Taipei Mayor Ma Ying-jeou (
China's unification propaganda targeting Taiwan has been consistent in its stance, but flexible in its strategy. It has always had the self-interest of the regime at heart. It is so flexible that even Ma, a pro-unification politician who has been dubbed the "future leader of the Taiwan Special Administrative Region" by some Taiwan independence activists, still could not escape being rejected by China. Anyone who oversteps the red line drawn by China will definitely be relentlessly attacked or admonished, making it clear to Taiwan's political figures that they do not have the right to comment freely on Beijing policy.
The Hong Kong government's visa refusal is more likely the result of complying with pressure from Beijing, rather than being an action taken on its own initiative. Yet this incident has created yet another political chasm between Taiwan and Hong Kong. Although Tung Chee-hwa (
In Feb. 2001, the Hong Kong government gave Ma a high-profile reception, and memories of his success with the people of Hong Kong are still fresh. So why has Hong Kong's government decided to brave everyone's displeasure? The reason is pressure from China. If relations between Taiwan and Hong Kong cannot be based on the territory's autonomy, and if Hong Kong cannot even issue a visa without Beijing's approval, then the value of Hong Kong as a model of "one country, two systems" will cease. Taiwan and Hong Kong play the role of "cross-referenced indices" in China's policy. China continues to ignore the democratic aspirations of Hong Kong's people and also continues to put pressure on Taiwan, which has caused the territory to lose all faith in Beijing's promises.
At this time in cross-strait relations, all actions acquire added significance. A visit by Ma to Hong Kong has no political significance, and is not a challenge to China's "one country, two systems" policy, nor does it hinder Hong Kong's continued prosperity. In fact, it can only benefit exchanges between Hong Kong and Taiwan, and assist in improving cross-strait relations.
If China insists on using subjective criteria to view others' actions without taking into account the democratic currents in Taiwan and Hong Kong, any promise made by China will be treated with suspicion by all.
Now that Hong Kong has rejected Ma's application to visit, the people of Hong Kong are angry, the pan blue camp is disappointed, and the people of Taiwan are in despair. The reasons why China has rejected Ma are groundless; it only rejects Taiwan's people.
The negotiations about Lunar New Year charter flights give China another chance to work toward mutually beneficial cross-strait relations.
When Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) sits down with US President Donald Trump in Beijing on Thursday next week, Xi is unlikely to demand a dramatic public betrayal of Taiwan. He does not need to. Beijing’s preferred victory is smaller, quieter and in some ways far more dangerous: a subtle shift in American wording that appears technical, but carries major strategic meaning. The ask is simple: replace the longstanding US formulation that Washington “does not support Taiwan independence” with a harder one — that Washington “opposes” Taiwan independence. One word changes; a deterrence structure built over decades begins to shift.
Taipei is facing a severe rat infestation, and the city government is reportedly considering large-scale use of rodenticides as its primary control measure. However, this move could trigger an ecological disaster, including mass deaths of birds of prey. In the past, black kites, relatives of eagles, took more than three decades to return to the skies above the Taipei Basin. Taiwan’s black kite population was nearly wiped out by the combined effects of habitat destruction, pesticides and rodenticides. By 1992, fewer than 200 black kites remained on the island. Fortunately, thanks to more than 30 years of collective effort to preserve their remaining
After Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Chairwoman Cheng Li-wun (鄭麗文) met Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) in Beijing, most headlines referred to her as the leader of the opposition in Taiwan. Is she really, though? Being the chairwoman of the KMT does not automatically translate into being the leader of the opposition in the sense that most foreign readers would understand it. “Leader of the opposition” is a very British term. It applies to the Westminster system of parliamentary democracy, and to some extent, to other democracies. If you look at the UK right now, Conservative Party head Kemi Badenoch is
A Pale View of Hills, a movie released last year, follows the story of a Japanese woman from Nagasaki who moved to Britain in the 1950s with her British husband and daughter from a previous marriage. The daughter was born at a time when memories of the US atomic bombing of Nagasaki during World War II and anxiety over the effects of nuclear radiation still haunted the community. It is a reflection on the legacy of the local and national trauma of the bombing that ended the period of Japanese militarism. A central theme of the movie is the need, at
RSS