During his trip to China, Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Chairman Eric Chu (朱立倫) met with representatives of Taiwanese businesses in China at a forum in Shanghai on Sunday. One of these representatives, Susan Tung (董淑貞), president of a UK-registered company based in China, told the forum that it was time for the KMT to focus on cooperation with the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), and that Taiwan would not stand a chance if Chu were to listen to “other voices in Taiwan.”
Tung added that there are more than 350,000 Taiwanese-Chinese couples and, if family members were included, that figure could easily reach more than 1 million people who could return to Taiwan to vote. With this army of voters, “how could the KMT not win?” Tung asked.
Tung heads Tung Global Financial Trading UK. She did not hold back in her speech, revealing how the interests of Taiwanese businesses in China are intimately tied to Beijing. She has become a vanguard for her peers, preoccupied with how politics could be brought to bear to protect China, with precious little regard for democratic principles or the interests of other Taiwanese. She has no problem exploiting cross-strait marriages as an intimidation tactic to influence the presidential election to maintain her economic interests in China. Her unambiguous comments were met with some alarm in Taiwan.
Even more alarming is that Tung is vice president of the worldwide Friends of Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) Association, a member of the Overseas Community Affairs Council and the World League for Freedom and Democracy. She is also an overseas executive member of the CCP’s United Front Work Department and the overseas representative of the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference of Jiangxi Province. Her wide-ranging and complex roster of positions have been criticized by Taiwanese media, which have questioned where her loyalties ultimately lie: with China, Taiwan or the UK?
This form of shifting loyalties among overseas Taiwanese businesspeople was the subject of Scott Kastner’s book Political Conflict and Economic Interdependence Across the Taiwan Strait and Beyond. In the book, Kastner talks about how China, seeking unification, would need the support of Taiwanese “political allies,” and how China-based Taiwanese businesspeople are the best candidates for this role. While Beijing continues to reinforce its military intimidation, it is also strengthening its ties with the Taiwanese business community in China, in a pincer movement aimed at securing unification.
In previous elections, many major Taiwanese investors in China have put up money and resources to support the KMT. The triumvirate of the CCP, the KMT in Taiwan and Taiwanese businesspeople in China have become a prodigious pro-unification “united front” that not only has huge corporate capital at its disposal, but also controls large numbers of workers, and is intimately involved in providing basic essentials — including the mainstream media — in Taiwan. This has already been set into motion for the presidential election next year.
This whole affair has opened eyes in Taiwan to the problem of shifting loyalties. The public is more aware that, even though these individuals have their roots in Taiwan, they have also come under Beijing’s spell. When businesspeople become pro-unification, they do so to a degree even more extreme than the KMT government. They no longer recognize Taiwan, but have instead become “Chinese citizens.”
This incident has also drawn attention to the issue of absentee voting, together with extended voting rights for Chinese spouses. While many countries practice absentee voting, it carries with it potential political dangers that need to be looked into.
A Chinese diplomat’s violent threat against Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi following her remarks on defending Taiwan marks a dangerous escalation in East Asian tensions, revealing Beijing’s growing intolerance for dissent and the fragility of regional diplomacy. Chinese Consul General in Osaka Xue Jian (薛劍) on Saturday posted a chilling message on X: “the dirty neck that sticks itself in must be cut off,” in reference to Takaichi’s remark to Japanese lawmakers that an attack on Taiwan could threaten Japan’s survival. The post, which was later deleted, was not an isolated outburst. Xue has also amplified other incendiary messages, including one suggesting
Chinese Consul General in Osaka Xue Jian (薛劍) on Saturday last week shared a news article on social media about Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi’s remarks on Taiwan, adding that “the dirty neck that sticks itself in must be cut off.” The previous day in the Japanese House of Representatives, Takaichi said that a Chinese attack on Taiwan could constitute “a situation threatening Japan’s survival,” a reference to a legal legal term introduced in 2015 that allows the prime minister to deploy the Japan Self-Defense Forces. The violent nature of Xue’s comments is notable in that it came from a diplomat,
Before 1945, the most widely spoken language in Taiwan was Tai-gi (also known as Taiwanese, Taiwanese Hokkien or Hoklo). However, due to almost a century of language repression policies, many Taiwanese believe that Tai-gi is at risk of disappearing. To understand this crisis, I interviewed academics and activists about Taiwan’s history of language repression, the major challenges of revitalizing Tai-gi and their policy recommendations. Although Taiwanese were pressured to speak Japanese when Taiwan became a Japanese colony in 1895, most managed to keep their heritage languages alive in their homes. However, starting in 1949, when the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) enacted martial law
“Si ambulat loquitur tetrissitatque sicut anas, anas est” is, in customary international law, the three-part test of anatine ambulation, articulation and tetrissitation. And it is essential to Taiwan’s existence. Apocryphally, it can be traced as far back as Suetonius (蘇埃托尼烏斯) in late first-century Rome. Alas, Suetonius was only talking about ducks (anas). But this self-evident principle was codified as a four-part test at the Montevideo Convention in 1934, to which the United States is a party. Article One: “The state as a person of international law should possess the following qualifications: a) a permanent population; b) a defined territory; c) government;
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