Is Academia Sinica membership a high-ranking position? This is an interesting question -- it's like asking if a general is a high-ranking member of the military. Like oranges and apples, we should not really compare generals and academics, but the paradox is that these two groups of people have started working together.
Yet it does not seem as paradoxical when we consider their collaboration in the context of the nation's process of democratization.
Led by Lao Sze-kwang (勞思光), 11 pan-blue Academia Sinica members last week signed a petition against the budget to purchase US arms. They are in effect opposing local authority and Taiwan's independence. They have each devoted their life to fighting Chinese communism, and suddenly they start to worship the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) -- a party that puts no value on democracy or human rights -- and the Beijing leadership from Deng Xiaoping (鄧小平) onward.
Lao, on the other hand, describes the democratic nation of Taiwan as an authoritarian regime. The arms procurement project, which is aimed at defending Taiwan and countering the threat of war, is being painted as an action that would help Beijing to win without starting a war.
If so, then why is China doing its best to intimidate or coax the US to not sell weapons to Taiwan? Beijing argues that arms deals will encourage Taiwan to claim independence.
By protesting the arms purchase, the 11 petitioners are singing the same tune as Beijing. Although Beijing and the academics have different motivations and agendas, their appeals are basically the same. The pan-blue petitioners obviously side with China on this issue.
What on earth has happened to these academics, after having dedicated most of their lives to advocating democracy and opposing communism?
The good news is that there are only 11 of them siding with Beijing, which represents only a small portion of the humanities institutes at Academia Sinica. Apparently, the pan-blue camp's best efforts have only succeeded in mobilizing this tiny minority.
However, those who side with the pan-blue camp are not limited to academic circles. More than 100 retired generals joined the academics in a protest against the arms purchase on Sept. 25. They represent the same pan-blue ideology.
It is worth noting that the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) and People First Party attempted a "coup" in the seven days following the presidential election. They tried to gain support from the military, but neither serving nor retired military personnel responded.
The problem is: are soldiers entitled to oppose arms procurements? If they are, what do we need the armed forces for? When generals take to the streets to oppose the arms deal, it is tantamount to dismembering the armed forces. How can they face their colleagues?
The US Democratic presidential candidate, Senator John Kerry, experienced a decline in his popularity simply because he, as a decorated military hero, took an anti-war approach after retiring from the army. He was not only cast aside by his former colleagues, but also disdained by voters.
The pan-blue camp is in fact resorting to its last viable resource when mobilizing these academics and generals.
By doing this, the academics simply tarnish their own reputation, but the generals are taking themselves down a path toward self-destruction.
Chin Heng-wei is editor-in-chief of Contemporary Monthly magazine.
Translated by Jennie Shih
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