As Taiwan goes to the presidential polls, it is imperative the nation notes and understands the situation in Tibet. For those Taiwanese who dream of becoming an integral part of China, it is important to understand that the treatment of Tibet and Tibetans is only a small sample of what lies in store for Taiwan should it become part of China.
For those Taiwanese who believe that Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) presidential candidate Ma Ying-jeou (
The only definition of "co-existence" for Beijing is "undying loyalty to the Communist Party, upon pain of death."
Ma talks about 30 years of peace with Beijing. But Beijing has murdered Tibet's culture and autonomy over a period of 50 years.
Are you skeptical? Fifty years of Beijing's relationship with the Dalai Lama should have proved this point to the world already.
If a nation cannot co-exist with the Dalai Lama, a leader who personifies peace, just who in the world can they co-exist with?
Nor will Beijing march into Taipei with guns drawn. Its annexation of Taiwan is being planned in far more subtle ways, with or without the KMT's full complicity.
Wearing grins on their faces and talking about social harmony, cross-strait peace and a "one-China market," politicians on both sides are misrepresenting the underlying predatory nature of Beijing to the Taiwanese public.
The plans call for peace, but as soon as the guard is down, as soon as someone decides there is no immediate threat, the dam will burst and the flood of China's overwhelming tide will overwhelm Taiwan.
It will first come from the sheer numbers of Chinese visitors and then immigrants, money, millions of workers, hollowing out invaluable industries, and -- when Taiwan is utterly cowed and dependent on Beijing's succor -- blackmail.
Once overwhelmed, all hope is lost.
Beijing will not treat Taiwan like Hong Kong (which is bad enough), but rather like Tibet, where right now, today, at this very moment, soldiers are conducting house-to-house searches for monks supporting the Dalai Lama, looking for pictures of him or any other evidence of loyalty.
How long before Chinese soldiers are running from house to house in Taipei searching for "splittists"? Where will Ma be then? Standing in front, protecting those houses? Or running along beside the soldiers, aiding and abetting?
You decide.
With President Chen Shui-bian (
They've already sacrificed themselves for Taiwan's democracy before.
I haven't heard anything from Ma that would convince me he wouldn't be on the first plane to Hong Kong (or New York or Beijing)
For those going to the polls, Tibet should serve as a loud and blaring wake up call. For those who think things have changed and that Beijing is a kinder and gentler adversary, wake up.
The predatory neighbor is not coming to visit Taiwan bearing cookies. It is coming bearing dictatorship and tyranny. Vote for anything less than complete vigilance against it, and you are inviting the beast to a dinner where you are the main dish.
And if you doubt that, if you are skeptical that Beijing could do that, just read about Tibet right now.
It's real. It's happening. The actions of Beijing in Tibet are no different than its attitude toward Taiwan.
And it's coming, unless you vote to keep it out.
You decide.
Lee Long-Hwa
New York
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,
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
The National Development Council (NDC) on Wednesday last week launched a six-month “digital nomad visitor visa” program, the Central News Agency (CNA) reported on Monday. The new visa is for foreign nationals from Taiwan’s list of visa-exempt countries who meet financial eligibility criteria and provide proof of work contracts, but it is not clear how it differs from other visitor visas for nationals of those countries, CNA wrote. The NDC last year said that it hoped to attract 100,000 “digital nomads,” according to the report. Interest in working remotely from abroad has significantly increased in recent years following improvements in
RSS