Unmasking the ‘horse’
The confirmation that Diane Lee (李慶安) has US citizenship seemed to carry more implications than the exposure of a garden-variety hypocrisy from the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT)-dominated legislature, given that deceit abounds in Taiwan today.
Pre-election promises notwithstanding, President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九), backed by the KMT, insists that cross-strait deals should take effect without either legislative vetting or public scrutiny.
Even without being privy to the premises behind those agreements, Taiwanese could still detect the ill effects unique to losing the nation’s sovereignty. There is then no doubt that we have been betrayed.
To many Taiwanese, Ma’s horror show is just getting started, given his propensity to steadily and quietly subjugate his government to Beijing.
At this rate, by the time the next presidential election rolls around, there won’t be any power left to transfer to his successor if Taiwanese decide to throw Ma out after one term. Ma is in essence pre-empting Taiwan’s democratic process.
It’s now a race between how fast Taiwanese can consolidate the opposition and Ma’s pace at undermining Taiwan. Even waiting until Ma’s one-year anniversary in office to constitutionally launch his recall might seem like an unaffordable luxury at this point.
Whistling in the dark, the KMT encourages the circulation among the Taiwanese public of the myth that the People’s Liberation Army would come to the KMT’s aid in case of a Taiwanese uprising.
What’s being ignored is the fact that Beijing’s launch of any invasion could only be with the intention of forcefully taking possession of Taiwan, not of helping out an — by then — irrelevant KMT. Ma and the KMT would be of value to Beijing only as long as these “Chinese compatriots” can hold down the lid on the pressure cooker Taiwan could one day become.
The KMT wouldn’t fare any better than the Taiwanese public if Beijing launches cross-strait military action.
Ma and many in the KMT leadership, such as Lee, appreciate this fine point and value the security of being a US national.
But they also don’t want to give up their power in Taiwan.
This desire to “have their cake and eat it too” gave birth to the Ma-patented fallacy of “automatic loss of validity” of US naturalization.
However, the reason US citizenship and immigrant status don’t automatically disappear is because they come with not only rights but duties too, not the least of which is filing an annual income tax return.
Lee’s case is noted for its being such a dead ringer for Ma’s, a fact that might also explain the timing of the exposure as it signifies the increasing wariness of Washington toward Ma.
It was once a common belief that as long as Ma was constrained by the US from instituting martial law to bury democracy, Taiwanese should have ample opportunity to fight for their own future.
That has proved to be a gross underestimation of Ma and the KMT’s treachery.
Ma’s pursuit of a stealthy dictatorship is taking Taiwan farther away from the West.
As a consequence, Washington could soon be forced to decide whether or not to give up on Taiwan’s democracy, and Taiwanese as free people, for the sake of an unjust peace.
Washington, by opting to expose Lee to minimize the cost of political capital while still hoping that the Taiwanese public can discern the inescapable conclusion, shouldn’t be surprised by the inability or unwillingness of many Taiwanese to connect the dots.
Ma’s popularity is stuck in the doldrums, however, thanks primarily to his mishandling of Taiwan’s economy, not to his dismantling of Taiwan’s sovereignty.
To restore some filament of its credibility in advocating democracy, Washington should stop beating around the bush and lay bare Ma’s real identity.
HUANG JEI-HSUAN
Los Angeles, California
It is employment pass renewal season in Singapore, and the new regime is dominating the conversation at after-work cocktails on Fridays. From September, overseas employees on a work visa would need to fulfill the city-state’s new points-based system, and earn a minimum salary threshold to stay in their jobs. While this mirrors what happens in other countries, it risks turning foreign companies away, and could tarnish the nation’s image as a global business hub. The program was announced in 2022 in a bid to promote fair hiring practices. Points are awarded for how a candidate’s salary compares with local peers, along
China last month enacted legislation to punish —including with the death penalty — “die-hard Taiwanese independence separatists.” The country’s leaders, including Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平), need to be reminded about what the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) has said and done in the past. They should think about whether those historical figures were also die-hard advocates of Taiwanese independence. The Taiwanese Communist Party was established in the Shanghai French Concession in April 1928, with a political charter that included the slogans “Long live the independence of the Taiwanese people” and “Establish a republic of Taiwan.” The CCP sent a representative, Peng
Japan and the Philippines on Monday signed a defense agreement that would facilitate joint drills between them. The pact was made “as both face an increasingly assertive China,” and is in line with Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jr’s “effort to forge security alliances to bolster the Philippine military’s limited ability to defend its territorial interests in the South China Sea,” The Associated Press (AP) said. The pact also comes on the heels of comments by former US deputy national security adviser Matt Pottinger, who said at a forum on Tuesday last week that China’s recent aggression toward the Philippines in
The Ministry of National Defense on Tuesday announced that the military would hold its annual Han Kuang exercises from July 22 to 26. Military officers said the exercises would feature unscripted war games, and a decentralized command and control structure. This year’s exercises underline the recent reforms in Taiwan’s military as it transitions from a top-down command structure to one where autonomy is pushed down to the front lines to improve decisionmaking and adaptability. Militaries around the world have been observing and studying Russia’s war in Ukraine. They have seen that the Ukrainian military has been much quicker to adapt to