Burkina Faso on Thursday announced that it was severing diplomatic ties with the Republic of China (ROC), and it on Saturday signed a joint communique with China to establish diplomatic relations with the People’s Republic of China (PRC).
The communique reads like a document from the 1950s, stating that there is only “one China” in the world, the PRC is the only legitimate government of the whole of China and Taiwan is part of China. It feels like China is still stuck in the Chinese Civil War.
However, the PRC is not the only one to blame. The ROC and the Constitution make it much easier to construct this kind of language, as they still claim that the ROC is the government of all of China, including Taiwan.
In the preamble of the last revision of the Constitution, it still says: “To meet the requisites of the nation prior to national unification.”
It also designates Taiwan as the “free area” of the ROC.
The ROC is a straitjacket that keeps Taiwan from developing its full potential as a nation on its own. How can other countries recognize Taiwan as the ROC, with all that that implies, without getting into the discussion of which is the legitimate government of China?
It is about time to dispose of this straitjacket and make Taiwan a real nation, so that other countries in the world can recognize it without getting involved in the never-ending Chinese Civil War.
It will take great effort and time to dispose of the ROC’s name and Constitution, and changing them abruptly might cause huge headaches to all concerned, but at least Taiwan should begin to “deROCize” by using the name “Taiwan” and not “ROC,” by diminishing the symbols of the ROC and increasing the visibility of the symbols of Taiwan, and by stopping to say that Taiwan is the ROC and the ROC is Taiwan.
Let people get used to Taiwan and let the ROC fade away, paving the way for a national referendum on a new Taiwanese Constitution.
The only country that can apply counterpressure against China’s moves is the US. It is also an opportunity — and excuse — to increase pressure on China for other reasons, such as trade, North Korea or the South China Sea, by raising the level at which Taiwan-US relations are conducted.
The US could send high-level officials to open the American Institute in Taiwan’s new office, invite Taiwan to participate in the US Navy’s yearly Rim of the Pacific Exercise, go ahead with US port calls in Taiwan and even visit Itu Aba (Taiping Island, 太平島)for oceanic research, perhaps.
Taiwan by itself can do very little to overcome the diplomatic challenge as long as it keeps the ROC’s name and Constitution, but as President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) has said, Taiwan must work harder to strengthen non-diplomatic relations with other countries.
Taiwan does not need to be diplomatically recognized as the ROC and I do not mourn the loss of recognition by these small countries.
Why is it important to have these countries diplomatically recognizing the ROC? I have not seen a good explanation from anyone yet, because no one can explain what the ROC is in the real world at this time.
Sebo Koh is a former chairman of World United Formosans for Independence, USA and a former publisher of the US-based Taiwan Tribune.
Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) caucus whip Fu Kun-chi (傅?萁) has caused havoc with his attempts to overturn the democratic and constitutional order in the legislature. If we look at this devolution from the context of a transition to democracy from authoritarianism in a culturally Chinese sense — that of zhonghua (中華) — then we are playing witness to a servile spirit from a millennia-old form of totalitarianism that is intent on damaging the nation’s hard-won democracy. This servile spirit is ingrained in Chinese culture. About a century ago, Chinese satirist and author Lu Xun (魯迅) saw through the servile nature of
In their New York Times bestseller How Democracies Die, Harvard political scientists Steven Levitsky and Daniel Ziblatt said that democracies today “may die at the hands not of generals but of elected leaders. Many government efforts to subvert democracy are ‘legal,’ in the sense that they are approved by the legislature or accepted by the courts. They may even be portrayed as efforts to improve democracy — making the judiciary more efficient, combating corruption, or cleaning up the electoral process.” Moreover, the two authors observe that those who denounce such legal threats to democracy are often “dismissed as exaggerating or
Monday was the 37th anniversary of former president Chiang Ching-kuo’s (蔣經國) death. Chiang — a son of former president Chiang Kai-shek (蔣介石), who had implemented party-state rule and martial law in Taiwan — has a complicated legacy. Whether one looks at his time in power in a positive or negative light depends very much on who they are, and what their relationship with the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) is. Although toward the end of his life Chiang Ching-kuo lifted martial law and steered Taiwan onto the path of democratization, these changes were forced upon him by internal and external pressures,
The Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) caucus in the Legislative Yuan has made an internal decision to freeze NT$1.8 billion (US$54.7 million) of the indigenous submarine project’s NT$2 billion budget. This means that up to 90 percent of the budget cannot be utilized. It would only be accessible if the legislature agrees to lift the freeze sometime in the future. However, for Taiwan to construct its own submarines, it must rely on foreign support for several key pieces of equipment and technology. These foreign supporters would also be forced to endure significant pressure, infiltration and influence from Beijing. In other words,
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