As transitional justice in Taiwan progresses, as statues of dictators are removed and monuments to their oppressive rule renamed, there is a whole other area of name rectification to be considered.
Having the historical distinction of being the former colony of more than one nation, Taiwan has inherited a difficulty in the naming of formal administrative divisions of national and local government.
During the time of the Chinese Nationalist Party's (KMT) military dictatorship, Taiwan had the burden of a provincial and national government governing the same territory -- functions and positions duplicated -- to project the fiction that the KMT governed all of China.
Now that Taiwan's "provincial government" has been removed, we have the strange situation in which there is a national government and then cities and designated "counties," which are by definition subdivisions of a non-existent regional government.
As with the name "Republic of China," the current names of administrative regions tend to confuse foreign countries.
Cities can readily make commercial and cultural agreements with other cities around the world and have done so.
But should Ilan County make an agreement with a US county (with populations sometimes smaller than Taiwanese townships) or a US state? Taiwan's counties, though not wholly analogous, are closer on the spectrum to the latter division.
In the US there are national, state and local tiers of government. The absence of the intermediate level in Taiwan would tend to make foreigners think that the national government is itself intermediate; that is, the province or confederated state of some "Greater China."
To address this problem while on the campaign trail last year, Vice President Annette Lu (
But with Taiwan's size, all of this still seems to add an unnecessary layer of bureaucracy.
And the arbitrary addition of provinces in name only, which seem too small compared with those of other countries, would give the impression that Taiwan was "pretending" to have provinces, just like in the past the KMT regime "pretended" to govern China and "pretended" that Taiwan was just a province.
Besides, in the context of Taiwanese history, the idea of a province is just too reminiscent of the Chinese empire and colonialism in general.
Here is one alternate proposal: Taiwan should model its structure on Switzerland.
Change the "county" designation to "canton." In explanation, have books make the comparison thus: "Like Switzerland, Taiwan is made up of regional administrative divisions called cantons."
That one short phrase, "like Switzerland," could make a huge stride forward in how the world perceives Taiwan.
Like Switzerland, Taiwan is multilingual. Like Switzerland, Taiwan has had to maintain itself against aggressive and larger neighbors over the centuries.
Like Taiwan, Switzerland had to face a time of de facto independence from a large empire (beginning in 1499 from the Holy Roman Empire). Switzerland was finally recognized by other countries as independent in 1648 in the Treaty of Westphalia. Hopefully, unlike Switzerland, Taiwan will not have to wait that long.
Like the Swiss, Taiwanese would like nothing more than to be neutral, at peace with their neighbors and respected as a sovereign nation.
But whereas Switzerland is a host to the UN, the UN has refused to play host to Taiwan. This, too, needs to be rectified.
Joel Linton
Taipei
Wherever one looks, the United States is ceding ground to China. From foreign aid to foreign trade, and from reorganizations to organizational guidance, the Trump administration has embarked on a stunning effort to hobble itself in grappling with what his own secretary of state calls “the most potent and dangerous near-peer adversary this nation has ever confronted.” The problems start at the Department of State. Secretary of State Marco Rubio has asserted that “it’s not normal for the world to simply have a unipolar power” and that the world has returned to multipolarity, with “multi-great powers in different parts of the
President William Lai (賴清德) recently attended an event in Taipei marking the end of World War II in Europe, emphasizing in his speech: “Using force to invade another country is an unjust act and will ultimately fail.” In just a few words, he captured the core values of the postwar international order and reminded us again: History is not just for reflection, but serves as a warning for the present. From a broad historical perspective, his statement carries weight. For centuries, international relations operated under the law of the jungle — where the strong dominated and the weak were constrained. That
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.
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