"We don't always have to be well-behaved. Sometimes we must be bad," National Security Council Secretary-General Mark Chen (
The US has faulted Taiwan's behavior again. One day after President Chen proposed that a referendum on the nation's bid to join the UN under the name "Taiwan" be held simultaneously with next year's presidential election, the US State Department said it was opposed to the proposal and urged the president to drop it.
Back in March, Mark Chen also said: "We must sometimes say `no' to the United States."
Indeed.
Before anyone in the US State Department again points to Taiwan as being a "troublemaker," it's worth contemplating if being bad is really bad.
If bad means Taiwan exercising its democratic rights and letting the voice of its people be heard, then, yes, let Taiwan be bad in the eyes of the US State Department.
Taiwan is an independent state with its own government, a freely elected head of state and representatives, its own currency and national territory. It need not be told by the US -- nor anyone else for that matter -- what it can or cannot do. The Taiwanese government is answerable only to Taiwanese -- not the US, China or anybody else who does not have the right to vote in Taiwan.
Taiwan has behaved like a good child for too long, dutifully fulfilling its role as a global citizen, carrying out humanitarian relief work, combating terrorism and cracking down on international money laundering despite the unjust treatment it receives from the international community.
Enough is enough. Taiwan needs to step out and start making some noise to grab the world's attention. Doing so exercises the universal right to self-determination that is a hallmark of democracy.
Silence is not golden in terms of Taiwan's plight. Just because a majority of the international community does not have the guts to stand up to China's despotism does not mean that Taiwan has to quietly accept this continuing injustice.
What is there to fear in having the people of Taiwan raise their collective voice and make themselves heard?
Former US congressman and recipient of the US' 1981 Presidential Medal of Freedom award Walter Judd once said: "People often say that, in a democracy, decisions are made by a majority of the people. Of course, that is not true. Decisions are made by a majority of those who make themselves heard and who vote -- a very different thing."
This is something that the US -- which has long trumpeted the message of democracy -- needs to think about.
Taiwan values and appreciates the US' friendship. But at times, the US also has to know what being a friend means, and when to respect a friend's point of view.
US$18.278 billion is a simple dollar figure; one that’s illustrative of the first Trump administration’s defense commitment to Taiwan. But what does Donald Trump care for money? During President Trump’s first term, the US defense department approved gross sales of “defense articles and services” to Taiwan of over US$18 billion. In September, the US-Taiwan Business Council compared Trump’s figure to the other four presidential administrations since 1993: President Clinton approved a total of US$8.702 billion from 1993 through 2000. President George W. Bush approved US$15.614 billion in eight years. This total would have been significantly greater had Taiwan’s Kuomintang-controlled Legislative Yuan been cooperative. During
Former president Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) in recent days was the focus of the media due to his role in arranging a Chinese “student” group to visit Taiwan. While his team defends the visit as friendly, civilized and apolitical, the general impression is that it was a political stunt orchestrated as part of Chinese Communist Party (CCP) propaganda, as its members were mainly young communists or university graduates who speak of a future of a unified country. While Ma lived in Taiwan almost his entire life — except during his early childhood in Hong Kong and student years in the US —
Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) lawmakers on Monday unilaterally passed a preliminary review of proposed amendments to the Public Officers Election and Recall Act (公職人員選罷法) in just one minute, while Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) legislators, government officials and the media were locked out. The hasty and discourteous move — the doors of the Internal Administration Committee chamber were locked and sealed with plastic wrap before the preliminary review meeting began — was a great setback for Taiwan’s democracy. Without any legislative discussion or public witnesses, KMT Legislator Hsu Hsin-ying (徐欣瑩), the committee’s convener, began the meeting at 9am and announced passage of the
In response to a failure to understand the “good intentions” behind the use of the term “motherland,” a professor from China’s Fudan University recklessly claimed that Taiwan used to be a colony, so all it needs is a “good beating.” Such logic is risible. The Central Plains people in China were once colonized by the Mongolians, the Manchus and other foreign peoples — does that mean they also deserve a “good beating?” According to the professor, having been ruled by the Cheng Dynasty — named after its founder, Ming-loyalist Cheng Cheng-kung (鄭成功, also known as Koxinga) — as the Kingdom of Tungning,
RSS