oppression.
Now that US military action has exposed Saddam's lies, the people of Taiwan must ask, when will Beijing's lies be exposed? When will the people of Taiwan be free from "red terror"?
The gutting of Voice of America (VOA) and Radio Free Asia (RFA) by US President Donald Trump’s administration poses a serious threat to the global voice of freedom, particularly for those living under authoritarian regimes such as China. The US — hailed as the model of liberal democracy — has the moral responsibility to uphold the values it champions. In undermining these institutions, the US risks diminishing its “soft power,” a pivotal pillar of its global influence. VOA Tibetan and RFA Tibetan played an enormous role in promoting the strong image of the US in and outside Tibet. On VOA Tibetan,
Sung Chien-liang (宋建樑), the leader of the Chinese Nationalist Party’s (KMT) efforts to recall Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) Legislator Lee Kun-cheng (李坤城), caused a national outrage and drew diplomatic condemnation on Tuesday after he arrived at the New Taipei City District Prosecutors’ Office dressed in a Nazi uniform. Sung performed a Nazi salute and carried a copy of Adolf Hitler’s Mein Kampf as he arrived to be questioned over allegations of signature forgery in the recall petition. The KMT’s response to the incident has shown a striking lack of contrition and decency. Rather than apologizing and distancing itself from Sung’s actions,
US President Trump weighed into the state of America’s semiconductor manufacturing when he declared, “They [Taiwan] stole it from us. They took it from us, and I don’t blame them. I give them credit.” At a prior White House event President Trump hosted TSMC chairman C.C. Wei (魏哲家), head of the world’s largest and most advanced chip manufacturer, to announce a commitment to invest US$100 billion in America. The president then shifted his previously critical rhetoric on Taiwan and put off tariffs on its chips. Now we learn that the Trump Administration is conducting a “trade investigation” on semiconductors which
By now, most of Taiwan has heard Taipei Mayor Chiang Wan-an’s (蔣萬安) threats to initiate a vote of no confidence against the Cabinet. His rationale is that the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP)-led government’s investigation into alleged signature forgery in the Chinese Nationalist Party’s (KMT) recall campaign constitutes “political persecution.” I sincerely hope he goes through with it. The opposition currently holds a majority in the Legislative Yuan, so the initiation of a no-confidence motion and its passage should be entirely within reach. If Chiang truly believes that the government is overreaching, abusing its power and targeting political opponents — then
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