In the wake of President Chen Shui-bian's
Despite the scheduled date, opinion among the party's heavyweights on whether there is a need to hold such a debate is divided.
While some argue that it is good and necessary to have an open debate on the party's line on China in order to forge a consensus, other party big guns such as Vice President Annette Lu
While holding a debate is laudable as it would allow other voices in the party to be heard, it is worth keeping in mind that action still speaks louder than words.
The party must not get bogged down in fruitless debate and end up talking the talk but failing to walk the walk, especially as the president has already clearly outlined the core values for the administration's China policy.
Add the fact that following Chen's New Year's Day address, in which he said the government would adopt a tougher stance toward China by promoting an "active management, effective opening" approach on cross-strait economic and trade exchanges, the new Cabinet under Premier Su Tseng-chang
It is all too predictable how the nation's pro-China media and the pan-blue camp would most likely take advantage of the DPP's debate to tout the value of investing in China and attempt to swing public opinion in this regard.
Both Chen's "active management, effective opening" policy and the proposal to scrap the NUC and the national unification guidelines are a wake-up call to direct the Taiwanese people's attention to the nation's growing trade imbalance with China and the importance of upholding the spirit of democracy in which the fate of Taiwan must be decided by its own people.
The National Unification Council was a government agency founded in 1990 by the then-Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) regime to promote Taiwan's eventual unification with China.
The government cannot violate the spirit of democracy by making unification with China the only option for its people. Taiwan's future should be determined by its 23 million people, whether the result be unification with China or an independent Taiwan.
The DPP must guard against the pan-blues' attempt to co-opt any debate on the party's China policy and let the government's policy be shaken again -- as the opposition had done many times during the past six years of Chen's presidency.
The government must live up to its pledge to secure Taiwan's national interests and not let Chen's "active management, effective opening" approach and other initiatives on China policy end up as empty political slogans.
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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