President William Lai (賴清德) was officially sworn in on Monday, marking the start of a historic third consecutive term of the Democratic Progress Party (DPP) government. While urging China to share the responsibility of promoting peace in the Taiwan Strait and the world, Lai has called on Beijing to accept the existence of the Republic of China (ROC) and acknowledge Taiwan’s elected government.
In his inauguration speech, Lai underlined that “we have a nation insofar as we have sovereignty,” and in a rare move, quoted the first chapter of the Constitution, saying: “The sovereignty of the Republic of China shall reside in the whole body of citizen” and “persons possessing the nationality of the Republic of China shall be citizens of the ROC.”
He said the two articles clearly state that “the ROC and the People’s Republic of China (PRC) are not subordinated to each other.” Lai’s quotation obviously aims to verify the “status quo” in the Taiwan Strait and uphold the sovereignty of the ROC in Taiwan based on the Constitution.
It also served as evidence to some pro-China politicians such as former president Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九), who often mentions the so-called “constitutional one China” framework, which vaguely claims that the ROC and the PRC are both “China,” but has trapped Taiwan’s legal status and international image in the PRC’s “one China principle” and its version of the so-called “1992 consensus” that allows no room for the interpretation of “China” as the ROC.
On Lai’s inauguration day, Beijing issued a statement to reiterate its interpretation of UN Resolution 2758, a response to pushback by some US officials and lawmakers regarding China’s increasing “misuse” of the resolution. While calling for support for Taiwan’s meaningful participation in the World Health Assembly and international community, US Assistant Secretary of State for East Asian and Pacific Affairs Daniel Kritenbrink and Deputy Assistant Secretary in the Bureau of East Asia and Pacific Affairs Mark Lambert have denounced China’s mischaracterization of UN Resolution 2758 by falsely conflating it with its “one-China principle.”
China’s reaction nevertheless has shone a spotlight on the fact that Resolution 2758 passed in 1971, stated only that “the PRC is the only legitimate government of China.”
The resolution replaced the ROC with the PRC as a permanent member of the Security Council in the UN to solve the issue of China’s representation in the UN system, but not a word referred to Taiwan or its international status.
After Lai’s inauguration, Beijing, unsurprisingly, labeled him a “dangerous separatist” and called his speech “a confession of Taiwanese independence,” then followed this by launching a two-day Joint Sword 2024A military drill around Taiwan yesterday.
Lai did not push for anything new to change or expand the political sovereignty of the ROC in Taiwan, but presented the facts, in accordance with the Constitution, the reality of the situation across the strait and the consensus of the vast majority of Taiwanese.
Being an elected leader of 24 million Taiwanese, Lai also pledged to “neither yield nor provoke,” but seek peace with China, showing goodwill by wanting to resume dialogue to avoid possible conflict.
The PRC should acknowledge the facts and this goodwill, not unilaterally change “the status quo” to upend peace in the Taiwan Strait and the world.
After more than a year of review, the National Security Bureau on Monday said it has completed a sweeping declassification of political archives from the Martial Law period, transferring the full collection to the National Archives Administration under the National Development Council. The move marks another significant step in Taiwan’s long journey toward transitional justice. The newly opened files span the architecture of authoritarian control: internal security and loyalty investigations, intelligence and counterintelligence operations, exit and entry controls, overseas surveillance of Taiwan independence activists, and case materials related to sedition and rebellion charges. For academics of Taiwan’s White Terror era —
On Feb. 7, the New York Times ran a column by Nicholas Kristof (“What if the valedictorians were America’s cool kids?”) that blindly and lavishly praised education in Taiwan and in Asia more broadly. We are used to this kind of Orientalist admiration for what is, at the end of the day, paradoxically very Anglo-centered. They could have praised Europeans for valuing education, too, but one rarely sees an American praising Europe, right? It immediately made me think of something I have observed. If Taiwanese education looks so wonderful through the eyes of the archetypal expat, gazing from an ivory tower, how
China has apparently emerged as one of the clearest and most predictable beneficiaries of US President Donald Trump’s “America First” and “Make America Great Again” approach. Many countries are scrambling to defend their interests and reputation regarding an increasingly unpredictable and self-seeking US. There is a growing consensus among foreign policy pundits that the world has already entered the beginning of the end of Pax Americana, the US-led international order. Consequently, a number of countries are reversing their foreign policy preferences. The result has been an accelerating turn toward China as an alternative economic partner, with Beijing hosting Western leaders, albeit
After 37 US lawmakers wrote to express concern over legislators’ stalling of critical budgets, Legislative Speaker Han Kuo-yu (韓國瑜) pledged to make the Executive Yuan’s proposed NT$1.25 trillion (US$39.7 billion) special defense budget a top priority for legislative review. On Tuesday, it was finally listed on the legislator’s plenary agenda for Friday next week. The special defense budget was proposed by President William Lai’s (賴清德) administration in November last year to enhance the nation’s defense capabilities against external threats from China. However, the legislature, dominated by the opposition Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) and Taiwan People’s Party (TPP), repeatedly blocked its review. The
RSS