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.
From the Iran war and nuclear weapons to tariffs and artificial intelligence, the agenda for this week’s Beijing summit between US President Donald Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) is packed. Xi would almost certainly bring up Taiwan, if only to demonstrate his inflexibility on the matter. However, no one needs to meet with Xi face-to-face to understand his stance. A visit to the National Museum of China in Beijing — in particular, the “Road to Rejuvenation” exhibition, which chronicles the rise and rule of the Chinese Communist Party — might be even more revealing. Xi took the members
A Pale View of Hills, a movie released last year, follows the story of a Japanese woman from Nagasaki who moved to Britain in the 1950s with her British husband and daughter from a previous marriage. The daughter was born at a time when memories of the US atomic bombing of Nagasaki during World War II and anxiety over the effects of nuclear radiation still haunted the community. It is a reflection on the legacy of the local and national trauma of the bombing that ended the period of Japanese militarism. A central theme of the movie is the need, at
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