China's blind spot is its overestimation of the power of military force. China has believed from the beginning that it can maintain a unified country through military suppression. The suppression of dissident movements in Tibet and Xinjiang are examples. But Taiwan is buffered by the Taiwan Strait. China's pent-up frustration explodes whenever Taiwan holds an election. If it can't attack Taiwan, it must at least cause its voters to have nightmares and stay away from the polls.
The US had to dispatch warships to the seas near Taiwan during the two previous presidential elections so that Taiwan could hold the votes without fear. How an election be called free if everyone is shaking and trembling? We might as well let China appoint Taiwan's leaders. Beijing could directly appoint Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Chairman Lien Chan (
The three have worked hard to oppose the March 20 referendum. How could they let the people of Taiwan hold a referendum? How could they not be guilty of betraying their ancestors in China? When Taiwanese talk politics with the Chinese, the issues are impossible to resolve. Taiwanese think about their future while the Chinese think about their ancestors' graves. Though clearly driven by their anti-independence sentiments, the Chinese accuse others of putting the "red" tag on them. They hide among the Taiwanese people and fight a camouflaged war. China does not have to take any action itself.
If that doesn't work, there are Taiwanese hired guns such as Legislative Speaker Wang Jin-pyng (王金平), KMT legislators Lee Chuan-chiao (李全教), Lee Chia-chin (李嘉進) and Lin Yi-shih, and KMT spokesman Alex Tsai (蔡正元). They can be more nasty than Beijing when they attack President Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁). This is no joke. If they can trip up Chen on behalf of their overlord, their overlord will reward them. Their names will then be in China's history textbooks.
Let's suppose Taiwan has been punished by the heavens to be ruled by one alien regime after another. Such operations have depended on Taiwanese collaborators. Only time will tell whether Taiwanese can shape a national identity. Fortunately, Taiwan still has US protection so its people can vote with assurance.
China could have played the role of the US and become a protector of freedom and democracy in Asia. Who would have known that China would go down the path of depravity and start barking from the other side of the Strait?
No matter how vehemently Lien, Soong and Ma oppose the referendum, the bow is already on the string. Scrapping the referendum would be equivalent to accepting China's appointment of Lien and Soong as Taiwan's leaders. Several decades of democratic progress will come to naught.
These three Chinese men -- Lien, Soong and Ma -- do not call on their motherland to remove her ballistic missiles. Instead, they call on Chen to scrap the referendum. If they have the balls, they might as well call on their motherland to invade Taiwan.
The Ministry of National Defense confirmed on Tuesday that the US is sending the command and control ship USS Blue Ridge and the aircraft carrier USS Kitty Hawk on visits to Hong Kong at the end of this month and early next month. The presence of the ships in Hong Kong will be a strong shot in the arm for Taiwan. Remember: the US sent the USS Nimitz near Taiwan during the 1996 election, and the Kitty Hawk during the 2000 election.
In the eyes of Taiwanese, it can't be clearer whether the US or China cherishes democracy more. One wonders if China's intellectuals can learn a bit of reason and truth from Taiwan's election and move beyond brainwashing.
Taiwan aims to elevate its strategic position in supply chains by becoming an artificial intelligence (AI) hub for Nvidia Corp, providing everything from advanced chips and components to servers, in an attempt to edge out its closest rival in the region, South Korea. Taiwan’s importance in the AI ecosystem was clearly reflected in three major announcements Nvidia made during this year’s Computex trade show in Taipei. First, the US company’s number of partners in Taiwan would surge to 122 this year, from 34 last year, according to a slide shown during CEO Jensen Huang’s (黃仁勳) keynote speech on Monday last week.
When China passed its “Anti-Secession” Law in 2005, much of the democratic world saw it as yet another sign of Beijing’s authoritarianism, its contempt for international law and its aggressive posture toward Taiwan. Rightly so — on the surface. However, this move, often dismissed as a uniquely Chinese form of legal intimidation, echoes a legal and historical precedent rooted not in authoritarian tradition, but in US constitutional history. The Chinese “Anti-Secession” Law, a domestic statute threatening the use of force should Taiwan formally declare independence, is widely interpreted as an emblem of the Chinese Communist Party’s disregard for international norms. Critics
Birth, aging, illness and death are inevitable parts of the human experience. Yet, living well does not necessarily mean dying well. For those who have a chronic illness or cancer, or are bedridden due to significant injuries or disabilities, the remainder of life can be a torment for themselves and a hardship for their caregivers. Even if they wish to end their life with dignity, they are not allowed to do so. Bih Liu-ing (畢柳鶯), former superintendent of Chung Shan Medical University Hospital, introduced the practice of Voluntary Stopping of Eating and Drinking as an alternative to assisted dying, which remains
On May 7, 1971, Henry Kissinger planned his first, ultra-secret mission to China and pondered whether it would be better to meet his Chinese interlocutors “in Pakistan where the Pakistanis would tape the meeting — or in China where the Chinese would do the taping.” After a flicker of thought, he decided to have the Chinese do all the tape recording, translating and transcribing. Fortuitously, historians have several thousand pages of verbatim texts of Dr. Kissinger’s negotiations with his Chinese counterparts. Paradoxically, behind the scenes, Chinese stenographers prepared verbatim English language typescripts faster than they could translate and type them
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