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.”
WANG RELEASED: A police investigation showed that an organized crime group allegedly taught their clients how to pretend to be sick during medical exams Actor Darren Wang (王大陸) and 11 others were released on bail yesterday, after being questioned for allegedly dodging compulsory military service or forging documents to help others avoid serving. Wang, 33, was catapulted into stardom for his role in the coming-of-age film Our Times (我的少女時代). Lately, he has been focusing on developing his entertainment career in China. The New Taipei District Prosecutors’ Office last month began investigating an organized crime group that is allegedly helping men dodge compulsory military service using falsified documents. Police in New Taipei City Yonghe Precinct at the end of last month arrested the main suspect,
Eleven people, including actor Darren Wang (王大陸), were taken into custody today for questioning regarding the evasion of compulsory military service and document forgery, the New Taipei District Prosecutors’ Office said. Eight of the people, including Wang, are suspected of evading military service, while three are suspected of forging medical documents to assist them, the report said. They are all being questioned by police and would later be transferred to the prosecutors’ office for further investigation. Three men surnamed Lee (李), Chang (張) and Lin (林) are suspected of improperly assisting conscripts in changing their military classification from “stand-by
LITTORAL REGIMENTS: The US Marine Corps is transitioning to an ‘island hopping’ strategy to counterattack Beijing’s area denial strategy The US Marine Corps (USMC) has introduced new anti-drone systems to bolster air defense in the Pacific island chain amid growing Chinese military influence in the region, The Telegraph reported on Sunday. The new Marine Air Defense Integrated System (MADIS) Mk 1 is being developed to counter “the growing menace of unmanned aerial systems,” it cited the Marine Corps as saying. China has constructed a powerful defense mechanism in the Pacific Ocean west of the first island chain by deploying weapons such as rockets, submarines and anti-ship missiles — which is part of its anti-access/area denial (A2/AD) strategy against adversaries — the
Former Taiwan People’s Party chairman Ko Wen-je (柯文哲) may apply to visit home following the death of his father this morning, the Taipei Detention Center said. Ko’s father, Ko Cheng-fa (柯承發), passed away at 8:40am today at the Hsinchu branch of National Taiwan University Hospital. He was 94 years old. The center said Ko Wen-je was welcome to apply, but declined to say whether it had already received an application. The center also provides psychological counseling to people in detention as needed, it added, also declining to comment on Ko Wen-je’s mental state. Ko Wen-je is being held in detention as he awaits trial
RSS