Former president Lee Teng-hui’s (李登輝) recent visit to Japan has sparked a chorus of criticism from President Ma Ying-jeou’s (馬英九) administration, Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) leaders and the Chinese government, following remarks Lee made on Thursday in the Diet, including the statement: “All Taiwan’s troubles over the past half-century stem from China.”
When Lee was president, his attempts to explain Taiwan-China relations culminated in the “special state-to-state relationship” he referred to in a 1999 interview with German broadcaster Deutsche Welle.
Sixteen years later, Lee’s vision has become reality as majority public opinion continues to move away from support for unification and identification with China. A survey conducted last month by the National Chengchi University’s Election Study Center found a record-low 3.3 percent of respondents regard themselves as Chinese, while 9.1 percent support “unification” — also a record low. When the institution first conducted the survey in 1992, 25.5 percent of respondents saw themselves as “Chinese,” while 20 percent favored unification over independence or maintenance of the “status quo.”
Since Ma came to office in 2008, his administration’s sinicization policy appears to have had little impact on majority public opinion, but it has effectively driven the nation into obscurity in terms of its international recognition.
Veteran diplomat Mainland Affairs Council Minister Andrew Hsia (夏立言) summed up the the damage to Taiwan’s international status done by Ma’s rhetoric when he described the remarks of an ambassador from one of the nation’s diplomatic allies.
“I discovered today that you are not an independent country,” the ambassador said when he learned of Ma’s policy of “no independence” — one of his “three noes” pledges, along with “no unification” and “no use of force,” aimed at maintaining the “status quo” in cross-strait relations.
The example shows that although China has never given up its claim of sovereignty, Taiwan must bear some responsibility for being recognized as a sort of Chinese creature, rather than a sovereign state.
Two days after Lee’s speech, Hsia delivered a speech in Greece, in which he said the relationship between Taiwan and China was one “between two regions of one country, with the country being the Republic of China” — rhetoric repeatedly espoused by the Ma administration over the past eight years.
In an attempt to placate China, in 2009 Taiwan did not ask its diplomatic allies to submit a proposal for the nation to be represented at the annual UN General Assembly — which it had done every year since 1993.
In addition, Ma’s administration caved in and Taiwan began to participate in the WHA as an observer under the name “Chinese Taipei” in 2009, an arrangement subject to annual renewal with China’s consent.
Ma also accepted Beijing’s terms for Taiwan’s one-off attendance at the International Civil Aviation Organization Assembly in 2013 as a “guest” of the UN body’s council president.
How can the stereotype of the international community regarding the sovereignty of Taiwan be challenged if the nation’s government echoes Beijing’s position?
Under Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平), Beijing has shifted its strategy of attempting to annex Taiwan via verbal propaganda to more overt activities.
However, despite the wishes of the public, Taiwan has yet to come up with a viable counter-strategy that would reinforce its status as a separate nation and still remains mired in political infighting.
World leaders are preparing themselves for a second Donald Trump presidency. Some leaders know more or less where he stands: Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy knows that a difficult negotiation process is about to be forced on his country, and the leaders of NATO countries would be well aware of being complacent about US military support with Trump in power. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu would likely be feeling relief as the constraints placed on him by the US President Joe Biden administration would finally be released. However, for President William Lai (賴清德) the calculation is not simple. Trump has surrounded himself
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
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
On Friday last week, tens of thousands of young Chinese took part in a bike ride overnight from Henan Province’s Zhengzhou (鄭州) to the historical city of Kaifeng in search of breakfast. The night ride became a viral craze after four female university students in June chronicled their ride on social media from Zhengzhou in search of soup dumplings in Kaifeng. Propelled by the slogan “youth is priceless,” the number of nocturnal riders surged to about 100,000 on Friday last week. The main road connecting the two cities was crammed with cyclists as police tried to maintain order. That sparked
RSS