Accusations of ethnic divisions have been used to legitimize protests following the presidential election. Taiwan does have an ethnicity problem, but not to the extent that it should be labeled "ethnic division." Nor is it true that the pan-green camp's campaign methods provoked ethnic division. President Chen Shui-bian's (陳水扁) "one country on each side" of the Taiwan Strait model concerns national recognition and is unrelated to ethnicity, but it has been deliberately used by some politicians to stir up ethnic conflict.
What does identification with Taiwan and the Republic of China (ROC), or with China, have to do with ethnicity? This becomes an ethnic issue only if you consider yourself living in "Taiwan Pro-vince," a Chinese citizen in a country divided by the "one country on each side" model. The number of Hakka voting for Chen also increased significantly, showing that the ethnic problem is improving.
Pan-blue voters also come from different ethnic groups. Are they divided? There is a localization faction in the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT), and the pan-green camp includes an association of Mainlanders for Taiwan independence. This implies that there is no division.
Irrational statements and actions in the wake of the election divide not ethnic groups, but the nation. This is a serious issue.
First, some people in the pan-blue camp do not recognize the legally elected president. People First Party (PFP) Chairman James Soong (宋楚瑜) has said that Chen is appointing himself president, and former DPP chairman Hsu Hsin-liang (許信良) said that KMT Chairman Lien Chan (連戰) and Soong won. Who is Hsu to say so? A representative of the Central Election Commission? The kingmaker behind Lien and Soong? Or does he represent Beijing in offering them the imperial robe?
Doubting the election results or demanding a recount is fine, but it has to be done according to legal procedures. If an individual can make decisions on this, that or the other, and even decide who will be president, the country is doomed.
Second, some people in the pan-blue camp want to stop the presidential inauguration, accusing Chen of having stolen the nation. Before the recount process has been completed, regular activities should continue as usual. Should all activity cease just because a few people claim that "the nation has been stolen?" Does that invalidate all legisla-tion? Taipei Mayor Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) recognizes that Chen and Lu were legally elected and Legislative Speaker Wang Jin-pyng (王金平) will follow the law and participate in the inauguration, clearly displaying their understanding of the concept of the rule of law.
The suggestion that Chen and Vice President Annette Lu (呂秀蓮) were illegally elected and that Wang should be made acting president is ridiculous. According to the Constitution, the premier takes over if the president and the vice president are incapable of carrying out their duties.
Third, the groundless accusations of Chen's stealing the nation caused pan-blue Taipei City councilors to take down his picture in the City Council's chamber, as if they had their own head of state. So did some overseas Chinese associations. Who do they recognize as president? If it is Lien, aren't they dividing Taiwan into two nations? Talk of separate rule for the north and south is yet another bid to divide the nation.
These attempts hurt both domestic solidarity and Taiwan's image. The Democratic Progressive Party must take a softer approach and show sincerity in working for ethnic integration and to prevent provocation. Many intelligent people inside the KMT are also trying to block nation-dividing actions. United, these two forces would reveal attempts at national and ethnic division for the people to reject.
Paul Lin is a commentator based in New York.
Translated by Perry Svensson
Before 1945, the most widely spoken language in Taiwan was Tai-gi (also known as Taiwanese, Taiwanese Hokkien or Hoklo). However, due to almost a century of language repression policies, many Taiwanese believe that Tai-gi is at risk of disappearing. To understand this crisis, I interviewed academics and activists about Taiwan’s history of language repression, the major challenges of revitalizing Tai-gi and their policy recommendations. Although Taiwanese were pressured to speak Japanese when Taiwan became a Japanese colony in 1895, most managed to keep their heritage languages alive in their homes. However, starting in 1949, when the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) enacted martial law
“Si ambulat loquitur tetrissitatque sicut anas, anas est” is, in customary international law, the three-part test of anatine ambulation, articulation and tetrissitation. And it is essential to Taiwan’s existence. Apocryphally, it can be traced as far back as Suetonius (蘇埃托尼烏斯) in late first-century Rome. Alas, Suetonius was only talking about ducks (anas). But this self-evident principle was codified as a four-part test at the Montevideo Convention in 1934, to which the United States is a party. Article One: “The state as a person of international law should possess the following qualifications: a) a permanent population; b) a defined territory; c) government;
Chinese agents often target Taiwanese officials who are motivated by financial gain rather than ideology, while people who are found guilty of spying face lenient punishments in Taiwan, a researcher said on Tuesday. While the law says that foreign agents can be sentenced to death, people who are convicted of spying for Beijing often serve less than nine months in prison because Taiwan does not formally recognize China as a foreign nation, Institute for National Defense and Security Research fellow Su Tzu-yun (蘇紫雲) said. Many officials and military personnel sell information to China believing it to be of little value, unaware that
The central bank and the US Department of the Treasury on Friday issued a joint statement that both sides agreed to avoid currency manipulation and the use of exchange rates to gain a competitive advantage, and would only intervene in foreign-exchange markets to combat excess volatility and disorderly movements. The central bank also agreed to disclose its foreign-exchange intervention amounts quarterly rather than every six months, starting from next month. It emphasized that the joint statement is unrelated to tariff negotiations between Taipei and Washington, and that the US never requested the appreciation of the New Taiwan dollar during the
RSS