During a videoconference with academics and officials at Stanford University in California on Tuesday last week, President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) said that Chinese tourists visiting Taiwan and students coming here to study will witness freedom in Taiwan, and will become seeds for Chinese democracy when they return to China, which will be beneficial to the promotion of human rights in that nation.
Many members of the pan-green camp have also linked Chinese tourists and students in Taiwan with the spreading of freedom and democracy in China. While this idea may seem correct, it is actually wrong, because it treats a possibility of something happening as something that has in fact already taken place.
While contact may bring about change, and while lack of contact could mean that there will be no change at all, the variables that are key to deciding policy are the effects of that contact, the type of contact that is effective and the time that passes before change occurs.
If increasing the number of Chinese students or tourists who have been to Taiwan can bring about democratic reform in China, then perhaps we should ask just how much democratic reform has taken place in China as a result of Taiwanese businesspeople plying their trade there for decades.
Also, over the past 30 years many Chinese students have studied in the US, which raises the question whether China has become more democratic as a result of those people returning home, or if there are now more political restrictions in China.
If we view furthering democracy and human rights as an important mission in our dealings with Beijing, then we should actively support those individuals or groups that are promoting democracy and human rights inside China.
We should also include democracy, human rights and the rule of law in our agenda for dialogue with China, and we should make visits to human rights activists there an essential part of official visits to China, actively supporting them when they are oppressed and helping their families with their living expenses.
We should also pay special attention to meetings of the National People’s Congress and the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference, and apart from focusing on the issue of human rights, we could make a list of China’s political prisoners and then use that as a standard for assessing democracy there.
What is important is that we support and assist human rights activists and independent academics working in China, for, after all, these people are key to furthering Chinese democracy.
Since the link between Chinese students or tourists and furthering democracy in China is not prominent, we should focus on what goals we hope to reach by attracting Chinese students and tourists. Having clear goals is key on this front.
We should not talk about how our policies for admitting Chinese students to study in Taiwan are intended to increase democracy in China, on the one hand, while on the other we ignore imprisoned Chinese dissident and Nobel Peace Prize laureate Liu Xiaobo (劉曉波), use various reasons to keep Tibetan spiritual leader the Dalai Lama and World Uyghur Congress president Rebiya Kadeer from visiting Taiwan and stop Falun Gong practitioners from protesting during visits by senior Chinese officials.
If we really believe that promoting democracy in China is beneficial to Taiwan and cross-strait relations, then we should start by helping those who are working inside China to promote democracy.
Lai I-chung is an executive committee member of the Taiwan Thinktank.
Translated by Drew Cameron
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