It may just be because of where I sit that the Chinese government appears to be controlling the debate over its "Anti-Secession" Law, which was passed on Monday. The international media have been picking up and regurgitating the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) line, which holds that the law "seeks a peaceful reunification with Taiwan," according to Tuesday's China Daily, and that the "law is meant to strengthen and promote cross-strait relations," which is what Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao (
True to form, the Beijing government is distorting and ignoring the crux of its disagreement with Taipei over the "one China" principle and attempting to mischaracterize its belligerent declaration as a conciliatory gesture meant only to caution the "small minority" of Taiwanese independence seekers.
The disagreement over the "one China" principle is not a dispute between the people of China and "secessionist forces" -- it is the struggle between a small cadre of CCP officials in Beijing who are attempting to impose their will on a nation of people who have fought long and hard for democratic representation and desire only to exert their fundamental right to self-determination.
Democracy is still in its nascent stage in Taiwan, but it is not too soon for the Taiwanese to recognize that the primary function of a democracy is not to protect the rights of the majority, but rather to safeguard the rights and aspirations of the minority. In this respect the Beijing government has failed miserably. Taiwan need look no further than across the strait to Hong Kong, where "one county, two systems" is fast being replaced by "one country, one dictatorship."
Now is the time for Taiwan to be proactive instead of reactive to China's bullying tactics. It is incumbent upon the government of President Chen Shui-bian (
It is also incumbent upon those of you who take to the streets on March 26 to make it clear that Taiwan not only marches against the Anti-Secession Law but also marches for the hopes and aspirations of those Chinese people whose voices have been silenced.
Edward Ewing
Tianjin, China
Chinese agents often target Taiwanese officials who are motivated by financial gain rather than ideology, while people who are found guilty of spying face lenient punishments in Taiwan, a researcher said on Tuesday. While the law says that foreign agents can be sentenced to death, people who are convicted of spying for Beijing often serve less than nine months in prison because Taiwan does not formally recognize China as a foreign nation, Institute for National Defense and Security Research fellow Su Tzu-yun (蘇紫雲) said. Many officials and military personnel sell information to China believing it to be of little value, unaware that
Before 1945, the most widely spoken language in Taiwan was Tai-gi (also known as Taiwanese, Taiwanese Hokkien or Hoklo). However, due to almost a century of language repression policies, many Taiwanese believe that Tai-gi is at risk of disappearing. To understand this crisis, I interviewed academics and activists about Taiwan’s history of language repression, the major challenges of revitalizing Tai-gi and their policy recommendations. Although Taiwanese were pressured to speak Japanese when Taiwan became a Japanese colony in 1895, most managed to keep their heritage languages alive in their homes. However, starting in 1949, when the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) enacted martial law
“Si ambulat loquitur tetrissitatque sicut anas, anas est” is, in customary international law, the three-part test of anatine ambulation, articulation and tetrissitation. And it is essential to Taiwan’s existence. Apocryphally, it can be traced as far back as Suetonius (蘇埃托尼烏斯) in late first-century Rome. Alas, Suetonius was only talking about ducks (anas). But this self-evident principle was codified as a four-part test at the Montevideo Convention in 1934, to which the United States is a party. Article One: “The state as a person of international law should possess the following qualifications: a) a permanent population; b) a defined territory; c) government;
The central bank and the US Department of the Treasury on Friday issued a joint statement that both sides agreed to avoid currency manipulation and the use of exchange rates to gain a competitive advantage, and would only intervene in foreign-exchange markets to combat excess volatility and disorderly movements. The central bank also agreed to disclose its foreign-exchange intervention amounts quarterly rather than every six months, starting from next month. It emphasized that the joint statement is unrelated to tariff negotiations between Taipei and Washington, and that the US never requested the appreciation of the New Taiwan dollar during the
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