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.
The image was oddly quiet. No speeches, no flags, no dramatic announcements — just a Chinese cargo ship cutting through arctic ice and arriving in Britain in October. The Istanbul Bridge completed a journey that once existed only in theory, shaving weeks off traditional shipping routes. On paper, it was a story about efficiency. In strategic terms, it was about timing. Much like politics, arriving early matters. Especially when the route, the rules and the traffic are still undefined. For years, global politics has trained us to watch the loud moments: warships in the Taiwan Strait, sanctions announced at news conferences, leaders trading
The saga of Sarah Dzafce, the disgraced former Miss Finland, is far more significant than a mere beauty pageant controversy. It serves as a potent and painful contemporary lesson in global cultural ethics and the absolute necessity of racial respect. Her public career was instantly pulverized not by a lapse in judgement, but by a deliberate act of racial hostility, the flames of which swiftly encircled the globe. The offensive action was simple, yet profoundly provocative: a 15-second video in which Dzafce performed the infamous “slanted eyes” gesture — a crude, historically loaded caricature of East Asian features used in Western
Is a new foreign partner for Taiwan emerging in the Middle East? Last week, Taiwanese media reported that Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs Francois Wu (吳志中) secretly visited Israel, a country with whom Taiwan has long shared unofficial relations but which has approached those relations cautiously. In the wake of China’s implicit but clear support for Hamas and Iran in the wake of the October 2023 assault on Israel, Jerusalem’s calculus may be changing. Both small countries facing literal existential threats, Israel and Taiwan have much to gain from closer ties. In his recent op-ed for the Washington Post, President William
A stabbing attack inside and near two busy Taipei MRT stations on Friday evening shocked the nation and made headlines in many foreign and local news media, as such indiscriminate attacks are rare in Taiwan. Four people died, including the 27-year-old suspect, and 11 people sustained injuries. At Taipei Main Station, the suspect threw smoke grenades near two exits and fatally stabbed one person who tried to stop him. He later made his way to Eslite Spectrum Nanxi department store near Zhongshan MRT Station, where he threw more smoke grenades and fatally stabbed a person on a scooter by the roadside.
RSS