Once again we are graced with People First Party Chairman James Soong's (宋楚瑜) desperate efforts to try to gain the media spotlight and keep open his faltering chances to run for the presidency in 2008.
Now Soong wants to be able to debate the president regularly on his position, ideas and attitudes toward China and Taiwan.
True, President Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁) has a responsibility to the people to indicate his agenda, which was done when he put forth his platform for the recent presidential elections. At that time both Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Chairman Lien Chan (連戰) and Soong had their chances to debate Chen.
After the election is decided, how-ever, the president does not have an obligation to continue debating with the legislature or any Tom, Dick or Harry who wants to gain the spotlight.
If Soong is eager for a debate, I suggest another topic. Let him debate his fitness to be a representative of Taiwanese democracy, whether in the legislature or in any position, after his notorious record as head of the Government Information Office (GIO) and his bilking the country out of millions of dollars -- which he allegedly used to purchase numerous properties in the US and elsewhere.
He can also debate his GIO record with any of the people who suffered imprisonment, torture or other violations of their rights during the Kaohsiung Incident and the period following it. At that time it was Soong's job to justify, excuse, and put a positive spin on the one-party totalitarian state's continued suppression of the nation's democratic movement.
As for his subsequent profiteering from his political offices and black gold, he can debate that with any concerned taxpayers. Clear up the past before you ask us to give you any consideration for the future.
Jerome Keating
Taipei
Concerns that the US might abandon Taiwan are often overstated. While US President Donald Trump’s handling of Ukraine raised unease in Taiwan, it is crucial to recognize that Taiwan is not Ukraine. Under Trump, the US views Ukraine largely as a European problem, whereas the Indo-Pacific region remains its primary geopolitical focus. Taipei holds immense strategic value for Washington and is unlikely to be treated as a bargaining chip in US-China relations. Trump’s vision of “making America great again” would be directly undermined by any move to abandon Taiwan. Despite the rhetoric of “America First,” the Trump administration understands the necessity of
US President Donald Trump’s challenge to domestic American economic-political priorities, and abroad to the global balance of power, are not a threat to the security of Taiwan. Trump’s success can go far to contain the real threat — the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) surge to hegemony — while offering expanded defensive opportunities for Taiwan. In a stunning affirmation of the CCP policy of “forceful reunification,” an obscene euphemism for the invasion of Taiwan and the destruction of its democracy, on March 13, 2024, the People’s Liberation Army’s (PLA) used Chinese social media platforms to show the first-time linkage of three new
If you had a vision of the future where China did not dominate the global car industry, you can kiss those dreams goodbye. That is because US President Donald Trump’s promised 25 percent tariff on auto imports takes an ax to the only bits of the emerging electric vehicle (EV) supply chain that are not already dominated by Beijing. The biggest losers when the levies take effect this week would be Japan and South Korea. They account for one-third of the cars imported into the US, and as much as two-thirds of those imported from outside North America. (Mexico and Canada, while
The military is conducting its annual Han Kuang exercises in phases. The minister of national defense recently said that this year’s scenarios would simulate defending the nation against possible actions the Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA) might take in an invasion of Taiwan, making the threat of a speculated Chinese invasion in 2027 a heated agenda item again. That year, also referred to as the “Davidson window,” is named after then-US Indo-Pacific Command Admiral Philip Davidson, who in 2021 warned that Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) had instructed the PLA to be ready to invade Taiwan by 2027. Xi in 2017