The annual APEC leader's summit ended on Sunday. As usual, Taiwan strictly abided by its status as a member economy and avoided political distur-bances. Academia Sinica President Lee Yuan-tseh (
Given Taiwan's current economic strength and in particular its information-technology industry, it is able to offer valuable experience to other states in the Asian-Pacific region. There is ample evidence that they could also learn from Taiwan's health and disease prevention experience. Although last year's SARS epidemic brought unprecedented panic, rapid and effective preventative measures were adopted and Taiwan successfully withstood the difficult test. Lee's suggestion of a vaccine development center was both timely and necessary.
The primary goal of the APEC meetings is to boost the economic prosperity of Pacific-Rim countries. To achieve this, Taiwan has always proposed constructive plans in the APEC's ministerial meetings as well as meetings for business leaders -- despite China's efforts to use such meetings as opportunities to oppress Taiwan internationally.
Taiwanese businesspeople have greatly contributed to China's role as the world's major manufacturing center today. Ever since the government removed most of its restrictions on investment in China in the early 1990s, massive amounts of the nation's capital and technology have been transferred to China, replacing other international capital as the driving force behind that country's rapid economic growth.
In other words, Taiwan has significantly contributed to the improved living standard of Chinese people. It really does not deserve Beijing's hostility.
For example, Beijing has objected to allowing Taiwan's popularly elected president to attend the APEC leaders' meetings. It has not given an inch on this issue. Seen from Taiwan's perspective, this attitude is extremely unreasonable. This sort of intransigence will only further hurt the relationship between people on both sides of the Taiwan Strait.
Beijing's officials managed to enrage Taiwan with their behavior every year, with the result that the forces advocating Taiwan independence continue to gain strength. It is no wonder that the kind of Taiwan consciousness that supports the model of "one country on either side of the Strait" has grown so rapidly. Political relations grow increasingly distant -- but Beijing's wrongheaded policies toward Taipei are solely to blame for this.
Politics and economics are quite separate matters. Last month Taiwan was ranked fourth in terms of the competitiveness of its economy in an assessment by the World Economic Forum. A country with such strong competitiveness is not going to disappear from the international scene simply because it is ignored, boycotted or ostracized by China at international gatherings.
Beijing's continued reluctance to acknowledge Taiwan's existence and open channels of communication through which both sides of the Strait can engage in reasonable and friendly dialogue serves no one. Only through better communication can tensions in the Taiwan Strait be reduced and both sides contribute to developing prosperity and stability in the Asia-Pacific region.
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
I have heard people equate the government’s stance on resisting forced unification with China or the conditional reinstatement of the military court system with the rise of the Nazis before World War II. The comparison is absurd. There is no meaningful parallel between the government and Nazi Germany, nor does such a mindset exist within the general public in Taiwan. It is important to remember that the German public bore some responsibility for the horrors of the Holocaust. Post-World War II Germany’s transitional justice efforts were rooted in a national reckoning and introspection. Many Jews were sent to concentration camps not