Museum ignores KMT crimes
I recently visited the Shung Ye Museum of Aborigines and the Ketagalan Culture Center. Only the former made any attempt to accurately capture the past and present of Taiwan's Aboriginal population. Accurate maps and exhibits present the viewer with a stunning picture of each tribe's territories, pottery, clothing, housing and cultural practices. The Shung Ye Museum should rightly be proud of this attention to detail.
However, a visit to the Ketagalan Culture Center, put together under the Greater-China ideology of Mayor Ma Ying-jeou's (馬英九) administration, was exasperating in both its ignoring of Aboriginal cultures and its eagerness to brush past KMT crimes against Aborigines under the carpet.
The English-language literature available repeatedly points out which tribes are "developed" in terms of adopting Han Chinese culture. The pamphlet on the Tao of Orchid Island not only makes no mention of the tonnes of nuclear waste placed on the island by the KMT, but goes on to claim that the Tao are still developing a "social identity," a claim the Tao regularly debunk with their boisterous anti-nuclear rallies.
The information on the Atayal mentions the tribe's "high capacity to learn," an outrageous statement that smacks of the outdated eugenics theory that holds certain races are predisposed to certain physical and mental qualities.
It would appear that the center is yet another attempt by the pan-blue camp to politicize the idea of Taiwan native culture.
Shame on you, Mayor Ma, for missing a golden opportunity to begin correcting past wrongs against the Aborigines committed by the KMT regime. Shame on you for your condescending view toward people who are forced to suffer from poverty, poor education and nuclear waste. Shame on you for using the cultural diversity of Taiwan to promote the outdated idea of Aboriginal "development" under Han Chinese culture.
Jason Wright
Taipei
Because much of what former US president Donald Trump says is unhinged and histrionic, it is tempting to dismiss all of it as bunk. Yet the potential future president has a populist knack for sounding alarums that resonate with the zeitgeist — for example, with growing anxiety about World War III and nuclear Armageddon. “We’re a failing nation,” Trump ranted during his US presidential debate against US Vice President Kamala Harris in one particularly meandering answer (the one that also recycled urban myths about immigrants eating cats). “And what, what’s going on here, you’re going to end up in World War
Earlier this month in Newsweek, President William Lai (賴清德) challenged the People’s Republic of China (PRC) to retake the territories lost to Russia in the 19th century rather than invade Taiwan. He stated: “If it is for the sake of territorial integrity, why doesn’t [the PRC] take back the lands occupied by Russia that were signed over in the treaty of Aigun?” This was a brilliant political move to finally state openly what many Chinese in both China and Taiwan have long been thinking about the lost territories in the Russian far east: The Russian far east should be “theirs.” Granted, Lai issued
On Tuesday, President William Lai (賴清德) met with a delegation from the Hoover Institution, a think tank based at Stanford University in California, to discuss strengthening US-Taiwan relations and enhancing peace and stability in the region. The delegation was led by James Ellis Jr, co-chair of the institution’s Taiwan in the Indo-Pacific Region project and former commander of the US Strategic Command. It also included former Australian minister for foreign affairs Marise Payne, influential US academics and other former policymakers. Think tank diplomacy is an important component of Taiwan’s efforts to maintain high-level dialogue with other nations with which it does
On Sept. 2, Elbridge Colby, former deputy assistant secretary of defense for strategy and force development, wrote an article for the Wall Street Journal called “The US and Taiwan Must Change Course” that defends his position that the US and Taiwan are not doing enough to deter the People’s Republic of China (PRC) from taking Taiwan. Colby is correct, of course: the US and Taiwan need to do a lot more or the PRC will invade Taiwan like Russia did against Ukraine. The US and Taiwan have failed to prepare properly to deter war. The blame must fall on politicians and policymakers