Open letter to Obama
To US President Barack Obama,
As the president of the Formosan Association for Public Affairs, a Taiwanese-American grassroots organization that promotes freedom, human rights and democracy in Taiwan, I write to relay to you the concerns of Taiwanese-Americans.
As you prepare to welcome Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) to the White House, we appeal to you to reaffirm US support for freedom, democracy and human rights in Taiwan.
We understand that the US needs to engage China.
However, such engagement should not come at the expense of US core values — freedom, democracy and human rights.
Taiwanese have developed a vibrant democracy, and the nation is looking forward to presidential and legislative elections in January next year, which will likely see the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) gain power.
In the past few months, China has threatened “consequences” if the DPP wins.
We believe this interference in Taiwan’s internal affairs is unwarranted and urge you to prevail on Xi to accept Taiwan as a friendly neighbor and move toward normalized relations with its democratically elected government.
We ask that you remind Xi that it is of core interest to the US that Beijing’s interactions with Taiwan be resolved peacefully and with the express consent of Taiwanese.
We also urge you to refrain from proffering US respect for China’s “sovereignty and territorial integrity” as China’s claims to Taiwan’s sovereignty are unjustified.
We ask that you impress upon Xi that Beijing needs to dismantle its 1,600 missiles aimed at Taiwan, and renounce any use of force.
To safeguard Taiwan is to embrace freedom, democracy and human rights.
This is the best way to maintain peace and stability in Asia and is consistent with the 1979 Taiwan Relations Act.
Finally, it is essential that China end Taiwan’s international political isolation.
This is a peace-loving nation that is able and willing to carry out UN Charter obligations. Taiwan deserves an equal place in the international family of nations, and Taiwanese should be fully represented in international organizations such as the UN and the WHO.
Thank you and we look forward to hearing from you on these matters that are so important to our Taiwanese-American community.
Sincerely yours,
Mark Kao
President, Formosan Association for Public Affairs
Government chips are down
When China unilaterally announced that it was introducing its new integrated-chip “Taiwan compatriot travel document” on Monday, China’s Taiwan Affairs Office (TAO) spokesperson Ma Xiaoguang (馬曉光) brought out all the cliches, saying that, “compatriots on the two sides of the Taiwan Strait are all one big family,” that the new card was meant to “further simplify cross-strait exchanges between compatriots” and that there had been no changes to its functionality.
When Mainland Affairs Council Minister Andrew Hsia (夏立言) said that there had not been sufficient talks about the implications of the card, but that the spokesperson’s explanation “removed the doubts that many people have had,” it was clear that Beijing was leading Hsia by the nose.
Incomprehensibly, during a question-and-answer session in the legislature, Premier Mao Chi-kuo (毛治國) said that he only found out about the announcement when he read it in the newspaper.
He said that China cannot make major unilateral announcements when decisions are pending, adding that Taiwan has not ruled out calling an international press conference to address the issue.
The council said that Beijing gave Taiwan an explanation in June, and that it also informed the council several days ago, but authorities felt they should have been given more detailed information.
Since there was “intelligence information,” why not ask the premier and the president to gain an understanding of that information before they start yapping like dogs?
It seems this administration is completely useless.
Chi An-hsiu
Taipei
In their recent op-ed “Trump Should Rein In Taiwan” in Foreign Policy magazine, Christopher Chivvis and Stephen Wertheim argued that the US should pressure President William Lai (賴清德) to “tone it down” to de-escalate tensions in the Taiwan Strait — as if Taiwan’s words are more of a threat to peace than Beijing’s actions. It is an old argument dressed up in new concern: that Washington must rein in Taipei to avoid war. However, this narrative gets it backward. Taiwan is not the problem; China is. Calls for a so-called “grand bargain” with Beijing — where the US pressures Taiwan into concessions
The term “assassin’s mace” originates from Chinese folklore, describing a concealed weapon used by a weaker hero to defeat a stronger adversary with an unexpected strike. In more general military parlance, the concept refers to an asymmetric capability that targets a critical vulnerability of an adversary. China has found its modern equivalent of the assassin’s mace with its high-altitude electromagnetic pulse (HEMP) weapons, which are nuclear warheads detonated at a high altitude, emitting intense electromagnetic radiation capable of disabling and destroying electronics. An assassin’s mace weapon possesses two essential characteristics: strategic surprise and the ability to neutralize a core dependency.
Chinese President and Chinese Communist Party (CCP) Chairman Xi Jinping (習近平) said in a politburo speech late last month that his party must protect the “bottom line” to prevent systemic threats. The tone of his address was grave, revealing deep anxieties about China’s current state of affairs. Essentially, what he worries most about is systemic threats to China’s normal development as a country. The US-China trade war has turned white hot: China’s export orders have plummeted, Chinese firms and enterprises are shutting up shop, and local debt risks are mounting daily, causing China’s economy to flag externally and hemorrhage internally. China’s
During the “426 rally” organized by the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) and the Taiwan People’s Party under the slogan “fight green communism, resist dictatorship,” leaders from the two opposition parties framed it as a battle against an allegedly authoritarian administration led by President William Lai (賴清德). While criticism of the government can be a healthy expression of a vibrant, pluralistic society, and protests are quite common in Taiwan, the discourse of the 426 rally nonetheless betrayed troubling signs of collective amnesia. Specifically, the KMT, which imposed 38 years of martial law in Taiwan from 1949 to 1987, has never fully faced its
RSS