The World Health Assembly held its annual meeting in Geneva this week. It was a major meeting of international health ministers, representing the member states of the WHO. Because of Chinese obstruction and bullying, Taiwan’s health minister was able to attend the meeting only as an “observer.”
In September 2010, a confidential internal memo became public, in which the WHO instructed its staff to refer to Taiwan as a “province of China.” Regrettably, in spite of President Ma Ying-jeou’s (馬英九) policy of accommodation with China, Taiwan is still being politically isolated and treated as a nonentity, or worse.
China is going to incredible lengths in its attempts to push Taiwan into a corner: In a nebulous UN subcommittee, it got the UN to refer to Taiwan as “Taiwan, Province of China,” so now the International Standards Organization in Geneva lists Taiwan as such, with the result that in drop-down menus in computers all over the world, Taiwan-born people who want to list Taiwan as their birthplace are suddenly confronted with the unpleasant dilemma of having to note “Province of China” as their birthplace.
Fortunately — when organizations like the California voter registration system or the Boston Athletic Association, which listed “Taiwan, Province of China” in their drop-down menu for the registration of voters — were notified of the erroneous designation, they rectified it right away.
Another silly designation, mainly used in the sports world, is Chinese Taipei. China only allows Taiwan to use this name when it enters international competitions, such as the Olympics, the World Baseball Classic series and the FIFA World Cup. Why can’t Taiwan be simply called “Taiwan” so we can start moving toward normal relations with other countries?
Since the early 1990s, when Taiwan made its momentous transition to democracy under former president Lee Teng-hui (李登輝), it has been a free and democratic nation in which the government simply represents the people of the nation, not more but also not less.
Somehow, because of Taiwan’s complicated history, the US and other democratic countries still leave it dangling in diplomatic isolation. There are five countries that do not have official diplomatic relations with the US: Cuba, Bhutan, Iran, North Korea and Taiwan. Does Taiwan fit in that picture? Of course not. So it would be good if the US and western Europe were to adjust their policies to the new reality of a free and democratic Taiwan and move toward normalization of relations with Taiwan.
And it would be good to start this process by calling Taiwan by its own name, “Taiwan,” instead of twisting ourselves into artificial constructs that have no legal basis or practical relevance.
Taiwan is a highly developed nation that can contribute a lot to the international community. It is willing and able to be a full and equal member of the international community. Let us leave the fictions of the past and work toward a future in which Taiwan can play its role.
Serena Su is a graduate of Purdue University.
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
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,
The Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) caucus in the Legislative Yuan has made an internal decision to freeze NT$1.8 billion (US$54.7 million) of the indigenous submarine project’s NT$2 billion budget. This means that up to 90 percent of the budget cannot be utilized. It would only be accessible if the legislature agrees to lift the freeze sometime in the future. However, for Taiwan to construct its own submarines, it must rely on foreign support for several key pieces of equipment and technology. These foreign supporters would also be forced to endure significant pressure, infiltration and influence from Beijing. In other words,
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