Government is for the people
On Monday night I visited Lin I-hsiung (
I was amazed as I looked on. Lin and seven others were sitting still and silent. And I could feel the weight of their cause. Although cars were passing by, it felt silent and intensely earnest. Some of you might ask, why fast? I think that it sends a message loud and clear that this matter is not trivial.
Elected officials have to understand that the government is for the people. It does not exist to give them a thrill of power or to fill their bank accounts with cash. They must be accountable to the people who elected them.
I hope all Taiwanese will refuse to vote for anyone who remains in the old KMT way of thinking. I hope they remove from office all those who have shown themselves to be false. And if you want to see a contrast, please go out and visit Lin and others on the sidewalk fasting in front of the Legislative Yuan.
Joel Linton
Taipei
(Editor's note: Joel Linton is Lin I-hsiung's son-in-law.)
Taiwanese identity not new
It has been repeated recently by the Western media that "a sense of a separate Taiwanese identity has emerged" ("Taiwanese identity in the spotlight," Mar. 2, page 4). The Western media may be discovering the existence of a Taiwanese identity now, but it is not one that has recently emerged, just as the Americas existed before Columbus laid eyes on them.
Almost all Western news media are either ignorant of or simply forget about the history of the Taiwanese identity: We used to be many groups of people (Aborigines and pioneer immigrants alike) co-existing on a Pacific island without a sense of "us"; then, for the first time, in 1895, we came together under the banner of "Taiwan Republic" (the first call for a republic in Asia) to deal with a sudden collective-existence issue. In the 50 years that followed, we further fought for our collective rights under Japanese rule.
The Taiwanese identity was born and grew between 1895 and 1945. Social, cultural, philosophical and political debates among us were much more active and livelier then than between 1945 and 1990. For instance, the first "[Taiwanese] homeland literature debate" occurred between 1930 and 1933, resulting in the sense shared among the intelligentsia that "One lives under the Taiwanese heaven and stands on the Taiwanese soil, one cannot realistically write about anything other than the people of Taiwan and their life."
The "emergence" of the Taiwanese identity that the Western media are witnessing now is really a "re-emergence," a coming out of the closet after hiding for many years under the Chiang family's terror.
We would give the thumps-up to the first Western media outlet that stops the practice of regularly regurgitating in their reports about Taiwan the mantra that "Taiwan split from China at the end of a civil war in 1949."
We existed before 1949; as ourselves, Taiwanese.
Sing Young
Taoyuan City
There is much evidence that the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) is sending soldiers from the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) to support Russia’s invasion of Ukraine — and is learning lessons for a future war against Taiwan. Until now, the CCP has claimed that they have not sent PLA personnel to support Russian aggression. On 18 April, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelinskiy announced that the CCP is supplying war supplies such as gunpowder, artillery, and weapons subcomponents to Russia. When Zelinskiy announced on 9 April that the Ukrainian Army had captured two Chinese nationals fighting with Russians on the front line with details
On a quiet lane in Taipei’s central Daan District (大安), an otherwise unremarkable high-rise is marked by a police guard and a tawdry A4 printout from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs indicating an “embassy area.” Keen observers would see the emblem of the Holy See, one of Taiwan’s 12 so-called “diplomatic allies.” Unlike Taipei’s other embassies and quasi-consulates, no national flag flies there, nor is there a plaque indicating what country’s embassy this is. Visitors hoping to sign a condolence book for the late Pope Francis would instead have to visit the Italian Trade Office, adjacent to Taipei 101. The death of
By now, most of Taiwan has heard Taipei Mayor Chiang Wan-an’s (蔣萬安) threats to initiate a vote of no confidence against the Cabinet. His rationale is that the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP)-led government’s investigation into alleged signature forgery in the Chinese Nationalist Party’s (KMT) recall campaign constitutes “political persecution.” I sincerely hope he goes through with it. The opposition currently holds a majority in the Legislative Yuan, so the initiation of a no-confidence motion and its passage should be entirely within reach. If Chiang truly believes that the government is overreaching, abusing its power and targeting political opponents — then
The Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT), joined by the Taiwan People’s Party (TPP), held a protest on Saturday on Ketagalan Boulevard in Taipei. They were essentially standing for the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), which is anxious about the mass recall campaign against KMT legislators. President William Lai (賴清德) said that if the opposition parties truly wanted to fight dictatorship, they should do so in Tiananmen Square — and at the very least, refrain from groveling to Chinese officials during their visits to China, alluding to meetings between KMT members and Chinese authorities. Now that China has been defined as a foreign hostile force,
RSS