Prior to World War II, Adolf Hitler and Nazi Germany declared that Austrians and Germans were of the same race and spoke the same language, and the inclusion of Austria in the Third Reich was therefore a holy mission. In an attempt to oppose Germany's blatant ambition to invade Austria, a referendum was planned for March 1938 to let Austrians decide their own future through peaceful and democratic means. On the eve of the referendum, Germany invaded and then annexed Austria.
Shortly thereafter, Hitler declared that the people in the Sudetenland in Czechoslovakia were descendants of the German people and that the region should be returned to Germany. Because Great Britain and France feared a military conflict with Germany, then-British prime minister Neville Chamberlain and French prime minister Edouard Daladier signed a treaty with Hitler in September 1938, agreeing to the German annexation of the Sudetenland. Czechoslovakia, which was not invited to the treaty meeting, was forced to accept the deal by London and Paris, who said they would not intervene should the issue lead to war between Germany and Czechoslovakia.
On his return from Munich, Chamberlain said he had engineered an exchange that would give Europe a generation of peace. Hitler, however, promptly occupied all of Czechoslovakia. In 1939, he used the excuse that Gdansk was German territory to invade Poland. Two days later the UK and France declared war on Germany and World War II began in Europe.
Looking back at that time, the Nazis were encouraged not only by German nationalism, but the naive appeasement of both Britain and France. Even Russia signed a non-aggression treaty with Germany right before the Germans invaded Poland. As a result, Hitler feared nothing.
China's claims to sovereignty over Tibet, Xinjiang, the Tiaoyutai and even Taiwan -- and the rhetoric Beijing uses -- is shockingly similar to Nazi Germany and its claims on its neighbors.
Beijing has passed a law -- the "Anti-Secession" Law -- to authorize war and legitimize future military expansion. The law is clearly aimed at Taiwan. In the past few years, Chinese nationalists have repeatedly asked, "Where should the sea port for China's warships be -- in the Taiwan Strait or the Pacific Ocean?" The question is where will China stop? Will it also lay claim to Singapore and Penang as overseas territories of China on the grounds that Chinese people have historically resided there?
Moreover, the attitude of Europe's current leaders toward the autocratic Chinese regime is astonishingly similar to those of Chamberlain and Daladier when dealing with Hitler. French and German political leaders should learn from history when dealing with the cross-strait issue and the lifting of the EU arms embargo on China in order to avoid a repeat of the tragic Munich Pact.
Although Taiwan is a long way from Europe, its passionate pursuit for democracy and freedom is not any different from that of the EU's member states. When it comes to the cross-strait issue, the EU leaders' callous disregard for a democratic nation in Asia is tragic. We can only hope it does not lead to a greater tragedy.
As strategic tensions escalate across the vast Indo-Pacific region, Taiwan has emerged as more than a potential flashpoint. It is the fulcrum upon which the credibility of the evolving American-led strategy of integrated deterrence now rests. How the US and regional powers like Japan respond to Taiwan’s defense, and how credible the deterrent against Chinese aggression proves to be, will profoundly shape the Indo-Pacific security architecture for years to come. A successful defense of Taiwan through strengthened deterrence in the Indo-Pacific would enhance the credibility of the US-led alliance system and underpin America’s global preeminence, while a failure of integrated deterrence would
The Executive Yuan recently revised a page of its Web site on ethnic groups in Taiwan, replacing the term “Han” (漢族) with “the rest of the population.” The page, which was updated on March 24, describes the composition of Taiwan’s registered households as indigenous (2.5 percent), foreign origin (1.2 percent) and the rest of the population (96.2 percent). The change was picked up by a social media user and amplified by local media, sparking heated discussion over the weekend. The pan-blue and pro-China camp called it a politically motivated desinicization attempt to obscure the Han Chinese ethnicity of most Taiwanese.
On Wednesday last week, the Rossiyskaya Gazeta published an article by Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) asserting the People’s Republic of China’s (PRC) territorial claim over Taiwan effective 1945, predicated upon instruments such as the 1943 Cairo Declaration and the 1945 Potsdam Proclamation. The article further contended that this de jure and de facto status was subsequently reaffirmed by UN General Assembly Resolution 2758 of 1971. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs promptly issued a statement categorically repudiating these assertions. In addition to the reasons put forward by the ministry, I believe that China’s assertions are open to questions in international
The Legislative Yuan passed an amendment on Friday last week to add four national holidays and make Workers’ Day a national holiday for all sectors — a move referred to as “four plus one.” The Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) and the Taiwan People’s Party (TPP), who used their combined legislative majority to push the bill through its third reading, claim the holidays were chosen based on their inherent significance and social relevance. However, in passing the amendment, they have stuck to the traditional mindset of taking a holiday just for the sake of it, failing to make good use of
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