After visiting Taiwan a few years ago, some journalists from New Zealand said their biggest regret was the government's refusal to call itself by the name "Taiwan" -- despite it clearly being an independent country. But the nation's official representative offices across the world continue to use other names, confusing allies and friends and undercutting national dignity.
Take, for example, the name of Taiwan's delegation to the WTO. Its title is the "Permanent Mission of the Separate Customs Territory of Taiwan, Penghu, Kinmen and Matsu." Taiwan's representative office in Hong Kong is called a "travel service," and its office in London was once called the Sun Yat-sen Cultural Center. Dignified, indeed.
It is necessary, therefore, to standardize the names of Taiwan's official representative offices and state-run companies in order to clearly distinguish them from those of China.
When the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) government broached the introduction of a new constitution and the amendment of the national title, many people said -- all too predictably -- that this was like walking a tightrope, provoking China by implementing a unilateral change to the cross-strait "status quo."
Those raising such questions now seem to include officials from the US Department of State. Yet there can be no doubt that the Taiwanese public is determined to see that peace prevails. The current problem, therefore, is how to adjust the currently unstable situation and help the international community get a clearer picture of this country without attracting too much opposition from less sympathetic countries.
There is no need for the State Department to be so nervous. It seems that as soon as Taiwan mentions a new constitution or title of convenience, their officials fear a declaration of independence is imminent. Taiwanese democracy operates on the strength of the same mechanisms as many other democratic countries. All matters concerning national sovereignty must be approved by the legislature, so President Chen Shui-bian (
Changing the names of state-run enterprises, on the other hand, is a purely domestic matter and the US has no basis on which it can interfere. As for the names of private enterprises, not even Taiwan's government can interfere with such commercial decisions.
Attempts to change the name of Taiwan date back to 1979 when the Taiwan Relations Act came into force. At that time the KMT even protested that the name Taiwan was being used to refer to the Republic of China (ROC). So, if "Taiwan" is now used to stand in for "ROC" in other contexts, the US really has no reason to object. If it does, it might be usefully asked to refer to its own law books.
There is nothing unreasonable about a new constitution that redefines this nation's territories as those which it actually controls, namely Taiwan, Penghu, Kinmen and Matsu. Similarly, any reasonable person would welcome the name "Taiwan" as a replacement for all of the peculiar titles under which this country has labored so that people can differentiate between Taiwan and China at a glance.
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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