Although President Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁) struck a conciliatory note in his inauguration speech, it seems China will not accept this renewed show of goodwill. Most Chinese academics and experts denounced the speech in strong language and China's Taiwan Affairs Office and Ministry of Foreign Affairs have made their position clear, saying Chen's refusal to accept the "one China" principle and his stubborn insistence on independence remains essentially unchanged.
China will not be satisfied until Taiwan gives up and accepts the "one China" principle. But by appearing weak, Taiwan could cause China to become increasingly overbearing. Such is the nature of rogue states, something the US has to recognize as it interacts with China.
China has recently been threatening the people of Hong Kong, and thus, indirectly, also the people of Taiwan, by saying it
will write a unification law. The people of Hong Kong believe China is trying to create this law as a substitute for the withdrawn anti-subversion legislation based on Article 23 of Hong Kong's Basic Law. Even experts close to Beijing believe the unification law is tougher than the legislation that has been withdrawn.
On May 15, Zhu Yucheng (
During his recent visit to Europe, Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao (溫家寶) said that China may write a unification law. Co-opted academics and mouthpieces of officialdom in China, as well as China-friendly overseas media, have used this as an opportunity to threaten Taiwan.
The creation of the law is apparently at the research stage, but suggestions have been made that it apply to Hong Kong, Macau and Taiwan after its promulgation. When a Hong Kong journalist asked whether the law would apply to Hong Kong, the reply was that it would apply to "anyone." The same official also said: "We have received suggestions from our citizens that we should issue arrest warrants for separatists, and even more radical suggestions are included in the bill. This will in the end naturally be given detailed consideration by the
legislative authorities."
This shook the gathered journalists, because the official did not explain what those suggestions entailed. However, we can guess at what these radical methods might be if we look at the three Hong Kong radio hosts who have recently broken their contracts because they or their families have received threats, and then look at the criminal elements participating in the Chinese Nationalist Party's (KMT) and the People First Party's (PFP) protests.
These criminals have an alliance in Guangzhou aimed at opposing Taiwanese independence and pursuing the "truth" in the March 19 shooting of Chen and Vice President Annette Lu (
the participation of Taiwanese gangsters in Taiwan and China. Its leader was even involved in the KMT's assassination of Henry Liu (
China's socialism has been called a "criminal socialism," referring to its glorification of violence and its innate hooliganism. Wouldn't the employment of criminal gangs to achieve unification turn a unified China into an all-out criminal society?
Paul Lin is a commentator based in New York.
Translated by Perry Svensson
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,
RSS