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Making Taiwan's ancestors proud

With March 14 marking the first anniversary of the passage of China's "Anti-secession" Law, President Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁) pointed out during an interview with the Washington Post that "If China is an elephant, Taiwan is like a hare. While the elephant stomps on the hare, the international community asks the hare to grit its teeth and endure the pain for fear that the more it cries, the madder the elephant will become."

On the same day, at a press conference held following the closing of the National People's Congress, Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao (溫家寶) rebuked Chen for forgetting his origins, severing all ties to the Chinese bloodline and cutting off the flesh-and-blood relationship between compatriots on both sides of the Taiwan Strait.

Wen added that "I believe that his unjust cause will find scant support." Clearly, Wen's remark is excellent proof that Chen's analogy between the elephant and the hare is on spot.

China is a dictatorship led by a despotic one-party state. Both Chinese President Hu Jintao's (胡錦濤) and Premier Wen's ascension to power is the result of a power struggle rather than a direct public vote. Their right to rule is not endorsed by the people and lacks both legitimacy and legality.

To consolidate their hold on power, the dictators of such despotic countries use terror and oppression to restrict people's freedom and human rights.

What Beijing does is simply a shame in this civilized world. What qualifications does it have to criticize the publicly elected president of a democratic Taiwan? What makes this even more preposterous is that Taiwan is an independent, sovereign country.

Although most Taiwanese are of Han ethnicity, Taiwan has no political connections at all with Beijing -- .just as the US was founded by British emigrants but the US and the UK are two different countries that pursue different goals. A British prime minister would never accuse a US president of "forgetting his origins and disavowing his Anglo-Saxon roots."

It is an anachronism to stress the importance of ethnicity and a shared history as main factors in state-building.

The modern concept of a state stresses a community based on camaraderie and mutual support in times of difficulty. In other words, the founding of modern states rules out ethnicity and historical determination as constitutive elements of state formation.

These concepts are unimportant, and the concepts that count are instead the common interests of residents and that they decide what those interests are.

Records show that a nation which places more importance on ethnicity and history is likely to take aggressive actions against other nations once it becomes powerful and prosperous.

In the 20th century, Adolf Hitler touted the supremacy of the Aryan race as the driving force behind his slaughter of the Jews and war of aggression which led to the outbreak of World War II. This is a historical lesson steeped in blood.

By comparison, countries that embrace the principle of self-determination are mostly open and pluralistic. These countries view statehood as a tool for promoting public welfare and guaranteeing the interests and safety of the people.

Taiwan is an independent, sovereign country that does not fall under the jurisdiction of China. This is evidenced by the fact that following World War II, Taiwan was handed to former president Chiang Kai-shek (蔣介石) by the allied forces; the People's Republic of China has never ruled the island.

Most important, Taiwan's democratic reform and localization movement have enabled the Taiwanese people to highlight Taiwan's independence and sovereignty at the ballot box.

In other words, whether we look at the issue from the perspective of international law or the principle of self-determination, no one can ignore the fact that Taiwan is an independent and sovereign country.

The most valuable characteristic of democracy is that people can decide their own future. This does not involve praying to gods for help or asking one's dead ancestors for spiritual guidance. That Wen should accuse Chen of forgetting his ancestry is ludicrous considering that we now live in the 21st century.

Hundreds of years ago, the ancestors of today's Taiwanese crossed the Taiwan Strait to settle in Taiwan. They did not come to Taiwan to expand the territory of ancient Chinese emperors or today's dictators, but to build a new home for their offspring, far away from that underdeveloped, feudal and destitute country.

Today, the descendants of those Taiwanese pioneers have established a country on this island. Rather than forget their ancestry, they are realizing what their ancestors long dreamed of and are making their ancestors proud.

Translated by Daniel Cheng　
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