On Thursday, US Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage announced in a televised interview that the US has some specific hopes regarding the May 20 inauguration speech of President Chen Shui-bian (
High-ranking Presidential Office staff members immediately indicated in private that the so-called "five noes" pledge will be reiterated in the inauguration speech, although not in exactly the same words.
Because this all came about after a US visit by Presidential Office Secretary-General Chiou I-Jen (
Reviewing Chen's first term, despite controversies and debates regarding the cross-strait policy, it is safe to conclude that he kept his word. Neither Lee's "special state-to-state" discourse nor Chen's own talk about "one country on each side" of the Taiwan Strait, which many deem to be a continuation of Lee's policy, have been incorporated into the Constitution. The defensive referendum held simultaneously with the presidential election, which had supposedly caused much concern in the US, had nothing to do with the independence-unification issue.
However, does this mean that the cross-strait status quo has been maintained? Obviously this is not the case. For one, consistent with the rise of nativist consciousness in Taiwan in past decades, the Taiwanese sense of national identity has reached an all-time high -- although many still feel that there is a long way to go in this regard. This is demonstrated by Chen's electoral defeat of KMT Chairman Lien Chan (
Moreover, one can hardly argue that the cross-strait status quo is being maintained when the imbalance between the military powers on both sides of the Taiwan Strait has reached a new extreme. This was confirmed by US Assistant Secretary of State for East Asian and Pacific Affairs James Kelly during a congressional hearing last week, in which he said that over the past 25 years China has repeatedly reassured the US of its willingness to peacefully resolve the Taiwan issue, but in practice it has continued to increase the number of missiles targeting Taiwan by 50 to 75 each year.
So while all expectations are on Taiwan to exercise self-restraint, which Taiwan has largely done, what is being done to keep China from losing control? Can anything be done to accomplish that goal?
If maintaining the status quo means that Taiwan cannot have any presence in the international community -- even when sensitive sovereignty issues are not touched, as in the inability of Taiwan to merely obtain observer status as a "health entity" -- it is no wonder that the popular will in Taiwan is hungrily looking for other options.
Two sets of economic data released last week by the Directorate-General of Budget, Accounting and Statistics (DGBAS) have drawn mixed reactions from the public: One on the nation’s economic performance in the first quarter of the year and the other on Taiwan’s household wealth distribution in 2021. GDP growth for the first quarter was faster than expected, at 6.51 percent year-on-year, an acceleration from the previous quarter’s 4.93 percent and higher than the agency’s February estimate of 5.92 percent. It was also the highest growth since the second quarter of 2021, when the economy expanded 8.07 percent, DGBAS data showed. The growth
At the same time as more than 30 military aircraft were detected near Taiwan — one of the highest daily incursions this year — with some flying as close as 37 nautical miles (69kms) from the northern city of Keelung, China announced a limited and selected relaxation of restrictions on Taiwanese agricultural exports and tourism, upon receiving a Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) delegation led by KMT legislative caucus whip Fu Kun-chi (傅崑萁). This demonstrates the two-faced gimmick of China’s “united front” strategy. Despite the strongest earthquake to hit the nation in 25 years striking Hualien on April 3, which caused
In the intricate ballet of geopolitics, names signify more than mere identification: They embody history, culture and sovereignty. The recent decision by China to refer to Arunachal Pradesh as “Tsang Nan” or South Tibet, and to rename Tibet as “Xizang,” is a strategic move that extends beyond cartography into the realm of diplomatic signaling. This op-ed explores the implications of these actions and India’s potential response. Names are potent symbols in international relations, encapsulating the essence of a nation’s stance on territorial disputes. China’s choice to rename regions within Indian territory is not merely a linguistic exercise, but a symbolic assertion
In the 2022 book Danger Zone: The Coming Conflict with China, academics Hal Brands and Michael Beckley warned, against conventional wisdom, that it was not a rising China that the US and its allies had to fear, but a declining China. This is because “peaking powers” — nations at the peak of their relative power and staring over the precipice of decline — are particularly dangerous, as they might believe they only have a narrow window of opportunity to grab what they can before decline sets in, they said. The tailwinds that propelled China’s spectacular economic rise over the past