On March 15, former president Lee Teng-hui (李登輝) formally proposed recognition of Taiwanese nationhood at a meeting of the World Federation of Taiwanese Associations (世界台灣人大會). He also laid down the main guidelines for a new Constitution establishing the nation Taiwan.
Constitutional reform is the kind of healthy thinking the people of any sovereign and independent state should entertain, but it was criticized by PFP Chairman James Soong (宋楚瑜). He believes it would anger "Communist China" (中共), and that most nations "would not accept Taiwan independence." Such statements once again throw Soong's and Lien Chan's (連戰) slogan "the Republic of China is a sovereign and independent state" into a state of extreme political confusion.
Taiwan is deceiving the world by using the name Republic of China. The world is abundantly clear on the fact that Taiwan is the factual entity and that the Republic of China is a political corpse expelled from the international community. Taiwan still clings to this false status, living out a life in degradation. Soong's logic is the laughing stock of today's society and its only market is the unificationist camp.
To put down the Taiwanese people's hope of independence and sovereignty, Soong even suggested that other nations would not accept Taiwan independence. We want to ask Soong if China, a constant threat to Taiwan, would ask the US, Japan or Europe for permission to invade Taiwan. But when Taiwan wants to build a peaceful, democratic and free country called Taiwan, he wants to ask whether other nations agree. What kind of logic is that? It's ridiculous.
POLITICAL RESPONSIBILITY
The people of Taiwan should ask Soong, who talks loudly of his love for Taiwan, whether he accepts that Taiwan is a sovereign and independent state. We should ask him to be unambiguously clear.
Someone intending to run for president should possess political intelligence and a sense of mission, and call for the people to protect their own nation. Soong, however, scorns the moral courage and political responsibility such a political leader should possess and threatens the people of Taiwan with the enemy. If we really needed such politicians, wouldn't it be faster simply to surrender?
When faced with invasion and an anti-humanitarian dictatorship, a self-respecting people should stand up and protect itself. If the leaders of Vietnam constantly had told their people not to anger China, would it still exist?
Soong's threats about what will happen if we anger China are only meant to consolidate the political thinking and interests of his China-friendly political clique. He doesn't consider the fate and future of the people of Taiwan, and is exchanging the lives of the whole people for his own personal interests.
The KMT has lived through 50 years of colonialist thinking of a united greater China. This is still poisoning the spirit of the Taiwanese people, and many Taiwanese must have been seriously affected by this China poison to be taken in by Soong's and Lien's coarse political lies.
Protecting Taiwan and not angering China are mutually exclusive concepts. Someone who wants to protect Taiwan without angering China only pretends to love Taiwan and does not intend to protect it. How come the Taiwanese people still haven't seen through this kind of politician?
Tzeng Kuei-hai is chairman of the Southern Taiwan Society.
Translated by Perry Svensson
The conflict in the Middle East has been disrupting financial markets, raising concerns about rising inflationary pressures and global economic growth. One market that some investors are particularly worried about has not been heavily covered in the news: the private credit market. Even before the joint US-Israeli attacks on Iran on Feb. 28, global capital markets had faced growing structural pressure — the deteriorating funding conditions in the private credit market. The private credit market is where companies borrow funds directly from nonbank financial institutions such as asset management companies, insurance companies and private lending platforms. Its popularity has risen since
The Donald Trump administration’s approach to China broadly, and to cross-Strait relations in particular, remains a conundrum. The 2025 US National Security Strategy prioritized the defense of Taiwan in a way that surprised some observers of the Trump administration: “Deterring a conflict over Taiwan, ideally by preserving military overmatch, is a priority.” Two months later, Taiwan went entirely unmentioned in the US National Defense Strategy, as did military overmatch vis-a-vis China, giving renewed cause for concern. How to interpret these varying statements remains an open question. In both documents, the Indo-Pacific is listed as a second priority behind homeland defense and
Every analyst watching Iran’s succession crisis is asking who would replace supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. Yet, the real question is whether China has learned enough from the Persian Gulf to survive a war over Taiwan. Beijing purchases roughly 90 percent of Iran’s exported crude — some 1.61 million barrels per day last year — and holds a US$400 billion, 25-year cooperation agreement binding it to Tehran’s stability. However, this is not simply the story of a patron protecting an investment. China has spent years engineering a sanctions-evasion architecture that was never really about Iran — it was about Taiwan. The
After “Operation Absolute Resolve” to capture former Venezuelan president Nicolas Maduro, the US joined Israel on Saturday last week in launching “Operation Epic Fury” to remove Iranian supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and his theocratic regime leadership team. The two blitzes are widely believed to be a prelude to US President Donald Trump changing the geopolitical landscape in the Indo-Pacific region, targeting China’s rise. In the National Security Strategic report released in December last year, the Trump administration made it clear that the US would focus on “restoring American pre-eminence in the Western hemisphere,” and “competing with China economically and militarily
RSS