As expected, Taiwan's participation in the Olympic Games in Athens has become the target of various crude attempts at oppression by the Chinese government. Even though the Olympic flame, which represents the Olympic Spirit, has not yet returned to Athens and there is still a week to go before the official opening of the games, the Chinese government is already displaying its overbearing political arrogance in an attempt to make the name "Taiwan" less visible, or even disappear completely.
Vice President Annette Lu (
Premier Yu Shyi-kun also advised the public to raise their psychological defenses. He lamented incidences like A-mei's (
In the run-up to the departure of the nation's Olympic team, the government has sought to use announcements and advertisements posted around Athens to increase awareness of Taiwan within the international community at this global sports event. However, the Beijing authorities were quick to put pressure on a preparatory committee for the Athens Olympics, asking them to remove everything that Taiwan had posted.
In the case of A-Mei, her songs are popular on both sides of the Taiwan Strait, and they encourage ties of friendship within the Chinese-speaking community. She is also a source of pride for Taiwan and Beijing becomes incensed with, and wants to destroy anything that Taiwanese can take pride in. Now that the athletes representing Taiwan are preparing to set off for the games, they take with them the hopes and support of 23 million Taiwanese. The nation has high hopes for the baseball team in particular, which has provided a real morale boost for our society. Rest assured, however, that Beijing will employ every means at its disposal to put pressure on the Taiwanese team over the course of the Athens games.
The relationship between the two sides of the Strait has developed as a result of complex historical and geopolitical factors. The conflicts between politicians on both sides shift according to these objective factors and subjective perceptions. But the lives of ordinary people are constantly being disrupted by politics to the extent that they have become the victims of the political process. Ordinary people on both sides of the Strait now follow the examples of politicians in constraining each other's actions. The result of this is that the Strait will become a gulf that cuts one society off from the other.
The joy of an athlete's victory and sharing the emotions of their countrymen -- whether in success or failure -- is one of the best ways of developing a national community. Beijing consciously rejects the humanism embodied in this idea, and insists on barbarically oppressing Taiwan's attempts to rise up.
Taiwan does not need to resort to mobilizing politicians or initiate struggles between political parties to resolve this situation. The government simply needs to encourage excellence and competitiveness in a number of high-profile sports. As our athletes compete with their international peers and excel, the contrast between China's political oppression and the light of Taiwan's humanism will be seen the international stage.
As strategic tensions escalate across the vast Indo-Pacific region, Taiwan has emerged as more than a potential flashpoint. It is the fulcrum upon which the credibility of the evolving American-led strategy of integrated deterrence now rests. How the US and regional powers like Japan respond to Taiwan’s defense, and how credible the deterrent against Chinese aggression proves to be, will profoundly shape the Indo-Pacific security architecture for years to come. A successful defense of Taiwan through strengthened deterrence in the Indo-Pacific would enhance the credibility of the US-led alliance system and underpin America’s global preeminence, while a failure of integrated deterrence would
The Executive Yuan recently revised a page of its Web site on ethnic groups in Taiwan, replacing the term “Han” (漢族) with “the rest of the population.” The page, which was updated on March 24, describes the composition of Taiwan’s registered households as indigenous (2.5 percent), foreign origin (1.2 percent) and the rest of the population (96.2 percent). The change was picked up by a social media user and amplified by local media, sparking heated discussion over the weekend. The pan-blue and pro-China camp called it a politically motivated desinicization attempt to obscure the Han Chinese ethnicity of most Taiwanese.
On Wednesday last week, the Rossiyskaya Gazeta published an article by Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) asserting the People’s Republic of China’s (PRC) territorial claim over Taiwan effective 1945, predicated upon instruments such as the 1943 Cairo Declaration and the 1945 Potsdam Proclamation. The article further contended that this de jure and de facto status was subsequently reaffirmed by UN General Assembly Resolution 2758 of 1971. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs promptly issued a statement categorically repudiating these assertions. In addition to the reasons put forward by the ministry, I believe that China’s assertions are open to questions in international
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