US Secretary of State Colin Powell said on Monday that Taiwan is not a sovereign and independent country. The question is: Is Powell really clear on what he is talking about? If the status of Taiwan really is what Powell claims it to be, then his statement could be interpreted as meaning either that sovereignty over Taiwan remains undetermined, as stated in the 1952 San Francisco Peace Treaty, or that Taiwan comes under the sovereignty of China.
The question of whether this China is the Republic of China (ROC) or the People's Republic of China (PRC) will surely lead to further dispute. To those interpreting Powell's statement as meaning that Taiwan belongs to the PRC, we can only say that this goes further than any of the communiques signed by Washington and Beijing, and it is not consistent with the US' position.
A better explanation for Powell's comments in Beijing is that he was simply continuing the US' long-standing position of maintaining an ambiguous China policy. He was only clarifying the fact that the US does not maintain diplomatic relations with Taipei and that the US does not recognize the sovereignty of Taiwan. But nor does the US recognize Taiwan as being part of the PRC's territory. The US hopes that the Taiwan sovereignty issue will be resolved through negotiations between the governments on each side of the Taiwan Strait. The question of whether there will be peaceful unification will be decided by the outcome of such negotiations -- which must be approved by the Taiwanese people to take effect.
When US officials speak on the international stage about Taiwan's lack of national sovereignty, they clearly demonstrate how perilous Taiwan's situation is today -- even its closest friend finds itself unable to lend public support.
Only if Taiwanese show determination and are willing to defend themselves at any cost will they be able to avoid being swallowed up by China by one means or another. Beijing's most devious ploy is to get Taiwanese to take national defense lightly.
If Taiwan loses its military ability to oppose China's threats, what reason would Beijing have to sit down at the negotiating table to engage in substantive and meaningful talks with Taiwan? China would be able to threaten Taiwan militarily at any time -- and continue to do so until this nation surrenders. If this is a situation that the pan-blue camp finds intolerable, then they have no reason to oppose the arms-procurement budget that has turned the Legislative Yuan into a battleground.
Taiwan meets all the conditions for being a modern democratic nation, so Powell's comments about Taiwan not having sovereignty are a slap in the face. Unless the people of Taiwan are willing to face the same fate as the residents of Hong Kong and Macao, then there is only one thing they can do. They must convince the legislators they elected to represent them that Taiwan must equip itself with advanced weapons. The government must accelerate the development of a society sharing a strong sense of common identity. The people and the government must show their determined resistance to communist rule. This is a road that Taiwan has no choice but to follow.
Jan. 1 marks a decade since China repealed its one-child policy. Just 10 days before, Peng Peiyun (彭珮雲), who long oversaw the often-brutal enforcement of China’s family-planning rules, died at the age of 96, having never been held accountable for her actions. Obituaries praised Peng for being “reform-minded,” even though, in practice, she only perpetuated an utterly inhumane policy, whose consequences have barely begun to materialize. It was Vice Premier Chen Muhua (陳慕華) who first proposed the one-child policy in 1979, with the endorsement of China’s then-top leaders, Chen Yun (陳雲) and Deng Xiaoping (鄧小平), as a means of avoiding the
The last foreign delegation Nicolas Maduro met before he went to bed Friday night (January 2) was led by China’s top Latin America diplomat. “I had a pleasant meeting with Qiu Xiaoqi (邱小琪), Special Envoy of President Xi Jinping (習近平),” Venezuela’s soon-to-be ex-president tweeted on Telegram, “and we reaffirmed our commitment to the strategic relationship that is progressing and strengthening in various areas for building a multipolar world of development and peace.” Judging by how minutely the Central Intelligence Agency was monitoring Maduro’s every move on Friday, President Trump himself was certainly aware of Maduro’s felicitations to his Chinese guest. Just
A recent piece of international news has drawn surprisingly little attention, yet it deserves far closer scrutiny. German industrial heavyweight Siemens Mobility has reportedly outmaneuvered long-entrenched Chinese competitors in Southeast Asian infrastructure to secure a strategic partnership with Vietnam’s largest private conglomerate, Vingroup. The agreement positions Siemens to participate in the construction of a high-speed rail link between Hanoi and Ha Long Bay. German media were blunt in their assessment: This was not merely a commercial win, but has symbolic significance in “reshaping geopolitical influence.” At first glance, this might look like a routine outcome of corporate bidding. However, placed in
China often describes itself as the natural leader of the global south: a power that respects sovereignty, rejects coercion and offers developing countries an alternative to Western pressure. For years, Venezuela was held up — implicitly and sometimes explicitly — as proof that this model worked. Today, Venezuela is exposing the limits of that claim. Beijing’s response to the latest crisis in Venezuela has been striking not only for its content, but for its tone. Chinese officials have abandoned their usual restrained diplomatic phrasing and adopted language that is unusually direct by Beijing’s standards. The Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs described the
RSS