Only one day after President Chen Shui-bian (
The Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) had been right in pointing out after it came to power that the actual number of official diplomatic allies is not the most important aspect of foreign affairs, but that constructive and substantive foreign ties are what matter most. Still, the newly established diplomatic ties with Kiribati is an encouraging breakthrough.
Anyone who doubts the importance of these ties should first understand their background and context -- an ongoing zero-sum battle of diplomacy between China and Taiwan, with China absolutely prohibiting its diplomatic allies from formally recognizing Taiwan.
As a result, most countries have opted for the easy way out, that is, to forego formal recognition of Taiwan while maintaining substantive informal ties with the country. Under the circumstances the importance to Taiwan of each and every formal diplomatic ally goes without saying.
To Chen and the DPP, the establishment of ties with Kiribati is especially significant, since it marks the first formal diplomatic ties entered into during Chen's presidency, after having lost three allies in a series of vicious and deliberate diplomatic assaults by China. Anyone who had hoped that the change of leadership in China, that is, the succession to power by President Hu Jintao (
That China is far from relaxing its foreign affairs assault is demonstrated by its high-handed obstruction of Taiwan's participation in the World Health Organization earlier this year at the height of the SARS outbreak, the plots to downgrade Taiwan's membership status in the World Trade Organization (WTO), and China's efforts to force other countries to reject Taiwan's new passports, just because the word "Taiwan" appears on the cover.
In recent years, China has also increasingly abused its growing power in the UN to accomplish its agenda. As pointed out by Minister of Foreign Affairs Eugene Chien (
As for the three countries that have severed diplomatic ties with Taiwan during the past three years, China had even painstakingly timed the break-ups to add insult to injury -- Macedonia right after Chen returned from an earlier overseas visit, Nauru right after Chen took over as chairman of the DPP, and Liberia around the time Taiwan was celebrating Double-Ten Day last month.
Predictably, some opposition lawmakers will try to put a damper on the excitement over the formal ties with Kiribati by questioning whether it was accomplished as part of "monetary diplomacy." Leaving aside the issue that the opposition, as members of the former ruling party, should understand the dilemma and difficulties faced by Taiwan in the sticky area of foreign ties, isn't it also our duty as a member of the WTO, for which the preamble clearly states helping developing and third world countries as a goal, to offer assistance and aid to our developing allies?
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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