The Nobel Peace Prize was established more than 100 years ago and it used to be a tremendous honor to be awarded the prize. Unfortunately, some recent choices of recipient have been confusing, even preposterous, and this has undermined the prestige and credibility of the prize.
In 1994, the Nobel Peace Prize was awarded to three leaders from Israel and Palestine, Yasser Arafat, Shimon Peres and Yitzhak Rabin, but they never managed to bring peace to the region. In 2000, South Korean president Kim Dae-jung was awarded the prize to recognize his work for reconciliation with North Korea following a summit meeting with his North Korean counterpart Kim Jong-il, but the two Koreas remain at war, with no peace in sight. Later, it was discovered that North Korea had been given US$100 million by South Korea shortly before the meeting, leading to suspicions that the meeting came about as the result of a bribe.
In 2002, former US president Jimmy Carter received the peace prize, although he was notorious for his weakness and incapability and had made no substantial contribution to world peace. In 2007, former US vice president Al Gore and the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change were awarded the peace prize for their efforts to “disseminate greater knowledge about man-made climate change,” but Gore was then accused of aggravating pollution and global warming by flying around the world in a private jet. Even more embarrassing, it was revealed that the electricity consumption of his family was several times higher than the average US household.
This year, US President Barack Obama was awarded the peace prize, creating a great commotion around the world as he had merely proposed a fairytale-like vision of a world without nuclear weapons and the prevention of global warming, without having made any substantial contribution. Obama announced that he was not qualified to receive the prize and would donate the prize money to charity.
All this makes one wonder whether the five members of the Norwegian Nobel Committee have lost their minds as they have destroyed the prize’s prestige and credibility.
If a Taiwanese thinks there is a Nobel Peace Prize to be had by making peace with China by signing a so-called “peace accord” and getting Beijing to remove the more than 1,000 missiles it has aimed at the country, he would be bringing catastrophe to the nation.
A peace accord is a document signed by nations at war, but Taiwan has neither the intention nor the capability of attacking China. It is only China that openly and blatantly threatens Taiwan with the use of military force. If China really wanted peace, it could renounce the use of military force against Taiwan. That would solve the issue and there would be no need to sign a peace agreement.
It is a strategy that China uses to swindle Taiwan into making concessions, such as ending arms purchases from the US. In this day and age of high-tech weaponry, the physical location of the missiles is unimportant, so shaking hands with China’s leaders would not improve the situation. Just look at the meeting between the two Korean leaders.
If someone in Taiwan still dreams of being awarded the Nobel Peace Prize, I advise that he or she quickly give up the idea. A prize of more than US$1 million may greatly increase his or her personal wealth, but it would be won at the expense of selling out the country — and that person would forever be remembered as a traitor.
Peng Ming-min is chairman of the Peng Ming-min Foundation.
TRANSLATED BY TED YANG
US president-elect Donald Trump on Tuesday named US Representative Mike Waltz, a vocal supporter of arms sales to Taiwan who has called China an “existential threat,” as his national security advisor, and on Thursday named US Senator Marco Rubio, founding member of the Inter-Parliamentary Alliance on China — a global, cross-party alliance to address the challenges that China poses to the rules-based order — as his secretary of state. Trump’s appointments, including US Representative Elise Stefanik as US ambassador to the UN, who has been a strong supporter of Taiwan in the US Congress, and Robert Lighthizer as US trade
A nation has several pillars of national defense, among them are military strength, energy and food security, and national unity. Military strength is very much on the forefront of the debate, while several recent editorials have dealt with energy security. National unity and a sense of shared purpose — especially while a powerful, hostile state is becoming increasingly menacing — are problematic, and would continue to be until the nation’s schizophrenia is properly managed. The controversy over the past few days over former navy lieutenant commander Lu Li-shih’s (呂禮詩) usage of the term “our China” during an interview about his attendance
Following the BRICS summit held in Kazan, Russia, last month, media outlets circulated familiar narratives about Russia and China’s plans to dethrone the US dollar and build a BRICS-led global order. Each summit brings renewed buzz about a BRICS cross-border payment system designed to replace the SWIFT payment system, allowing members to trade without using US dollars. Articles often highlight the appeal of this concept to BRICS members — bypassing sanctions, reducing US dollar dependence and escaping US influence. They say that, if widely adopted, the US dollar could lose its global currency status. However, none of these articles provide
Bo Guagua (薄瓜瓜), the son of former Chinese Communist Party (CCP) Central Committee Politburo member and former Chongqing Municipal Communist Party secretary Bo Xilai (薄熙來), used his British passport to make a low-key entry into Taiwan on a flight originating in Canada. He is set to marry the granddaughter of former political heavyweight Hsu Wen-cheng (許文政), the founder of Luodong Poh-Ai Hospital in Yilan County’s Luodong Township (羅東). Bo Xilai is a former high-ranking CCP official who was once a challenger to Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) for the chairmanship of the CCP. That makes Bo Guagua a bona fide “third-generation red”