Those who are concerned about the cross-strait issue should keep in mind that since Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) Chairman Joseph Wu (
For example, the council plans to allow Chinese actors and actresses to take part in Taiwanese movies. Late last month it announced that it would allow five major Chinese media outlets -- including the state-controlled Xinhua News Agency (
Due to competition from popular Chinese, Japanese, and South Korean movies and TV dramas, the number of outlets for local artists has shrunk significantly in the past few years. In practical terms, this openness would seem then to have few direct benefits. But it is a case of insisting on openness as a matter of principle.
This newspaper praises the council's insistence on openness, which proves that the goodwill of President Chen Shui-bian's (陳水扁) administration towards China was not just lip service. The actions of Wu and Chiu -- who have followed Chen for years and won his trust -- are the expression of this goodwill.
However, now that Taiwan has shown its goodwill, how has China responded?
Wang Zaixi (王在希), the vice minister of China's Taiwan Affairs Office (TAO), said Thursday that Beijing was "seriously considering creating a unification law" to make Taiwan a special administrative region of China. This makes us think of Beijing's attempt to use Article 23 of the Basic Law (基本法) to tighten freedom of speech in Hong Kong -- a move which sparked a 500,000-person demonstration in that city.
Putting aside the retrograde nature of any unification law, China is providing the pan-green camp with ammunition for propaganda. China should remember that in this year's presidential election, Chen was elected for a second term, defeating the pan-blue forces, despite a lackluster performance by his administration over the previous four years. Credit for this victory should be given to an awakening Taiwan consciousness.
China's actions at this time only serve to consolidate Taiwan awareness and increase the chances that the pan-greens will be able to obtain a legislative majority at the end of the year. The pan-greens must therefore be taking silent delight in the boost that the unification law has given them.
We would like to warn China that since the victory in the primaries to represent the KMT in Hsinchu City by Ko Chun-hsiung (柯俊雄), the former actor who registered to participate in the 1996 Hong Kong provisional legislative elections, the spectrum of the pan-blue camp has shifted into the red zone. The pan-greens are already preparing their attack should Ko be officially nominated. For the pan-greens, Ko's known soft spot for China is like a gift from heaven.
The TAO's Wang should be given special thanks for contributing to the pan-green legislative election campaign because of his use of the unification law to stimulate Taiwanese consciousness. At this point, it will be hard for the pan-greens to resist making use of their "Love Taiwan" propaganda once again.
We call on leaders on both sides of the Strait to put aside ideology and work toward building trust and furthering exchanges between the people of China and Taiwan.
Since we share a common language and culture, once the political issues are solved, Taiwan will always be China's friend, never its enemy. If we put aside emotion and insist on rational dialogue, we can help re-establish friendship between the two sides of the Strait.
The government and local industries breathed a sigh of relief after Shin Kong Life Insurance Co last week said it would relinquish surface rights for two plots in Taipei’s Beitou District (北投) to Nvidia Corp. The US chip-design giant’s plan to expand its local presence will be crucial for Taiwan to safeguard its core role in the global artificial intelligence (AI) ecosystem and to advance the nation’s AI development. The land in dispute is owned by the Taipei City Government, which in 2021 sold the rights to develop and use the two plots of land, codenamed T17 and T18, to the
Taiwan’s first case of African swine fever (ASF) was confirmed on Tuesday evening at a hog farm in Taichung’s Wuci District (梧棲), trigging nationwide emergency measures and stripping Taiwan of its status as the only Asian country free of classical swine fever, ASF and foot-and-mouth disease, a certification it received on May 29. The government on Wednesday set up a Central Emergency Operations Center in Taichung and instituted an immediate five-day ban on transporting and slaughtering hogs, and on feeding pigs kitchen waste. The ban was later extended to 15 days, to account for the incubation period of the virus
The ceasefire in the Middle East is a rare cause for celebration in that war-torn region. Hamas has released all of the living hostages it captured on Oct. 7, 2023, regular combat operations have ceased, and Israel has drawn closer to its Arab neighbors. Israel, with crucial support from the United States, has achieved all of this despite concerted efforts from the forces of darkness to prevent it. Hamas, of course, is a longtime client of Iran, which in turn is a client of China. Two years ago, when Hamas invaded Israel — killing 1,200, kidnapping 251, and brutalizing countless others
US President Donald Trump has announced his eagerness to meet North Korean leader Kim Jong-un while in South Korea for the APEC summit. That implies a possible revival of US-North Korea talks, frozen since 2019. While some would dismiss such a move as appeasement, renewed US engagement with North Korea could benefit Taiwan’s security interests. The long-standing stalemate between Washington and Pyongyang has allowed Beijing to entrench its dominance in the region, creating a myth that only China can “manage” Kim’s rogue nation. That dynamic has allowed Beijing to present itself as an indispensable power broker: extracting concessions from Washington, Seoul
RSS