As a taxpayer, I would very much like to know whether there is a specific person in Taiwan in charge of correcting and responding to the statements, news and announcements broadcast on the official Web site of China's Taiwan Affairs Office. If not, I strongly insist on building a mechanism to do this. If there's already someone in a position paid to do such things, we'd like for him or her to do the job -- if not well, at least not this errantly.
After the media reports on Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Chairman Lien Chan's (連戰) visit in China, there is a rosy picture of the China-Taiwan relations, which were devastated by the "Anti-Secession" Law. Two of the headlines were "CPC [Chinese Communist Party] Taiwan Work Office, KMT delegation hold talks" and "Top adviser calls for earlier reunification." I exerted all my efforts trying to find the relevant statement by our officials to correct these deliberate distortions. But to no avail -- there was no coverage at all.
We all know how difficult it is to battle with China in the global arena -- politically, economically and diplomatically. But is having people do their job too much to ask? All we want is our own statement from an equal level, such as an official institution, to clear up this intentional ambiguity.
Tell me, what's wrong with our national apparatus? Why isn't our national apparatus working, while China is distributing messages and news that jeopardizes our existence, both in the present and future? There is no equivalent clarification while China is foisting its nebulous language on the international arena. We want our own statements to also be heard in the international arena.
Looking at the political spectrum in Taiwan, we know there are plenty of different opinions in Taiwan's political climate. Despite having different standpoints and ideas, we respect the right of free speech! However we can't be deprived of our own right of speech by someone who poses as being a delegation on our behalf. Lien stands for his own party and the advocates of the party -- no more, no less. That's only one of the colors of the spectrum.
Lien was appointed by no one! We don't want to be represented by Lien, who is nothing but a chairperson of a party. The people of Taiwan, will never put our trust in him. He is not there to communicate the will of the people in Taiwan nor the message of "earlier reunification."
Rudy Chen
Belgium
On May 7, 1971, Henry Kissinger planned his first, ultra-secret mission to China and pondered whether it would be better to meet his Chinese interlocutors “in Pakistan where the Pakistanis would tape the meeting — or in China where the Chinese would do the taping.” After a flicker of thought, he decided to have the Chinese do all the tape recording, translating and transcribing. Fortuitously, historians have several thousand pages of verbatim texts of Dr. Kissinger’s negotiations with his Chinese counterparts. Paradoxically, behind the scenes, Chinese stenographers prepared verbatim English language typescripts faster than they could translate and type them
More than 30 years ago when I immigrated to the US, applied for citizenship and took the 100-question civics test, the one part of the naturalization process that left the deepest impression on me was one question on the N-400 form, which asked: “Have you ever been a member of, involved in or in any way associated with any communist or totalitarian party anywhere in the world?” Answering “yes” could lead to the rejection of your application. Some people might try their luck and lie, but if exposed, the consequences could be much worse — a person could be fined,
Xiaomi Corp founder Lei Jun (雷軍) on May 22 made a high-profile announcement, giving online viewers a sneak peek at the company’s first 3-nanometer mobile processor — the Xring O1 chip — and saying it is a breakthrough in China’s chip design history. Although Xiaomi might be capable of designing chips, it lacks the ability to manufacture them. No matter how beautifully planned the blueprints are, if they cannot be mass-produced, they are nothing more than drawings on paper. The truth is that China’s chipmaking efforts are still heavily reliant on the free world — particularly on Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing
Keelung Mayor George Hsieh (謝國樑) of the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) on Tuesday last week apologized over allegations that the former director of the city’s Civil Affairs Department had illegally accessed citizens’ data to assist the KMT in its campaign to recall Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) councilors. Given the public discontent with opposition lawmakers’ disruptive behavior in the legislature, passage of unconstitutional legislation and slashing of the central government’s budget, civic groups have launched a massive campaign to recall KMT lawmakers. The KMT has tried to fight back by initiating campaigns to recall DPP lawmakers, but the petition documents they