Taiwan’s gravest crisis is the lack of a sense of crisis among its people, who are at a crossroads, faced with the choice of being annexed by China and living under a one-party regime or continuing to be citizens of a free and democratic nation, former representative to Japan Koh Se-kai (許世楷) said.
Koh made the remarks in a speech, titled “Taiwan’s Prospects: Seeing from the Taiwan-Japan Ties,” at a public event in Tokyo on Sunday.
“If Taiwanese were to take the wrong path at the crossroad, they may experience the bitter fruit of a new era of totalitarian darkness that their forebears tasted in the past,” Koh said, adding that the nation’s fate depended on whether “its people won the next [presidential] election.”
President Ma Ying-jeou’s (馬英九) administration may appear to be leaning slightly toward the US by signing a fisheries agreement with Japan in April to end controversies over fishing in waters surrounding the contested Diaoyutai Islands (釣魚台), but the president has not abandoned his attempts to bring Taiwan into China’s fold, Koh said.
Former presidents Lee Teng-hui (李登輝) and Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁) had both sought to put Taiwan on the road to internationalization, while Ma has not only denied that cross-strait ties were “state-to-state” relations, but also endeavored to turn Taiwan into an internal affair of China, Koh said.
“The Republic of China [ROC] that the Chinese Nationalist Party touts no longer exists, and it is ironic and even preposterous that the Democratic Progressive Party is the one left to shoulder the burden of a fictitious nation,” he said.
Koh also warned against Ma’s and former KMT chairman Wu Poh-hsiung’s (吳伯雄) repeated denials that Taiwan is a country, saying that such remarks would only see the nation and its people reliving past misery.
“At a time when a majority of Chinese people do not wish to be born a Chinese in the next life and hope to escape communist rule, why would anyone who already live in a free and democratic nation like Taiwan be willing to be annexed by China and ruled by a communist party?” Koh asked. “It is just unthinkable.”
Taiwanese could risk being extradited to China when traveling in countries with close ties to Beijing, Taiwan Association of University Professors deputy chairman Chen Li-fu (陳俐甫) said on Friday. Chen’s comments came after China on Friday last week announced new judicial guidelines targeting Taiwanese independence advocates. Myanmar, Cambodia, Laos and Djibouti are among the countries where Taiwanese could risk being extradited to China, he said. The Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) on Thursday elevated the travel alert for China, Hong Kong and Macau to “orange” after Beijing announced its guidelines to “severely punish Taiwanese independence diehards for splitting the country and inciting secession.” Extradition treaties
Taiwan and Thailand have signed an agreement to promote and protect bilateral investment and trade, the Executive Yuan’s Office of Trade Negotiations (OTN) said on Friday. The agreement on “Promotion and Protection of Investments” was signed by Representative to Thailand Chang Chun-fu (張俊福) and Thailand Trade and Economic Office in Taipei executive director Narong Boonsatheanwong on Thursday, the OTN said in a news release. Thailand has become the fifth trading partner to sign an investment agreement with Taiwan since 2016, following earlier agreements with the Philippines, India, Vietnam and Canada, the OTN said. The deal marks a significant milestone in the development of
The entire Alishan Forest Railway line is to reopen for the first time in 15 years on Saturday, with tickets to go on sale at 2pm today. The historic railway from Chiayi to Alishan (阿里山) is finally set to reopen after the completion of the final No. 42 tunnel, Alishan Forest Railway and Cultural Heritage Office Deputy Director-General Chou Heng-kai (周恆凱) said. It is to run on a new timetable, with four trains daily, he said. The 9am train is to depart from Chiayi Railway Station bound for Shizilu Station (十字路), while the 10am train departing from Chiayi is to go all the
CROSS-BORDER CRIME: The suspects cannot be charged with cybercrime in Indonesia as their targets were in Malaysia, an Indonesian immigration director said Indonesian immigration authorities have detained 103 Taiwanese after a raid at a villa on Bali, officials said yesterday. They were accused of misusing their visas and residence permits, and are suspected of possible cybercrimes, Safar Muhammad Godam, director of immigration supervision and enforcement at the Indonesian Ministry of Law and Human Rights told reporters at a news conference. “The 103 foreign nationals stayed at the villa and conducted suspicious activities, which we suspect are activities related to cybercrime activities,” he said, presenting laptops and routers at the news conference. Godam said Indonesian authorities cannot charge them with conducting cybercrime. “During the inspection, we