Two ostensibly unrelated events occurred Tuesday on either side of the Taiwan Strait. These events illustrate the sharp contrast between the development paths that China and Taiwan have chosen to take.
On this side of the Strait, during a symposium promoting a human-rights law in Taiwan, Lin Chia-cheng (
The message was that Taiwanese society is not yet satisfied with its democratic achievements, and that under Chen's leadership the country will move toward new milestones in human rights protection.
On the other side of the Strait, however, Wang Daohan (
In a menacing voice, Wang said "Such behavior is a serious provocation to the fundamental interests of the Chinese people. [It] pushes cross-strait relations ... to the brink of danger."
So while Taiwan is moving along the path of constitutional reform and better human rights guarantees, Beijing holds on to the fictitious idea of a Chinese empire.
Dictators past and present have used similar methods to rule their empires -- they create fear among the people in order to achieve their goal of repression. The Zhongnanhai leaders are still trying to order the Taiwanese people around; but dictators can only have their way as long as people fear them.
A strongly worded statement by the Chinese authorities on Monday demonstrates their mindset. The statement criticized Chen's advocacy of referendums and a new constitution as an attempt to "unite the various, divided Taiwan independence forces under the pretext of public opinion, and wantonly engage in Taiwan independence and splittist activities."
History has shown that China's threats against Taiwan do not help the pro-unification camp, but instead create a backlash in public opinion. China's missile tests in 1996 led to a landslide victory for former president Lee Teng-hui (
Over the past year, China has tried hard to remain silent in the face of Chen's election strategies. But its recent vitriolic statements show that imperialist tendencies remain strong in China's leadership.
Taiwan is evolving toward being a country based on human rights, while China does not even hold credible elections. It's hard to imagine how these two countries can engage in dialogue. Forget about staid slogans such as "the descendents of Qin Shi Huang," and "blood is thicker than water." The more talk there is about "one China," the more ludicrous the idea becomes.
Could Asia be on the verge of a new wave of nuclear proliferation? A look back at the early history of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), which recently celebrated its 75th anniversary, illuminates some reasons for concern in the Indo-Pacific today. US Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin recently described NATO as “the most powerful and successful alliance in history,” but the organization’s early years were not without challenges. At its inception, the signing of the North Atlantic Treaty marked a sea change in American strategic thinking. The United States had been intent on withdrawing from Europe in the years following
My wife and I spent the week in the interior of Taiwan where Shuyuan spent her childhood. In that town there is a street that functions as an open farmer’s market. Walk along that street, as Shuyuan did yesterday, and it is next to impossible to come home empty-handed. Some mangoes that looked vaguely like others we had seen around here ended up on our table. Shuyuan told how she had bought them from a little old farmer woman from the countryside who said the mangoes were from a very old tree she had on her property. The big surprise
The issue of China’s overcapacity has drawn greater global attention recently, with US Secretary of the Treasury Janet Yellen urging Beijing to address its excess production in key industries during her visit to China last week. Meanwhile in Brussels, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen last week said that Europe must have a tough talk with China on its perceived overcapacity and unfair trade practices. The remarks by Yellen and Von der Leyen come as China’s economy is undergoing a painful transition. Beijing is trying to steer the world’s second-largest economy out of a COVID-19 slump, the property crisis and
Former president Ma Ying-jeou’s (馬英九) trip to China provides a pertinent reminder of why Taiwanese protested so vociferously against attempts to force through the cross-strait service trade agreement in 2014 and why, since Ma’s presidential election win in 2012, they have not voted in another Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) candidate. While the nation narrowly avoided tragedy — the treaty would have put Taiwan on the path toward the demobilization of its democracy, which Courtney Donovan Smith wrote about in the Taipei Times in “With the Sunflower movement Taiwan dodged a bullet” — Ma’s political swansong in China, which included fawning dithyrambs