Pundits who thought the trips to China by Chinese Nationalist Party Chairman (KMT) Lien Chan (連戰) and People First Party Chairman James Soong (宋楚瑜) would elicit a more civilized form of behavior from Beijing were fooling themselves. Beijing has once again blocked Taipei's application to join the World Health Organization (WHO), and thus China's "united front" strategy and hypocrisy in creating the illusion of "peaceful intentions" for international consumption is plain to see. Equally obvious is Beijing's lust for Taiwan's territory at the expense of the health and security of Taiwanese people.
Following Lien's and Soong's meetings with Chinese President Hu Jintao (
But less than a week after the visits, the Chinese leadership pressed the World Health Assembly (WHA) to obstruct Taiwan's bid to join it. They even tried to suggest that Taiwan might join through a secret deal, thus creating the impression that Taiwan was willing to reduce its status to that of a province and join the Chinese delegation.
Earlier, when members of the WHO Secretariat briefed representatives of the British Commonwealth, they mentioned a memorandum of understanding that the WHO had signed with China. It was said that this was the first time China had agreed to allow Taiwan to participate in WHO activities, on the condition that it joins China's delegation under the name of "Taiwan, China." In addition, Beijing's approval would be necessary prior to any technical exchanges or offers of support from the WHO.
Taiwan was not informed about these negotiations, nor was it consulted at any time. By demanding that Taiwan become a member of its delegation, China was seeking to belittle Taiwan's status as a sovereign nation. This underlines the ignorance of the WHO Secretariat in regard to cross-strait politics. Taiwan would never have agreed to such humiliating conditions.
China's tactics prove that the agreements Hu reached with Lien and Soong -- both of whom long for unification -- are worth less than the paper on which they are printed. Taiwan's experience on this attempt to attend the WHA should show simple-minded officials and politicians who insist on building mechanisms of mutual trust that there is no trust to be found from Beijing, and that anyone who deals with China in any capacity should be wary and prepare for some disappointing outcomes.
Activities organized by UN organizations should not become arenas in which powerful nations run roughshod over weaker nations and despotic nations make a mockery of democratic ones.
China, in particular, as a full member of the UN, would do well not to mislead international opinion using secret negotiations of the type witnessed in Geneva.
But this is probably a pipe dream. Instead, China will likely continue with these tactics, confirming to anyone who looks that the communist regime is underhanded and cowardly. Little wonder that the majority of Taiwanese don't want anything to do with that regime.
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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