When Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokesperson Richard Shih (石瑞琦) echoed US President George W. Bush's ultimatum for Iraqi President Saddam Hussein to step down, the opposition took advantage of his gaffe by accusing the government of dragging Taiwan into the war.
After the Iraq war broke out, the pan-green and pan-blue camps have turned into pro-US and pro-China factions respectively. The Chen Shui-bian (
Both the ruling and the opposition, as well as some anti-war advocates who marched outside the American Institute in Taiwan and the British Representative Office, failed to grasp the essence of the war.
The anti-war or anti-US camp argue that Washington's unilaterally bypassing the UN resolution was not justifiable. But the fact is, the five permanent members from the UN Security Council all voted for the resolution to demand that Saddam should account for and relinquish all his biological, chemical and nuclear weapons programs, or face "serious consequences."
Therefore, the difference between Britain and the US on one side, and France, Russia and China on the other side, was not about that demand or the ultimate objective but about how much time Iraq should have been given to comply with it.
A clear majority of the UN Security Council would have accepted the war if Iraq was proved to have violated the resolution and if the military attack had been authorized by the UN. The issue, hence, lay in whether the timing of the US-led war was legitimate and whether war was the last resort. It had nothing to do with a dichotomy of pro-war and anti-war camps.
Too bad that most people in Taiwan did not understand the rationale behind it. Things got even worse when politicians tried to turn the war into a domestic election issue.
The Chen administration's nearly unconditional backing for the US-led war is natural and understandable. As a small country, Taiwan can play no significant role in terms of helping Washington in the military confrontation with Iraq. However, as a potential member of its alliance and with its strategic position for anti-terrorism cooperation and post-war reconstruction projects, Taipei has no choice but to side with Washington.
After all, the consolidation of US-Taiwan relations is at the top of Chen's foreign policy agenda. The US government's appreciation for what Taiwan government has done demonstrates a strengthening in the relationship.
The mistakes the administration has made, therefore, were more to do with the way it expressed this support.
The opposition, on the other hand, has been nothing but a loose canon. Since the government's crisis management was relatively good, the pan-blue camp made the best use of the government's poor skills in public relations by portraying Chen as "kissing American ass." The opposition lawmakers' insults against the nation's leader and government will damage their own reputations.
Moreover, both KMT Chairman Lien Chan (連戰) and PFP Chairman James Soong (宋楚瑜), who will team up for the next presidential election, so far have not made any comment on the issue. If the pan-blue camp's strategy is for both of them to hide behind enemy lines and let legislators play the bad cop, how can they convince voters that they are capable of handling an international crisis like this?
Liu Kuan-teh is a Taipei-based political commentator.
The cancelation this week of President William Lai’s (賴清德) state visit to Eswatini, after the Seychelles, Madagascar and Mauritius revoked overflight permits under Chinese pressure, is one more measure of Taiwan’s shrinking executive diplomatic space. Another channel that deserves attention keeps growing while the first contracts. For several years now, Taipei has been one of Europe’s busiest legislative destinations. Where presidents and foreign ministers cannot land, parliamentarians do — and they do it in rising numbers. The Italian parliament opened the year with its largest bipartisan delegation to Taiwan to date: six Italian deputies and one senator, drawn from six
Recently, Taipei’s streets have been plagued by the bizarre sight of rats running rampant and the city government’s countermeasures have devolved into an anti-intellectual farce. The Taipei Parks and Street Lights Office has attempted to eradicate rats by filling their burrows with polyurethane foam, seeming to believe that rats could not simply dig another path out. Meanwhile, as the nation’s capital slowly deteriorates into a rat hive, the Taipei Department of Environmental Protection has proudly pointed to the increase in the number of poisoned rats reported in February and March as a sign of success. When confronted with public concerns over young
China has long given assurances that it would not interfere in free access to the global commons. As one Ministry of Defense spokesperson put it in 2024, “the Chinese side always respects the freedom of navigation and overflight entitled to countries under international law.” Although these reassurances have always been disingenuous, China’s recent actions display a blatant disregard for these principles. Countries that care about civilian air safety should take note. In April, President Lai Ching-te (賴清德) canceled a planned trip to Eswatini for the 40th anniversary of King Mswati III’s coronation and the 58th anniversary of bilateral diplomatic
Taiwan’s technology companies outpaced traditional sectors by swiftly penetrating the global artificial intelligence (AI) supply chain to occupy an indispensable place in the industry, breaking away from the slim-profit-margin business models of providing manufacturing services on a contract basis. That could explain why the tech-heavy TAIEX became an outperformer among its global peers. The drastic transformation gave a strong lift to the TAIEX, which has been showing outstanding performance since last month, rallying about 23 percent with daily turnover hovering at a record NT$1 trillion (US$31.6 billion) since the middle of last month. The TAIEX has risen to the world’s sixth-largest
RSS