China’s military capability and its ambition to become the dominant world power are rising along with its rapid economic development. The Belt and Road Initiative is a major component of its development strategy.
China regards Taiwan as a vital part of developing its hegemonic power, and as a result, it is continually increasing its military intimidation and its suppression of Taiwan in the international community.
Beijing’s threat to Taiwan’s international status and national security is growing by the day.
Similarly, based on its own national interests, the US proposed the Indo-Pacific strategy to curb China’s expansionist ambitions, and introduced legislation to enhance its ties with Taiwan — a continuation of former US president Ronald Reagan’s six assurances — the Taiwan Travel Act and the National Defense Authorization Act.
US Representative Dana Rohrabacher has also proposed a bill calling on the US government to resume formal diplomatic relations with Taiwan.
There is a reason behind the call for the US to establish formal diplomatic relations with Taiwan: In 2016, John Bolton, who is now US President Donald Trump’s national security adviser, proposed that the US gradually move toward the establishment of formal diplomatic ties with Taiwan.
Judging from the substantial scale of the new American Institute in Taiwan (AIT) compound, which opened last month, and its staff and facilities, the US-Taiwan relationship has been greatly enhanced.
Trump also addressed President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) as “the president of Taiwan” during a telephone call after his election, has appointed Taiwan-friendly politicians to high-ranking positions and signed the Taiwan Travel Act into law.
Through these concrete actions, he has made it clear that the US strategy is one of bolstering ties with Taiwan and helping enhance its international status.
However, as these drastic strategic changes are happening in the world, the Taiwan-centric government has chosen to “maintain the status quo” instead of coming up with concrete measures to substantially improve the nation’s international status.
Perhaps the top leadership is concerned with higher political subtleties that prevent them from taking action, but at the very least, the official title for the Taipei Economic and Cultural Representative Office in the US could be changed to “Taiwan Institute in America.”
This would comply with the principle of reciprocity by corresponding with the official title of the US representative office in Taiwan, similar to the Taiwan-Japan Relations Association, which operates the Taipei Economic and Cultural Representative Office in Japan.
Looking back at the past 400 years, today presents perhaps the final, but also the best, chance for Taiwanese to establish their own nation.
Hopefully the Democratic Progressive Party administration — which controls the presidency as well as the legislature and the Cabinet — would adopt a more proactive attitude and mindset to take advantage of the rapidly changing international situation, which remains favorable the establishment of Taiwan as a normal nation.
It could do so not only by working with Taiwan’s allies internationally, but also by making preparations for the normalization of the nation’s status domestically.
When the time is right, Taiwan must be ready to seize the opportunity and achieve the goal of establishing a Taiwanese nation.
Pan Wei-yiu is the secretary-general of the Northern Taiwan Society.
Translated by Chang Ho-ming.
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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