Your report that? "US Deputy Secretary of State John Negroponte said that the bid to enter the world body under the name `Taiwan' would be a move to change the `status quo'" ("Referendum a mistake, US official says", Aug. 29, page 1] sent me to the CIA World Factbook Web site (www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/), which closely reflects the political nuances of US international nomenclature. There I found Taiwan, out of the alphabetical order of countries, second from the bottom of the list.
Here is a relevant extract:
Country name:
conventional long form: none
conventional short form: Taiwan
In other words, the US does not even list?"Republic of China" (which suggests Chineseness)? as a possible name for your country (though we do list "Democratic People's Republic of Korea" for North Korea, which we do not recognize diplomatically). Instead, for decades we have insisted on "Taiwan" exclusively, which indicates to me that use of that name has long been integral to the "status quo."
Given this fact, I would like to respectfully ask the US deputy secretary of state to suggest the appropriate name to be used in your UN application. Or perhaps the problem is not the name, but rather the possibility that your 23 million people might be represented there?
Arthur Waldron
Lauder Professor of
International Relations
University of Pennsylvania
Negroponte seems to be offering US support for democracy, prosperity and fraternity in return for Taiwan giving up its demand for freedom and independence.
If the US State Department is so beholden to China that it continues to back Taiwan into that dismal corner and continues to assist China in suppressing Taiwan in everything from healthcare to wildlife, the Taiwanese will surely be driven to give the same answer as Patrick Henry in 1775: "Give me liberty or give me death."
As US President George W. Bush frequently reminds us, freedom and democracy are indivisible and universal values that cannot be parsed, sequenced, prioritized or put on hold. Is the US State Department so busy cutting deals around the world that it has forgotten its own mission? Or is its "intelligence" on cross-strait relations on a par with its intelligence on Iraq?
John Pickles
Taipei
The referendum to join the UN as "Taiwan" set off another firestorm in Taiwan-US relations with Negroponte accusing Taiwan of seeking to alter the "status quo." The fact that he said this in an interview broadcast on Chinese media is even more unnerving.
We all know that the "status quo" favors China and threatens Taiwan, yet US officials continue to drive this point in an era when China is expanding and modernizing its military, openly conducting cyber warfare and selling weapons to rogue states.
Taiwanese have lived under the shadow of those infamous two words for too long and have started to realize that perhaps the "status quo" does need to be redefined; not by politicians in Washington, not by the communists in Beijing, but by the good people of Taiwan.
If countries like North Korea, Iran, Syria and Cuba are allowed to become UN members, what reasonable argument is there to deny the Taiwanese, who enjoy a vibrant economy and democracy, the right to join the organization?
Perhaps the "status quo" between Taiwan and the US needs to be re-evaluated as well.
Eugene Liu
Atlanta, Georgia
The gutting of Voice of America (VOA) and Radio Free Asia (RFA) by US President Donald Trump’s administration poses a serious threat to the global voice of freedom, particularly for those living under authoritarian regimes such as China. The US — hailed as the model of liberal democracy — has the moral responsibility to uphold the values it champions. In undermining these institutions, the US risks diminishing its “soft power,” a pivotal pillar of its global influence. VOA Tibetan and RFA Tibetan played an enormous role in promoting the strong image of the US in and outside Tibet. On VOA Tibetan,
Sung Chien-liang (宋建樑), the leader of the Chinese Nationalist Party’s (KMT) efforts to recall Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) Legislator Lee Kun-cheng (李坤城), caused a national outrage and drew diplomatic condemnation on Tuesday after he arrived at the New Taipei City District Prosecutors’ Office dressed in a Nazi uniform. Sung performed a Nazi salute and carried a copy of Adolf Hitler’s Mein Kampf as he arrived to be questioned over allegations of signature forgery in the recall petition. The KMT’s response to the incident has shown a striking lack of contrition and decency. Rather than apologizing and distancing itself from Sung’s actions,
US President Trump weighed into the state of America’s semiconductor manufacturing when he declared, “They [Taiwan] stole it from us. They took it from us, and I don’t blame them. I give them credit.” At a prior White House event President Trump hosted TSMC chairman C.C. Wei (魏哲家), head of the world’s largest and most advanced chip manufacturer, to announce a commitment to invest US$100 billion in America. The president then shifted his previously critical rhetoric on Taiwan and put off tariffs on its chips. Now we learn that the Trump Administration is conducting a “trade investigation” on semiconductors which
By now, most of Taiwan has heard Taipei Mayor Chiang Wan-an’s (蔣萬安) threats to initiate a vote of no confidence against the Cabinet. His rationale is that the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP)-led government’s investigation into alleged signature forgery in the Chinese Nationalist Party’s (KMT) recall campaign constitutes “political persecution.” I sincerely hope he goes through with it. The opposition currently holds a majority in the Legislative Yuan, so the initiation of a no-confidence motion and its passage should be entirely within reach. If Chiang truly believes that the government is overreaching, abusing its power and targeting political opponents — then