Anyone aspiring to become president of this nation, should take stock of mainstream public opinion. This is an obvious step that any would-be president should take before they start trumpeting themselves as the best qualified person for the job.
Bearing this in mind, the Democratic Progressive Party's (DPP) four presidential aspirants should take the results of a newly-released survey from the Taiwan Thinktank to heart. The Chinese Nationalist Party's (KMT) presidential frontrunner, former chairman Ma Ying-jeou (
Based on the answers of 1,064 respondents, the survey showed that 79.5 percent believed that only Taiwanese are entitled to make a decision on the nation's future, while 14.5 percent said the decision should be made jointly by the people on both sides of the Taiwan Strait.
The survey, released on Tuesday, also showed that 81.9 percent of respondents believed that China has no right to interfere in Taiwan's internal affairs, including the government's ongoing name-change campaign and drive for constitutional reform, while 12.8 percent said China has the right to do so.
For the four DPP presidential contenders vying for the party's nomination, the survey serves as a reminder that they need to stay in line with the party's founding principles and ideals.
For Ma, who has time and again stated unification with China as his eventual goal for the nation, the results should be a wake-up call and seem to suggest he needs to reassess his platform and his "Greater China" mindset if he hopes to succeed in becoming president.
That a Taiwanese identity has been steadily building over the past years is an undeniable fact.
A survey by the Election Study Center at National Chengchi University last December showed that the percentage of respondents who consider themselves "Taiwanese" had increased from 56 percent in 2005 to 60 percent last year.
A more recent poll on the matter conducted by the DPP and released on Tuesday showed that 68 percent of respondents identified themselves as Taiwanese, 16.8 percent identified themselves as Chinese, while 11.7 percent said they were both Taiwanese and Chinese.
All poll results must be taken with a pinch of salt and the accuracy of such polls is a contentious issue. Nonetheless, the various polls all suggest a similar trend: Taiwan consciousness is on the rise and that the ratio of those who believe Taiwan should move toward independence has also steadily increased.
How can Ma -- or whoever the DPP representative turns out to be -- expect to win the support of the electorate if they fail to put their faith in a Taiwan consciousness and reflect what is obviously becoming the mainstream opinion?
How does any presidential hopeful expect to score a victory in next year's presidential election if they stand diametrically opposed to what the vast majority of people believe in?
As academic and pioneer in the contemporary field of leadership studies Warren Bennis once said:"Good leaders make people feel that they're at the very heart of things, not at the periphery."
All those who aspire to run for the country's top job should ensure that the Taiwanese are not relegated to that periphery.
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
RSS