Taiwan needs to resolve the issue of its divided national identity to become a full-fledged democracy, and that requires civic awareness and engagement from the public, as well as a humble national leader who is strongly committed to democracy, former president Lee Teng-hui (李登輝) said yesterday.
Lee made the remarks in a speech at a forum hosted by the Taiwan Foundation for Democracy, the first of a series of lectures to celebrate a 10th anniversary of the government-affiliated organization headed by Legislative Speaker Wang Jin-pyng (王金平).
Dubbed “Mr Democracy” by Newsweek magazine in 1996, Lee said he followed two paths to political reform when he served as vice president in the late 1980s under then-president Chiang Ching-kuo (蔣經國).
Photo: George Tsorng, Taipei Times
Lee said that Chiang said on two separate occasions that “I am Taiwanese” and that “the president of the Republic of China is not required to be a member of the Chiang family,” which struck Lee as important because that was a marked departure from China’s 5,000-year history of imperial rule.
“Though I did not say anything at the time, I was of exactly the same mind as [Chiang] and that put me on the course of political reform” during his 12-year presidency, Lee said.
As influential political scientist Samuel Huntington wrote regarding challenges to democratic consolidation in third-wave democracies, Taiwan was involved in the “dissolution and reconstruction of national identity,” he said.
On the road to building a full-fledged democracy, the problem of a divided national identity that continues to haunt Taiwan needs to be resolved thoroughly, Lee said.
Lee said the idea of “new-era Taiwanese” that he put forward in 2005, when political infighting followed Taiwan’s first handover of power in 2000 and China began to use a united front strategy to divide Taiwanese, aimed to boost national identification with Taiwan.
“There was no distinction between ‘new’ Taiwanese or ‘old’ Taiwanese. Regardless of ethnicity, all 23 million people in Taiwan are ‘new-era Taiwanese,’” he said.
Many people in Taiwan who had considered themselves Chinese because that was how they were educated have now come to the realization that this was “a fictitious notion inconsistent with history and reality,” Lee said.
“Over 400 years of Taiwan’s history, Taiwan was ruled by [China’s] Qing Dynasty, Japan, the Netherlands and Spain. If China’s claim that Taiwan is part of its territory made sense, why couldn’t the other regimes make the same claim? British people would never say that the US is part of the UK,” he said.
Taiwan is a society of immigrants, and people in such a society have the right to establish their own government and country, Lee said.
Taiwanese need to develop civic awareness and exert their free will to break out of ethnic boxes, to get rid of the “fictitious notion” that they are Chinese and break away from imperial mindsets so that they can build up identification with Taiwan to ward off anti-democracy elements and Chinese authoritarianism, he said.
Lee said the future of democratic consolidation in Taiwan would also be closely related to whether the country has a capable leader.
Taiwan needs a leader who insists on defending Taiwanese, who has strong convictions about democracy and who is impartial and not concerned with the interests of any particular individual, party or minority, Lee said.
A national leader must also listen to the opinions of opponents and the needs of people with a humble and calm attitude to resolve problems in people’s lives, Lee said.
“They don’t resolve people’s problems by engaging in political infighting every day,” he said.
SECURITY: As China is ‘reshaping’ Hong Kong’s population, Taiwan must raise the eligibility threshold for applications from Hong Kongers, Chiu Chui-cheng said When Hong Kong and Macau citizens apply for residency in Taiwan, it would be under a new category that includes a “national security observation period,” Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) Minister Chiu Chui-cheng (邱垂正) said yesterday. President William Lai (賴清德) on March 13 announced 17 strategies to counter China’s aggression toward Taiwan, including incorporating national security considerations into the review process for residency applications from Hong Kong and Macau citizens. The situation in Hong Kong is constantly changing, Chiu said to media yesterday on the sidelines of the Taipei Technology Run hosted by the Taipei Neihu Technology Park Development Association. With
CARROT AND STICK: While unrelenting in its military threats, China attracted nearly 40,000 Taiwanese to over 400 business events last year Nearly 40,000 Taiwanese last year joined industry events in China, such as conferences and trade fairs, supported by the Chinese government, a study showed yesterday, as Beijing ramps up a charm offensive toward Taipei alongside military pressure. China has long taken a carrot-and-stick approach to Taiwan, threatening it with the prospect of military action while reaching out to those it believes are amenable to Beijing’s point of view. Taiwanese security officials are wary of what they see as Beijing’s influence campaigns to sway public opinion after Taipei and Beijing gradually resumed travel links halted by the COVID-19 pandemic, but the scale of
A US Marine Corps regiment equipped with Naval Strike Missiles (NSM) is set to participate in the upcoming Balikatan 25 exercise in the Luzon Strait, marking the system’s first-ever deployment in the Philippines. US and Philippine officials have separately confirmed that the Navy Marine Expeditionary Ship Interdiction System (NMESIS) — the mobile launch platform for the Naval Strike Missile — would take part in the joint exercise. The missiles are being deployed to “a strategic first island chain chokepoint” in the waters between Taiwan proper and the Philippines, US-based Naval News reported. “The Luzon Strait and Bashi Channel represent a critical access
Pope Francis is be laid to rest on Saturday after lying in state for three days in St Peter’s Basilica, where the faithful are expected to flock to pay their respects to history’s first Latin American pontiff. The cardinals met yesterday in the Vatican’s synod hall to chart the next steps before a conclave begins to choose Francis’ successor, as condolences poured in from around the world. According to current norms, the conclave must begin between May 5 and 10. The cardinals set the funeral for Saturday at 10am in St Peter’s Square, to be celebrated by the dean of the College
RSS