In the days of the White Terror it was common for suspected dissidents to be seized by armed men in broad daylight or dragged from their beds in the middle of the night.
Others simply disappeared, never to be heard from again. Under the heavy surveillance of the Taiwan Garrison Command, the public lived in fear.
After decades of hard work to achieve the democracy and freedom Taiwan enjoys today, the recent incident concerning Democratic Progressive Party Tainan City Councilor Wang Ting-yu (王定宇) is cause for alarm.
Following reports last week that Wang allegedly instigated an incident in which China’s Association for Relations Across the Taiwan Strait Vice Chairman Zhang Mingqing (張銘清) fell over, media outlets reported on Monday that Wang’s life had been threatened by a suspected gangster who demanded that he offer an apology to Zhang.
Cable Channel CTI filmed as Huang Ju-yi (黃如意) sat next to Wang on a sofa and described to him how to present his apology, pounding him on the chest twice.
Wang later told reporters: “A gangster told me, ‘You had better offer an apology to the camera, or I could kill you with one shot.’”
Given past instances in which politicians have staged acts to gain media exposure, it is understandable why some are harboring skepticism over the reports and why they are quick to say Wang staged the incident.
The case is under investigation and until the truth is revealed, the repercussions of the incident can only be speculated on.
If the threat against Wang is real, it should not be viewed as an isolated case. Wang would not be the only victim.
One of the benefits of this democracy is the right to free speech.
People can voice their ideas without having to live in fear of the consequences. Is Taiwan to return to a time when critics are taken away by KGB-like secret agents or gangsters?
The Chinese Nationalist Party’s (KMT) record of close relations with organized crime has been well documented, and many of these gangs are closely tied to China.
A list issued by Foreign Policy magazine this May ranked Taiwan’s Bamboo Union gang as one of the world’s four most dangerous associations.
The Mainlander gang is known for “drug smuggling, human trafficking and ‘silencing’ journalists as far away as Northern California,” it said.
According to the magazine, the Bamboo Union “emerged as the largest of several Beijing-backed assassination machines in the wake of the communist takeover of mainland China.”
By no means are we suggesting that the Bamboo Union is behind the alleged threat against Wang. However, if authorities fail to take Wang’s statement seriously but to treat it as a petty crime, it is difficult to dismiss the possibility that a policewoman at last Saturday’s anti-government rally was on to something when she told rally-goers that her real boss was “the People’s Republic of China.”
Concerns that the US might abandon Taiwan are often overstated. While US President Donald Trump’s handling of Ukraine raised unease in Taiwan, it is crucial to recognize that Taiwan is not Ukraine. Under Trump, the US views Ukraine largely as a European problem, whereas the Indo-Pacific region remains its primary geopolitical focus. Taipei holds immense strategic value for Washington and is unlikely to be treated as a bargaining chip in US-China relations. Trump’s vision of “making America great again” would be directly undermined by any move to abandon Taiwan. Despite the rhetoric of “America First,” the Trump administration understands the necessity of
US President Donald Trump’s challenge to domestic American economic-political priorities, and abroad to the global balance of power, are not a threat to the security of Taiwan. Trump’s success can go far to contain the real threat — the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) surge to hegemony — while offering expanded defensive opportunities for Taiwan. In a stunning affirmation of the CCP policy of “forceful reunification,” an obscene euphemism for the invasion of Taiwan and the destruction of its democracy, on March 13, 2024, the People’s Liberation Army’s (PLA) used Chinese social media platforms to show the first-time linkage of three new
If you had a vision of the future where China did not dominate the global car industry, you can kiss those dreams goodbye. That is because US President Donald Trump’s promised 25 percent tariff on auto imports takes an ax to the only bits of the emerging electric vehicle (EV) supply chain that are not already dominated by Beijing. The biggest losers when the levies take effect this week would be Japan and South Korea. They account for one-third of the cars imported into the US, and as much as two-thirds of those imported from outside North America. (Mexico and Canada, while
I have heard people equate the government’s stance on resisting forced unification with China or the conditional reinstatement of the military court system with the rise of the Nazis before World War II. The comparison is absurd. There is no meaningful parallel between the government and Nazi Germany, nor does such a mindset exist within the general public in Taiwan. It is important to remember that the German public bore some responsibility for the horrors of the Holocaust. Post-World War II Germany’s transitional justice efforts were rooted in a national reckoning and introspection. Many Jews were sent to concentration camps not
RSS