Double Ten National Day is the time of year when the ideologies of President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) and her Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) are most rigorously scrutinized by the opposition, and this year was no exception.
People with a Taiwan-centric view already find it hard to stomach that the nation is still celebrating the founding of a regime that should have ceased to exist after the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) lost the Chinese Civil War.
Unfortunately for the president, the Constitution still says that Taiwan is China. The Republic of China (ROC) system is baggage that she cannot shake off, regardless of how much she would like to normalize the nation’s status and call it by its real name, Taiwan.
In the first two years of her presidency, Tsai attempted to phase out the use of ROC symbols, including the title, national flag and national emblem, especially for National Day celebrations.
Her administration has also tried to add more politically neutral colors and lively elements to national day designs in an apparent effort to distance itself from the usual ROC colors of red and blue, and designs characteristic of traditional Chinese culture.
As expected, such attempts sparked a backlash among ROC patriots and the system’s biggest defender, the KMT, which fiercely accused the DPP administration of trying to “de-ROC-ize” Taiwan.
Surpsisingly, the Tsai administration has succumbed to such criticism and compromised, where it should have held its ground to address the nation’s struggle with its identity.
This year, the ROC flag reappeared in the government’s main National Day designs. In a perceived attempt to please both sides, the administration also covered a ceremonial arch at the intersection of Taipei’s Ketagalan Boulevard and Gongyuan Road with LED panels that displayed this year’s main National Day design theme and a more traditional theme.
However, the administration failed to realize that by trying to please everyone, it might end up pleasing no one — especially when the opposition is merely seeking to obstruct.
Does the KMT care about the ROC system? Most likely yes. However, it has lately been using the ROC as a weapon to drive a wedge between the DPP and voters who harbor nostalgia for the ROC.
If forcing the Tsai administration to concede on the ROC issue was the KMT’s goal, the party would have withdrawn its criticism and instead appreciated the uneasy balance that the government tried to strike, which could cost the DPP support from the pro-independence camp. Instead, the KMT went forward with its alternative celebration that emphasized ROC patriotism.
The party justified holding its event by saying that the ROC flags printed on this year’s National Day merchandize were “too small.”
Just as no amount of goodwill from the Tsai administration will change Beijing’s mind about the DPP being independence-leaning, no concessions by the DPP administration will ever be enough to convince the KMT that the Tsai government is willing to embrace the ROC system and “one China” idea that it supports. So why even try?
The government should focus on the goals it set forth two years ago and not let criticism cause it to lose sight of the bigger picture — especially criticism from its political opponents, which is only designed to stir up negative emotions.
Concerns that the US might abandon Taiwan are often overstated. While US President Donald Trump’s handling of Ukraine raised unease in Taiwan, it is crucial to recognize that Taiwan is not Ukraine. Under Trump, the US views Ukraine largely as a European problem, whereas the Indo-Pacific region remains its primary geopolitical focus. Taipei holds immense strategic value for Washington and is unlikely to be treated as a bargaining chip in US-China relations. Trump’s vision of “making America great again” would be directly undermined by any move to abandon Taiwan. Despite the rhetoric of “America First,” the Trump administration understands the necessity of
US President Donald Trump’s challenge to domestic American economic-political priorities, and abroad to the global balance of power, are not a threat to the security of Taiwan. Trump’s success can go far to contain the real threat — the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) surge to hegemony — while offering expanded defensive opportunities for Taiwan. In a stunning affirmation of the CCP policy of “forceful reunification,” an obscene euphemism for the invasion of Taiwan and the destruction of its democracy, on March 13, 2024, the People’s Liberation Army’s (PLA) used Chinese social media platforms to show the first-time linkage of three new
If you had a vision of the future where China did not dominate the global car industry, you can kiss those dreams goodbye. That is because US President Donald Trump’s promised 25 percent tariff on auto imports takes an ax to the only bits of the emerging electric vehicle (EV) supply chain that are not already dominated by Beijing. The biggest losers when the levies take effect this week would be Japan and South Korea. They account for one-third of the cars imported into the US, and as much as two-thirds of those imported from outside North America. (Mexico and Canada, while
The military is conducting its annual Han Kuang exercises in phases. The minister of national defense recently said that this year’s scenarios would simulate defending the nation against possible actions the Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA) might take in an invasion of Taiwan, making the threat of a speculated Chinese invasion in 2027 a heated agenda item again. That year, also referred to as the “Davidson window,” is named after then-US Indo-Pacific Command Admiral Philip Davidson, who in 2021 warned that Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) had instructed the PLA to be ready to invade Taiwan by 2027. Xi in 2017
RSS