Singapore should pursue joining a Chinese commonwealth before urging Taiwan to do so, former American Institute in Taiwan (AIT) director William Stanton wrote on Thursday in a rebuttal to a former Singaporean foreign minister’s comments at a forum last month.
Former Singaporean minister for foreign affairs George Yeo (楊榮文) on Sept. 11 told the Asia-Pacific Forward Forum in Taipei that a “Chinese commonwealth” can serve as a political framework to bring Taiwan and China to the negotiating table.
Taiwan and China’s divide is found “at the political level, not cultural or civilizational,” he was quoted as saying, adding that the former should elaborate its “one China” interpretation to allow loose forms of union with Beijing.
Photo: Taipei Times file
“How long it will take for the Chinese commonwealth to evolve into ‘one China,’ and what the nature of that one China will be, no one can foresee today. By then, it is entirely possible that there will neither be a PRC [People’s Republic of China] nor an ROC [Republic of China] but, just simply, China,” he was quoted as saying.
Stanton wrote an op-ed for the online English-language Taiwan News titled, “A Chinese Commonwealth: A proposal Singapore itself should best pursue.”
“Yeo should [know] how well Singapore would fit into a ‘Chinese commonwealth’ before presuming to recommend that Taiwan, a country he clearly neither understands nor appreciates, do so,” Stanton said.
“Singapore is a far better fit for his dream of a ‘Chinese commonwealth,’” he said. “Singapore should lead the way. But I doubt it will get far.”
Yeo failed to understand the “rigidity and timelines” of Chinese President Xi Jinping’s (習近平) ambitions or take notice of Hong Kong’s “glaringly obvious tragic fate” after being subsumed under Beijing’s “one country, two systems” scheme, he said.
Most Taiwanese have little cultural affinity for China’s culture and even less for its political system dominated by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), Stanton said.
“Some 75 percent of Singaporeans are ethnically Chinese, and there is no evidence at all that they — much less Yeo himself — are yearning to be citizens of China,” he said. “Nonetheless, the sincerity and conviction behind any proposal for a ‘Chinese commonwealth’ can be put to the test, and if so, it should best be tested first in Singapore.”
Singapore, like Taiwan, has never been a part of China or ruled by the CCP while its “bite-sized territory,” like Hong Kong, is more amendable to being “easily digested by the PRC,” Stanton said.
This means “Singapore is a far better candidate than Taiwan for membership in a Chinese commonwealth,” he said.
Considered a true democracy and a leading model of freedom in Asia, Taiwan would face difficulties integrating into a sphere dominated by unfree Beijing, but Singapore, ranked only as a “partly free” country in Freedom House listings, might adapt more easily, he said.
CAUTION: Based on intelligence from the nation’s security agencies, MOFA has cautioned Taiwanese travelers about heightened safety risks in China-friendly countries The Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA) yesterday urged Taiwanese to be aware of their safety when traveling abroad, especially in countries that are friendly to China. China in June last year issued 22 guidelines that allow its courts to try in absentia and sentence to death so-called “diehard” Taiwanese independence activists, even though Chinese courts have no jurisdiction in Taiwan. Late last month, a senior Chinese official gave closed-door instructions to state security units to implement the guidelines in countries friendly to China, a government memo and a senior Taiwan security official said, based on information gathered by Taiwan’s intelligence agency. The
Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC), the world’s largest contract chipmaker, said yesterday that it is looking to hire 8,000 people this year, at a time when the tech giant is expanding production capacity to maintain its lead over competitors. To attract talent, TSMC would launch a large-scale recruitment campaign on campuses across Taiwan, where a newly recruited engineer with a master’s degree could expect to receive an average salary of NT$2.2 million (US$60,912), which is much higher than the 2023 national average of NT$709,000 for those in the same category, according to government statistics. TSMC, which accounted for more than 60 percent
Tung Tzu-hsien (童子賢), a Taiwanese businessman and deputy convener of the nation’s National Climate Change Committee, said yesterday that “electrical power is national power” and nuclear energy is “very important to Taiwan.” Tung made the remarks, suggesting that his views do not align with the country’s current official policy of phasing out nuclear energy, at a forum organized by the Taiwan People’s Party titled “Challenges and Prospects of Taiwan’s AI Industry and Energy Policy.” “Taiwan is currently pursuing industries with high added- value and is developing vigorously, and this all requires electricity,” said the chairman
‘POOP ON STAGE’: The song, which talks about the reluctance to graduate and anxiety about a lack of job opportunities, resonated with many students’ feelings The original song Poop on Stage has been chosen as National Taiwan University’s (NTU) graduation song this year, sparking much debate regarding the song’s title and content, which describes students’ anxiety about post-graduation unemployment. The title, Shang Tai Da Bian (上台大便), is a play on words that literally means “go on stage to poop.” The first three characters, shang tai da (上台大), also mean “to attend NTU,” as “Taida” is a common abbreviation for the university. The last character, bian (便), can mean “convenient” or “then,” but is more commonly associated with defecation. The lyrics of the song describe students’ reluctance to graduate and
RSS