Bruce Jacobs correctly points out in his article ("Southern strength saved Chen, elsewhere Soong had the edge," Mar. 19, Page 17) that Hakkas in the northern counties strongly supported James Soong (宋楚瑜) while the south as a whole supported Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁). Not mentioned is the fact that the southern vote for Chen also came from the tiny, isolated, but proud Hakka communities. Kaohsiung County's Meinung (美濃), for instance, gave Chen nearly 42 percent of the vote. Similarly, Pintung's Wanluan (萬巒), Linluo (麟洛), Neipu (內埔) and Hsinpi (新埤) gave Chen 54 percent, 53 percent, 49 percent, and 45 percent, respectively, while honoring their fellow Hakka, Hsu Hsin-liang (許信良), with only slightly greater support than did the nearby non-Hakka communities. In short, the northern-southern dichotomy is preserved across the Hakka-Hoklo ethnic lines. Henry Tan-Tenn
New Jersey National not party symbols This is in response to the letter "What about the flag?" (Letters, Mar. 22, Page 8). I agree that Taiwan's flag should not change, but it always disturbs me to see the KMT's party symbol at fire stations, police stations and military aircraft. Perhaps the current ROC flag won't be an issue if the KMT does gradually become extinct. Or maybe there should be an amendment to the ROC constitution to ban any political party from using part of the ROC flag as its party flag. And then of course, there's the issue of the ROC National Anthem. It contains the lyrics "our party's goal." Maybe it should be changed to "our country's goal" to reflect the fact that Taiwan is no longer a one-party state. Allen Chang
Berkeley Lee deserves respect At first, I felt sympathy for the demonstrators in front of KMT headquarters. Some of them are old veterans or women, enduring fatigue day and night in order to express their demands, which is supposed to be their right in a democratic society. However, things grew nastier when they started to cause inconvenience for hospital patients and students in the surrounding area. In addition, the vocabulary they use toward President Lee Teng-hui (李登輝) is by no means appropriate. After all, he has made not a few contributions to our country and he is known internationally as "Mr Democracy." What crime has he committed to deserve this treatment? On TV recently, Lee looks much older. He deserves our respect. John Ching-ho Chang
NCCU student
When I visited Taiwan last summer, I called on the nation to use its status as a technology superpower to build superweapons. It is obvious to me as I return a year later that Taiwan is now answering that call. By 2030, Taiwan envisions a domestic drone hub, capable of producing large quantities of drones per year. The nation continues to tighten cooperation across the private sector, scientific researchers and the elected government, on creating new and innovative production avenues for defense, while efforts to become central to the “democratic supply chain” are only increasing. Anduril is seeing all of these positive
Singaporean former Prime Minister and current senior minister Lee Hsien- Loong(李顯龍) last month stood on Chinese soil and told Beijing that Singapore cooperates because of “shared interests”, not because of common “ethnic descent,” a significant statement that has upended China’s cognitive warfare tactics of “ethnic nationalism.” Along with using its military buildup and economic growth to expand its international dominance, China has long deployed ethnic politics to promote the idea that all ethnic Chinese around the world, regardless of citizenship, share a tight bond with the Chinese motherland, by which it means the regime of the People’s Republic of China (PRC)
Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Chairwoman Cheng Li-wun (鄭麗文) in San Francisco on Tuesday last week said if she had not met with Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平), she would have been “just a plain” and “even negligible” KMT chairperson, bluntly signaling the role she is playing in her visit to the US — Beijing’s messenger from Taiwan. Cheng and her delegation arrived in the US on Monday last week for a two-week visit across five major cities. Her party said the group is scheduled to meet with US lawmakers, officials, policy experts and businesspeople. Before departing, Cheng said her trip
In 1935, the German Reich led by the National Socialist Party officially created the Nuremberg Race Laws, a “legal cage”, for German Jews, stripping them of citizenship, criminalizing their personal relationships, barring them from public life, and transforming them into stateless subjects and isolating them from the rest of society. Similarly, in March 2026, the People’s Republic of China (PRC) National People’s Congress adopted the “Promoting Ethnic Unity and Progress” law, which represents the most significant shift in Chinese domestic governance since the era of Mao Zedong (毛澤東). Ostensibly designed as domestic legislation to manage China’s 56 officially recognized ethnic groups,
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