The annual APEC leader's summit ended on Sunday. As usual, Taiwan strictly abided by its status as a member economy and avoided political distur-bances. Academia Sinica President Lee Yuan-tseh (
Given Taiwan's current economic strength and in particular its information-technology industry, it is able to offer valuable experience to other states in the Asian-Pacific region. There is ample evidence that they could also learn from Taiwan's health and disease prevention experience. Although last year's SARS epidemic brought unprecedented panic, rapid and effective preventative measures were adopted and Taiwan successfully withstood the difficult test. Lee's suggestion of a vaccine development center was both timely and necessary.
The primary goal of the APEC meetings is to boost the economic prosperity of Pacific-Rim countries. To achieve this, Taiwan has always proposed constructive plans in the APEC's ministerial meetings as well as meetings for business leaders -- despite China's efforts to use such meetings as opportunities to oppress Taiwan internationally.
Taiwanese businesspeople have greatly contributed to China's role as the world's major manufacturing center today. Ever since the government removed most of its restrictions on investment in China in the early 1990s, massive amounts of the nation's capital and technology have been transferred to China, replacing other international capital as the driving force behind that country's rapid economic growth.
In other words, Taiwan has significantly contributed to the improved living standard of Chinese people. It really does not deserve Beijing's hostility.
For example, Beijing has objected to allowing Taiwan's popularly elected president to attend the APEC leaders' meetings. It has not given an inch on this issue. Seen from Taiwan's perspective, this attitude is extremely unreasonable. This sort of intransigence will only further hurt the relationship between people on both sides of the Taiwan Strait.
Beijing's officials managed to enrage Taiwan with their behavior every year, with the result that the forces advocating Taiwan independence continue to gain strength. It is no wonder that the kind of Taiwan consciousness that supports the model of "one country on either side of the Strait" has grown so rapidly. Political relations grow increasingly distant -- but Beijing's wrongheaded policies toward Taipei are solely to blame for this.
Politics and economics are quite separate matters. Last month Taiwan was ranked fourth in terms of the competitiveness of its economy in an assessment by the World Economic Forum. A country with such strong competitiveness is not going to disappear from the international scene simply because it is ignored, boycotted or ostracized by China at international gatherings.
Beijing's continued reluctance to acknowledge Taiwan's existence and open channels of communication through which both sides of the Strait can engage in reasonable and friendly dialogue serves no one. Only through better communication can tensions in the Taiwan Strait be reduced and both sides contribute to developing prosperity and stability in the Asia-Pacific region.
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
The Legislative Yuan passed an amendment on Friday last week to add four national holidays and make Workers’ Day a national holiday for all sectors — a move referred to as “four plus one.” The Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) and the Taiwan People’s Party (TPP), who used their combined legislative majority to push the bill through its third reading, claim the holidays were chosen based on their inherent significance and social relevance. However, in passing the amendment, they have stuck to the traditional mindset of taking a holiday just for the sake of it, failing to make good use of
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