Appeal to Tor Books
As readers who follow the news know, last month China sent a threatening letter to a large number of international airlines demanding that they change the country code for Taiwan (TW) on their schedules to China (CN), as dictated by Beijing’s “one China” principle.
However, standing up for Taiwan’s international space and presence, on May 5 US President Donald Trump’s administration issued a statement condemning China’s science fictional “demand” as “Orwellian nonsense” through which China was trying to impose its own political claims on private companies around the world.
It’s like the British novels Nighteen Eighty-four and Animal Farm have come to life in 2018.
Believe it or not, a major sci-fi publishing company in New York, the most prestigious science fiction publisher in the world, Tor Books, whose editors know all about the Nighteen Eighty-four and Animal Farm, also kowtows to Beijing’s “one China” nonsense by asking Taiwanese sci-fi fans who want to sign up at the Tor Web site (tor.com/register) to list their country on the site’s drop-down menu as either “China” or “Taiwan, province of China.”
Yes, the world-famous sci-fi Web site run by Tor Books does not allow Taiwanese sci-fi fans to list their country as “Taiwan.”
Yet as readers know, Taiwan is a free and independent democracy, which abides by international law and has never been a part of the People’s Republic of China (PRC). The Chinese claim that Taiwan is part of the PRC is a silly nationalistic sci-fi illusion, with no basis in international law.
By forcing Taiwanese sci-fi fans to register on the Web site as being from either “China” or “Taiwan, province of China,” Tor’s editors and Web site managers are showing a terrible and naive bias to Taiwanese fans.
Tor’s editors are probably not even aware of this oversight on their registration form, thus this letter, and hopefully a change in the Web site’s current Orwellian nonsense.
I hope that Tor Books, once its editors read this letter, will do the right thing and stand up for Taiwan on its online registration form and show science fiction fans around the world that US sci-fi Web sites do not kowtow to China.
Name withheld
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
When a recall campaign targeting the opposition Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) legislators was launched, something rather disturbing happened. According to reports, Hualien County Government officials visited several people to verify their signatures. Local authorities allegedly used routine or harmless reasons as an excuse to enter people’s house for investigation. The KMT launched its own recall campaigns, targeting Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) lawmakers, and began to collect signatures. It has been found that some of the KMT-headed counties and cities have allegedly been mobilizing municipal machinery. In Keelung, the director of the Department of Civil Affairs used the household registration system
RSS