Hoping to address concerns about the direction he is to take the party, newly elected Democratic Progressive Party Chairman William Lai (賴清德), the self-described “political worker for Taiwanese independence,” officially set out his views on the matter.
For Lai, Taiwan is already a sovereign, independent nation, so there is no need to declare independence. Furthermore, the core issue of cross-strait problems derives from the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) military intimidation of Taiwan.
That Taiwan and the Republic of China (ROC) are inseparable is a pragmatic advocacy of Taiwanese independence that still recognizes the “status quo.” Given the CCP regime’s inherent unreliability and its ambitions to infiltrate the entire world, democratic countries have begun to reach out to Taiwan to establish friendly relations.
The ROC does not have diplomatic relations with most countries, but there is mutual support economically and in national defense. The international community has not abandoned Taiwan, and the countries supporting it are becoming more open and forceful in that regard.
The US does not support Taiwanese independence per se, but recognizes its sovereignty. Taiwan is a democratic nation with US backing and presents the most legitimate push-back to the CCP regime.
The ROC came to Taiwan with US approval, and this support allowed Taiwan to resist annexation by the CCP.
Lai has not abandoned a commitment to Taiwanese independence, and it is not right for commentators to accuse him of doing so. They should recognize that the idea of Taiwanese independence has been intentionally stigmatized by the CCP and the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT), and acknowledge that Taiwan has been independent for a long time.
In this way, the CCP cannot claim that it can legitimately annex Taiwan through force.
Chen Chi-nung is principal of Shuili Junior-High School in Nantou County.
Translated by Paul Cooper
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
Many local news media last week reported that COVID-19 is back, citing doctors’ observations and the Centers for Disease Control’s (CDC) statistics. The CDC said that cases would peak this month and urged people to take preventive measures. Although COVID-19 has never been eliminated, it has become more manageable, and restrictions were dropped, enabling people to return to their normal way of life due to decreasing hospitalizations and deaths. In Taiwan, mandatory reporting of confirmed cases and home isolation ended in March last year, while the mask mandate at hospitals and healthcare facilities stopped in May. However, the CDC last week said the number