People would expect the political parties in their country to uphold the security and prosperity of the nation, regardless of political affiliation. One exception might be fringe parties, such as the New Party, which explicitly seeks to surrender Taiwan to a hostile government.
However, major parties — whether in opposition or in government — should be completely above suspicion. Yet, the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) at times makes this extremely challenging.
On Thursday and Friday last week, the KMT legislative caucus proposed cutting the entertainment budgets for Representative to the US Hsiao Bi-khim (蕭美琴) by 30 percent and Representative to the Czech Republic Ke Liang-ruey (柯良叡) by about 8 percent.
Why would the party target the nation’s representatives to these two countries specifically, beyond its tenuous reasoning provided in the proposals?
While KMT caucus secretary-general Lin Yi-hua (林奕華) has accused Hsiao of irreparably damaging Taiwan-US ties by incorrectly saying that the US would not sell Taiwan smart mines — a mistake she has acknowledged and apologized for — it is the KMT itself that has been doing its utmost to stymie the government’s attempts to smooth relations with Washington.
The KMT spent the past few months whipping up the public into a frenzy against US pork imports by spreading unsubstantiated or incomplete information about the health risks of pork containing ractopamine. It continues to do so, with a focus on its campaign for a referendum on the issue.
The KMT has a record of trying to push back against ties with the US: For more than a decade, it boycotted the purchase of US arms that Taiwan needs to defend itself against China.
Then-president Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) in 2010 said that Taiwan would not call on the US to come to its aid if it were attacked by China, and instead would defend itself.
That message has resurfaced over the past few weeks, cloaked in noble sentiments about national dignity, even though there would be no nation to feel dignified about were China to invade Taiwan without Taiwan’s allies coming to its aid. Beijing must be loving this.
Did Czech Senate President Milos Vystrcil not stand in the Legislative Yuan and say: “I am Taiwanese” on Sept. 1 last year? Did he not help raise Taiwan’s international profile, even before its response to the COVID-19 pandemic brought it global plaudits, and demonstrate support and goodwill from a country with which Taiwan does not even have official ties? Did he not find himself in hot water on his return to the Czech Republic, not least because Chinese Minister of Foreign Affairs Wang Yi (王毅) threatened he would pay a “heavy price” for his visit?
Several European leaders criticized Wang for issuing threats. The KMT did not.
The reduction of Ke’s entertainment budget would in no way be a “heavy price,” but what of the message that it would send?
The KMT’s problem is that, despite all its talk of reform, people’s immediate response to its proposal was to doubt the party’s motives, and how it coheres with Beijing’s messaging.
Someone should tell KMT leaders that if the Chinese Communist Party ever succeeds in annexing Taiwan, it would not be lavishing them with favors and high office. They would be in for a rude awakening if the unthinkable comes to pass.
US aerospace company Boeing Co has in recent years been involved in numerous safety incidents, including crashes of its 737 Max airliners, which have caused widespread concern about the company’s safety record. It has recently come to light that titanium jet engine parts used by Boeing and its European competitor Airbus SE were sold with falsified documentation. The source of the titanium used in these parts has been traced back to an unknown Chinese company. It is clear that China is trying to sneak questionable titanium materials into the supply chain and use any ensuing problems as an opportunity to
It’s not every month that the US Department of State sends two deputy assistant secretary-level officials to Taiwan, together. Its rarer still that such senior State Department policy officers, once on the ground in Taipei, make a point of huddling with fellow diplomats from “like-minded” NATO, ANZUS and Japanese governments to coordinate their multilateral Taiwan policies. The State Department issued a press release on June 22 admitting that the two American “representatives” had “hosted consultations in Taipei” with their counterparts from the “Taiwan Ministry of Foreign Affairs.” The consultations were blandly dubbed the “US-Taiwan Working Group on International Organizations.” The State
The Chinese Supreme People’s Court and other government agencies released new legal guidelines criminalizing “Taiwan independence diehard separatists.” While mostly symbolic — the People’s Republic of China (PRC) has never had jurisdiction over Taiwan — Tamkang University Graduate Institute of China Studies associate professor Chang Wu-ueh (張五岳), an expert on cross-strait relations, said: “They aim to explain domestically how they are countering ‘Taiwan independence,’ they aim to declare internationally their claimed jurisdiction over Taiwan and they aim to deter Taiwanese.” Analysts do not know for sure why Beijing is propagating these guidelines now. Under Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平), deciphering the
Delegation-level visits between the two countries have become an integral part of transformed relations between India and the US. Therefore, the visit by a bipartisan group of seven US lawmakers, led by US House of Representatives Committee on Foreign Affairs Chairman Michael McCaul to India from June 16 to Thursday last week would have largely gone unnoticed in India and abroad. However, the US delegation’s four-day visit to India assumed huge importance this time, because of the meeting between the US lawmakers and the Dalai Lama. This in turn brings us to the focal question: How and to what extent