As far as political sentiment and support for Taiwan go, I am fully in accord with Jerome Keating ("China must learn from Taiwan's democracy," May 9, page 8). However, it seems to me he ignores some of the realities in order to present an over-simplification unworthy of him or the situation.
First, his constant use of "Taiwan versus China" rhetoric would cause an uninformed reader to believe that this was a united nation struggling against a foreign oppressor. Of course Taiwan is not at all united, as the recent visits of Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Chairman Lien Chan (連戰) and his People First Party counterpart James Soong (宋楚瑜) show.
These men are patently willing to become part of China, as are their people. They are self-evidently not democrats, tainted as they are by their collaboration with the former dictatorship, and it must be assumed that those who follow in their train would similarly "use" rather than "practice" democracy. Is this what they have to teach China? Democratic advances have been made by a minority of KMT members and the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP), and I wish China would learn from them, but this is not the whole story.
As for the "rule of law," regulations about motorcycle helmets and garbage disposal are obeyed because they are enforced. Unenforced laws are not obeyed, in any country, and there are plenty of unenforced laws in Taiwan. Helmet regulations? How about traffic regulations? Canvass many of the Filipino, Thai and Indonesian indentured laborers and ask them what they think of the rule of law in regard to their contracts and human rights. Is this what we are to teach China? Keating's is a very selectively constructed Taiwan.
I think Taiwan is an amazing country which has done very well in advancing democracy, human rights and the rule of law, but let's balance propaganda with reality. I should have thought that someone with the undoubted intelligence, experience and knowledge of Keating might present us with something more analytical, balanced and profound than a Friday-night pub rant.
Rowan Hunter
Taipei
The conflict in the Middle East has been disrupting financial markets, raising concerns about rising inflationary pressures and global economic growth. One market that some investors are particularly worried about has not been heavily covered in the news: the private credit market. Even before the joint US-Israeli attacks on Iran on Feb. 28, global capital markets had faced growing structural pressure — the deteriorating funding conditions in the private credit market. The private credit market is where companies borrow funds directly from nonbank financial institutions such as asset management companies, insurance companies and private lending platforms. Its popularity has risen since
The Donald Trump administration’s approach to China broadly, and to cross-Strait relations in particular, remains a conundrum. The 2025 US National Security Strategy prioritized the defense of Taiwan in a way that surprised some observers of the Trump administration: “Deterring a conflict over Taiwan, ideally by preserving military overmatch, is a priority.” Two months later, Taiwan went entirely unmentioned in the US National Defense Strategy, as did military overmatch vis-a-vis China, giving renewed cause for concern. How to interpret these varying statements remains an open question. In both documents, the Indo-Pacific is listed as a second priority behind homeland defense and
Every analyst watching Iran’s succession crisis is asking who would replace supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. Yet, the real question is whether China has learned enough from the Persian Gulf to survive a war over Taiwan. Beijing purchases roughly 90 percent of Iran’s exported crude — some 1.61 million barrels per day last year — and holds a US$400 billion, 25-year cooperation agreement binding it to Tehran’s stability. However, this is not simply the story of a patron protecting an investment. China has spent years engineering a sanctions-evasion architecture that was never really about Iran — it was about Taiwan. The
In an op-ed published in Foreign Affairs on Tuesday, Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Chairwoman Cheng Li-wun (鄭麗文) said that Taiwan should not have to choose between aligning with Beijing or Washington, and advocated for cooperation with Beijing under the so-called “1992 consensus” as a form of “strategic ambiguity.” However, Cheng has either misunderstood the geopolitical reality and chosen appeasement, or is trying to fool an international audience with her doublespeak; nonetheless, it risks sending the wrong message to Taiwan’s democratic allies and partners. Cheng stressed that “Taiwan does not have to choose,” as while Beijing and Washington compete, Taiwan is strongest when
RSS