The other day, I had the opportunity to speak with Taiwan's representative to the EU, Chen Chien-jen (
China has two objectives regarding Taiwan and the WTO: to undermine Taiwan's sovereignty and to force Taiwan to accept a status equivalent to Chinese territories such as Hong Kong and Macao.
In 1992, under the government of the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT), muddle-headed officials came to an understanding with the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) -- the precursor to the WTO -- to enter the organization as a "separate customs territory" with the same standing as Hong Kong and Macao. When this concession came to the notice of the new Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) government, they went all out to remedy the situation at once.
Working through the WTO, representatives of allied governments and Taiwan's representatives overseas, the government managed to come to an arrangement that constituted a victory for Taiwan: While member nations endorsed the various details of the WTO agreement, representing a consensus, there was no consensus on Taiwan's status, and this was simply added to the record unilaterally by the chairman.
Who would have thought that our first representative to the WTO, Yen Ching-chang (
I was one of the people who was lobbied. Yen put forward various documents to support his argument, including the agreement over Taiwan's WTO entry, indicating that this proved that Taiwan had agreed to accept the "custom's territory" status. But as shown above, this was not in fact the case.
Yen failed in his mission to lobby for Chinese interests, and the government returned to its strategies of 2001, mobilizing all its resources and support, forcing Supachai to back down in his demands. This was another victory for Taiwan.
Despite these two victories, why is it that we have now been utterly defeated? I took the opportunity to ask Chen what diplomatic strategies would be adopted in the face of this challenge. He was silent at first, and then avoided answering the question. I was insistent, wanting to know what kind of support he was getting in Geneva. Clearly he felt the battle had been lost even before it had begun, the commander-in-chief having given up the fight.
His silence was full of sorrow. The past battles had been won with great effort, including his own, but now, under a new commander-in-chief, defeat had already been accepted before the troops could take to the field. Everything that had been gained was now being handed over to China.
And the tragedy doesn't end here. Even though Yen failed to fight off Chinese pressure, on his return he was still given the Order of the Brilliant Star, and then was handed the chairmanship of Fuhwa Financial Holdings -- in total violation of public service regulations, as Yen had formerly served as a minister of finance.
In Taiwan, defeated generals are not relegated to obscurity, but are given awards. What kind of standard does this set? Surely there is no hope for such a country.
Lin Cho-shui is a DPP legislator.
Translated by Ian Bartholomew
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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