The nation has always been independent from China. Not for a single day has it been ruled by China. Twenty-three million Taiwanese -- 7.7 times the number of Singaporeans -- have the absolute right to advocate continued independence from China.
The UN has the duty to protect the human rights of Taiwanese people, who outnumber the people of Singapore by 20 million. The nation's people have the right to pursue an internationally-recognized status as an independent and sovereign nation.
When Singapore's Foreign Minister George Yeo (
Yeo said that if there were any push toward independence, a war across the Taiwan Strait would be very difficult to avoid and that the stability of the Asia-Pacific region and even the world would be at stake.
Such statements only serve to further encourage aggressive powers to violate human rights with military force.
Many groups in the Canadian province of Quebec that have advocated and worked for independence did so without the Canadian government aiming 600 missiles at them.
Nor did the federal government fire test missiles over Quebec to intimidate the population, which is about the same as Singapore's. Just as the independence movement in Quebec has not sought to incite a war, the independence movement in Taiwan -- which has not for one single day been ruled by China -- has not created the current risk of war in the Taiwan Strait.
China's aggression is the primary reason a risk of war exists in the Taiwan Strait.
Not only did Yeo's speech at the UN General Assembly seriously violate the human rights of Taiwan's 23 million citizens, it also encouraged the violation of human rights by military powers.
The Taiwan Association of University Professors solemnly would like to tell our Singaporean friends that Yeo's speech -- in its tacit support for military power -- will sooner or later place them under the same tyrannical authority of those powers.
Translated by Perry Svensson
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