Ma deaf to Taiwanese voices
Taiwanese artists and performers are being forced to say phrases such as “we Chinese.” After this was pointed out, the office of former president Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) asked: “When did Taiwanese start needing to apologize for saying ‘I am Chinese’ or ‘we Chinese’?”
Ma is pretending to be aggrieved when he is actually the one inflicting the damage.
His office should really be asked: When is China going to stop threatening Taiwan with military posturing or fiery speeches over “Taiwanese independence?” When is China going to stop trying to suppress or malign Taiwan? When are Taiwanese who identify as Chinese going to stop misrepresenting and demeaning our country?
I hope our nation gains de jure independence and that our people’s desire to be a normalized country would be fulfilled, but why do Chinese or Taiwanese who identify as Chinese continually refuse to respect that?
We should not forget that when Taiwan was under the heel of the Chinese Nationalist Party’s (KMT) dictatorship and one-party rule, Taiwanese were prohibited from expressing views such as wanting “Taiwanese independence,” with many sent to military prisons and some even losing their lives.
Should Ma’s office not apologize for that first, and seek forgiveness from Taiwanese?
What is unforgivable are Taiwanese — who are not Chinese to begin with — being forced to say that they are “Chinese.”
This is deprivation of our national identity and differs little from killing off our national spirit. If one day that destruction of Taiwanese spirit is expanded in scope and is systematized, it would morph into a form of cultural erasure.
Is this not the same thing the KMT party-state tried to accomplish in the past? Is this not what the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) is trying to do to Taiwan?
Ma’s office has never reflected on this. Instead, he and it collude with the CCP from within Taiwan, as Beijing attacks Taiwan from outside.
As he feigns being some sorry, pitiful character, he poses a rhetorical question to Taiwanese: “When will you say that we Chinese should be excused?”
Trying to strong-arm Taiwanese, Hong Kongers, Tibetans, Uighurs and Mongolians into identifying as Chinese when none of them ascribe to a Chinese identity is unforgivable. This is national erasure.
When Taiwanese are forced to be Chinese, it is tantamount to falling into a hellscape where democracies, freedoms, rules of law and human rights do not exist.
Calling me Chinese when I am from and live in Taiwan is more painful than physical scars and is, of course, much more malicious — it is unforgivable.
Lin Yu-lin
Taipei
The image was oddly quiet. No speeches, no flags, no dramatic announcements — just a Chinese cargo ship cutting through arctic ice and arriving in Britain in October. The Istanbul Bridge completed a journey that once existed only in theory, shaving weeks off traditional shipping routes. On paper, it was a story about efficiency. In strategic terms, it was about timing. Much like politics, arriving early matters. Especially when the route, the rules and the traffic are still undefined. For years, global politics has trained us to watch the loud moments: warships in the Taiwan Strait, sanctions announced at news conferences, leaders trading
Eighty-seven percent of Taiwan’s energy supply this year came from burning fossil fuels, with more than 47 percent of that from gas-fired power generation. The figures attracted international attention since they were in October published in a Reuters report, which highlighted the fragility and structural challenges of Taiwan’s energy sector, accumulated through long-standing policy choices. The nation’s overreliance on natural gas is proving unstable and inadequate. The rising use of natural gas does not project an image of a Taiwan committed to a green energy transition; rather, it seems that Taiwan is attempting to patch up structural gaps in lieu of
The Executive Yuan and the Presidential Office on Monday announced that they would not countersign or promulgate the amendments to the Act Governing the Allocation of Government Revenues and Expenditures (財政收支劃分法) passed by the Legislative Yuan — a first in the nation’s history and the ultimate measure the central government could take to counter what it called an unconstitutional legislation. Since taking office last year, the legislature — dominated by the opposition alliance of the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) and Taiwan People’s Party — has passed or proposed a slew of legislation that has stirred controversy and debate, such as extending
Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) legislators have twice blocked President William Lai’s (賴清德) special defense budget bill in the Procedure Committee, preventing it from entering discussion or review. Meanwhile, KMT Legislator Chen Yu-jen (陳玉珍) proposed amendments that would enable lawmakers to use budgets for their assistants at their own discretion — with no requirement for receipts, staff registers, upper or lower headcount limits, or usage restrictions — prompting protest from legislative assistants. After the new legislature convened in February, the KMT joined forces with the Taiwan People’s Party (TPP) and, leveraging their slim majority, introduced bills that undermine the Constitution, disrupt constitutional
RSS