So former Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) chairman Lien Chan (
Chinese President Hu Jintao's (
Besides that, the communists tossed a few more crumbs onto the table in the guise of help for Taiwanese fishermen, farmers and other groups, in a blatant attempt to erode the DPP's support base. It's certain that there will be no positive achievements from Lien's trip. After all, what government would honor an agreement that their traitorous opposition had signed with a country that has 800 missiles trained on it?
One thing Lien's trip has achieved, however, is to drive yet another stake through the heart of Taiwan's already faltering democratic system. Sharp divisions have long festered under the surface of Taiwanese society, but since Lien's first visit to China last year, these divisions have resurfaced with a vengeance. By teaming up with the dictatorship across the Taiwan Strait to oppose Taiwanese who believe in democracy, Lien has done untold damage to this nation. It is hard to believe that this is a man who spent years both studying and teaching political science at some of the best universities in the self-styled "home of democracy," when it is apparent to all that he has not one iota of respect for that political system.
Why doesn't he just apply for membership in China's KMT -- the Revolutionary Committee of the Kuomintang, which split from the KMT in the 1940s -- and take a seat in the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference? He would feel much more at home there, since the one-party authoritarian system still employed in China would remind him of the good old days under KMT rule in Taiwan, when he didn't need to rely on the support of the people.
But having been rejected by the people of Taiwan not once, but twice, he decided to sell his soul to the devil, and turned to the only place where he knew he would be guaranteed a red-carpet reception. Indeed, looking at the pictures of the reception at the economic forum with hundreds of prominent businesspeople would impress anyone -- except that many of those people had been threatened, coerced and press-ganged into coming.
In his bid to satisfy his vanity, Lien and the KMT have merely become tools of the Chinese Communist Party's "united front" campaign. Lien is like the Pied Piper of Hamelin, and the pro-unification media his pipe, as he leads Taiwan's democracy into the dark reaches of Beijing's cavern. The question is: Do the Taiwanese people want to follow him?
Taiwan aims to elevate its strategic position in supply chains by becoming an artificial intelligence (AI) hub for Nvidia Corp, providing everything from advanced chips and components to servers, in an attempt to edge out its closest rival in the region, South Korea. Taiwan’s importance in the AI ecosystem was clearly reflected in three major announcements Nvidia made during this year’s Computex trade show in Taipei. First, the US company’s number of partners in Taiwan would surge to 122 this year, from 34 last year, according to a slide shown during CEO Jensen Huang’s (黃仁勳) keynote speech on Monday last week.
When China passed its “Anti-Secession” Law in 2005, much of the democratic world saw it as yet another sign of Beijing’s authoritarianism, its contempt for international law and its aggressive posture toward Taiwan. Rightly so — on the surface. However, this move, often dismissed as a uniquely Chinese form of legal intimidation, echoes a legal and historical precedent rooted not in authoritarian tradition, but in US constitutional history. The Chinese “Anti-Secession” Law, a domestic statute threatening the use of force should Taiwan formally declare independence, is widely interpreted as an emblem of the Chinese Communist Party’s disregard for international norms. Critics
Birth, aging, illness and death are inevitable parts of the human experience. Yet, living well does not necessarily mean dying well. For those who have a chronic illness or cancer, or are bedridden due to significant injuries or disabilities, the remainder of life can be a torment for themselves and a hardship for their caregivers. Even if they wish to end their life with dignity, they are not allowed to do so. Bih Liu-ing (畢柳鶯), former superintendent of Chung Shan Medical University Hospital, introduced the practice of Voluntary Stopping of Eating and Drinking as an alternative to assisted dying, which remains
On May 7, 1971, Henry Kissinger planned his first, ultra-secret mission to China and pondered whether it would be better to meet his Chinese interlocutors “in Pakistan where the Pakistanis would tape the meeting — or in China where the Chinese would do the taping.” After a flicker of thought, he decided to have the Chinese do all the tape recording, translating and transcribing. Fortuitously, historians have several thousand pages of verbatim texts of Dr. Kissinger’s negotiations with his Chinese counterparts. Paradoxically, behind the scenes, Chinese stenographers prepared verbatim English language typescripts faster than they could translate and type them
RSS