Time to face reality
It is amazing to watch the endless disputes over the so-called "1992 consensus" among Taiwan's political parties. Irrespective of whether there is a consensus with China, there is no consensus within Taiwan.
KMT chairman Lien Chan (連戰) says there is a "1992 consensus" under which China and Taiwan make their own interpretations of what is "one China." Lien has said "one China" means the Republic of China (ROC) and emphasized that only the Chinese communist regime would believe otherwise.
It is unbelievable that Lien, who has a PhD in political science, would speak such a fantasy. Any other country or any person in China would tell Lien that the ROC has not been the representative government of China for a very long time. Now, the ROC is Taiwan.
I respect everyone's political views, including those coming from China. However, it is difficult to rationally argue with someone who refuses to accept reality. That reality is that Taiwan is a sovereign country, its name is the ROC, and it represents only the people of Taiwan.
If Lien, the Pan-blue camp and their "friends" in China remain unable to recognize these facts, the stalemate will continue in Taiwan and in the cross-strait relationship.
Ji-charng Yang
Columbus, OH
The drug war and the Taliban
This is a response to the article "Heroin backs up the Taliban horror" (Oct. 27, page 9).
The manner in which Afghanistan's brutal Taliban regime profits from the heroin trade is yet another example of the drug war's collateral damage. The US has spent billions trying to eradicate coca and heroin production in South America. Instead, it' has had the effect of empowering communist guerilla movements. Attempts to limit the supply of illegal drugs while demand remains constant only increased the profitability of drug trafficking.
Heroin produced in Afghanistan is primarily consumed in Europe, a continent already experimenting with public health alternatives to the drug war, alternatives with previously unforeseen implications. Providing chronic addicts with standardized doses in a treatment setting has been shown to eliminate much of the problems associated with black market heroin use. Addicts would not be sharing needles if not for zero tolerance laws that restrict access to clean syringes, nor would they be committing crimes if not for artificially inflated illicit market prices.
Switzerland's heroin maintenance trials -- which are modeled after the methadone maintenance programs pioneered in the US -- have shown such promise at reducing drug-related disease, death and crime that they are being replicated in Germany, Spain, and the Netherlands. If expanded, prescription heroin maintenance would ultimately deprive organized crime of its core client base.
This would render illegal heroin trafficking unprofitable, spare future generations addiction, and significantly undermine the Taliban's funding. Harm reduction policies have the potential to reduce the perils of both drug use and drug prohibition.
Robert Sharpe
Washington, DC
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