Sunday's article about Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Chairman Ma Ying-jeou (
Hasn't Taiwan seeded many Chinese business enterprises?
Aren't the foundations of China's consumer electronics industries founded with the help of Taiwanese and Japanese businessman?
It appears to this reader that Ma once again misses the real issue: the rights of 23 million Taiwanese.
President Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁) has walked a fine line in balancing international concern about "upsetting China" and the need to protect Taiwan's national identity. I am struck by how the Taiwanese have managed to maintain their cultural core despite occupation by the Japanese and the Chinese. China has responded to Chen's "five noes" and Taiwan's peaceful overtures with threats, missiles and interference in Taiwan's domestic politics.
It is time for Ma to admit that the "status quo" has always been a fiction. And because the "status quo" was a fiction imposed on the people of Taiwan without their consent, it is not the foundation of their free and democratic nation. The nation of Taiwan flows from its people.
A rich culture existed in Taiwan long before the Chinese or even the Japanese colonial period.
Taiwan has always been more than the Chinese icons and symbols former dictator Chiang Kai-shek (蔣介石) brought with him after losing the civil war in China. Taking a snapshot of the time when Chiang was in exile in Taiwan and then calling that the "status quo" is wrong and disrespects the struggles, history and sacrifices of a nation and its native people.
It is time to drop the fictions that anchor Taiwan to uncertainty and to instead support three objectives for the nation: a defined status; direct participation in the international community; and patriotism.
A defined status means that the people of Taiwan no longer need to live in purgatory. The people should be able to freely identify themselves as Taiwanese without fear of annihilation.
Participation in the international community means that the 23 million inhabitants of Taiwan have direct access to the international organizations that have been established to promote world health and peace. Taiwan operates as a sovereign country. Denying Taiwan access to the UN stifles the voices of 23 million people. It is unacceptable that China, after exporting SARS to Taiwan, continues to block Taiwan's entry into the WHO.
Patriotism does not allow divided loyalty. With China having passed its now infamous "Anti-Succession" Law, codifying its military expansionist goals against Taiwan, all politicians should to be united against this common threat. Sadly, some Taiwanese politicians traveled to China as "private citizens" and provided the Chinese Communist Party with yet another propaganda opportunity. Finally, patriotism also means passing necessary legislation to modernize the military, rather than leaving the country in a weakened state.
Mark Krietzman
California
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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