Last week the local Chinese-language media portrayed Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Chairman Lien Chan (
A better way to depict the situation is this: only after Lien and the KMT backed down from their prior position about the purpose and nature of the trip have both the US and Taiwan governments decided to adopt a less skeptical, wait-and-see attitude.
On Tuesday, Randall Schriver, the US deputy assistant secretary of state in charge of China and Taiwan issues told reporters that "the leaders in Beijing will ultimately have to talk to the elected leaders in Taiwan and the government that is in power."
If Beijing is only willing to speak with opposition leaders such as Lien and People First Party (PFP) Chairman James Soong (宋楚瑜), the already complicated cross-strait relationship will only become more complicated. So, although Schriver did not criticize Lien and Soong, it isn't hard to detect some degree of skepticism. The KMT is obviously aware of this.
A meeting between Lien and American Institute in Taiwan Director Douglas Paal took place the day after Schriver's comments. KMT spokesman Chang Jung-kung (
It is generally believed that both Lien and Soong communicated to the US through various channels that during their trips to China they will not sign any agreement with Beijing and will act in accordance with their status as opposition leaders. Chang's remarks seem to confirm this general belief.
It makes sense then, that US State Department spokesperson Adam Ereli said on Wednesday in Washington that "Recent travels to China by Taiwanese individuals are positive steps ... we, I think, look favorably on and welcome steps in that direction."
At the same time, the Presidential Office has indicated that it is treating the visits by Lien and Soong as purely private in nature and without any official status. From that standpoint, the Presidential Office has indicated support for Lien and Soong's trips. The government's change in posture obviously had much to do with the promises conveyed by Lien and Soong -- either through the US or other channels -- to not overstep their bounds.
The attitude of the Taiwan and US governments can be interpreted as follows: If you must go, then so long as you do not do anything illegal, we'll give you the benefit of the doubt.
However, that attitude is way too tolerant of Lien and Soong. It is true that if they go in private capacities and aren't breaking any laws, there is no way to stop them. After all, many Taiwanese citizens travel across the Taiwan Strait on a regular basis.
But Lien and Soong are also leaders of political parties. Voters have cast ballots for their parties in freely-held elections, and in that sense they are politically accountable to the people of Taiwan. Their trips have helped ease international pressure on China for its enactment of the "Anti-Secession" Law and diverted the Taiwanese public's attention. For that, they don't deserve the benefit of the doubt from anyone.
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
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,
“I compare the Communist Party to my mother,” sings a student at a boarding school in a Tibetan region of China’s Qinghai province. “If faith has a color,” others at a different school sing, “it would surely be Chinese red.” In a major story for the New York Times this month, Chris Buckley wrote about the forced placement of hundreds of thousands of Tibetan children in boarding schools, where many suffer physical and psychological abuse. Separating these children from their families, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) aims to substitute itself for their parents and for their religion. Buckley’s reporting is
As Taiwan’s domestic political crisis deepens, the opposition Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) and Taiwan People’s Party (TPP) have proposed gutting the country’s national spending, with steep cuts to the critical foreign and defense ministries. While the blue-white coalition alleges that it is merely responding to voters’ concerns about corruption and mismanagement, of which there certainly has been plenty under Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) and KMT-led governments, the rationales for their proposed spending cuts lay bare the incoherent foreign policy of the KMT-led coalition. Introduced on the eve of US President Donald Trump’s inauguration, the KMT’s proposed budget is a terrible opening
RSS