The nation normalization resolution should not divide Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) presidential candidate Frank Hsieh (謝長廷) and DPP chairman Yu Shyi-kun. It should be the common goal of these two DPP heavyweights, the DPP as a whole, and all Taiwanese. Both Hsieh and Yu should calm down and compromise for the sake of the nation.
Nobody can deny that Taiwan is a nation that needs normalization. Many people say Taiwan is already an independent state in terms of sovereignty. Recently, Hsieh and President Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁) have said simply that Taiwan is an independent state. If so, why can't Taiwan join the UN as a member nation and why does Taiwan have only 24 formal allies?
On the other hand, many other people have been working hard for the independence of Taiwan. Are they trying to make Taiwan independent from the People's Republic of China (PRC), the US or Japan? In fact, this is all unnecessary since Taiwan is not a province of the PRC, a state of the US, or a prefecture of Japan anyway. Legally, Taiwan is independent from these three nations.
Taiwan can only declare independence from the Republic of China (ROC) and rectify its national name to Taiwan.
If the ROC does not agree, it can keep its original islands of Kinmen and Matsu as another nation.
This is an internal mission but cannot be accomplished realistically in seven months before the next presidential election. However, Hsieh can pledge this national normalization vision now and implement it after he is elected. As part of his campaign, Hsieh has to correct his previous statement about Kaohsiung and Xiamen belonging to the same country and to abandon his previous pledge of a "one-China constitution." To most voters, this pledge is not different from "ultimate unification" pledged by Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) presidential candidate Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九). In addition Hsieh has to pledge to recover national assets stolen or sold by the KMT.
Charles Hong
Columbus, Ohio
Could Asia be on the verge of a new wave of nuclear proliferation? A look back at the early history of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), which recently celebrated its 75th anniversary, illuminates some reasons for concern in the Indo-Pacific today. US Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin recently described NATO as “the most powerful and successful alliance in history,” but the organization’s early years were not without challenges. At its inception, the signing of the North Atlantic Treaty marked a sea change in American strategic thinking. The United States had been intent on withdrawing from Europe in the years following
My wife and I spent the week in the interior of Taiwan where Shuyuan spent her childhood. In that town there is a street that functions as an open farmer’s market. Walk along that street, as Shuyuan did yesterday, and it is next to impossible to come home empty-handed. Some mangoes that looked vaguely like others we had seen around here ended up on our table. Shuyuan told how she had bought them from a little old farmer woman from the countryside who said the mangoes were from a very old tree she had on her property. The big surprise
The issue of China’s overcapacity has drawn greater global attention recently, with US Secretary of the Treasury Janet Yellen urging Beijing to address its excess production in key industries during her visit to China last week. Meanwhile in Brussels, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen last week said that Europe must have a tough talk with China on its perceived overcapacity and unfair trade practices. The remarks by Yellen and Von der Leyen come as China’s economy is undergoing a painful transition. Beijing is trying to steer the world’s second-largest economy out of a COVID-19 slump, the property crisis and
Former president Ma Ying-jeou’s (馬英九) trip to China provides a pertinent reminder of why Taiwanese protested so vociferously against attempts to force through the cross-strait service trade agreement in 2014 and why, since Ma’s presidential election win in 2012, they have not voted in another Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) candidate. While the nation narrowly avoided tragedy — the treaty would have put Taiwan on the path toward the demobilization of its democracy, which Courtney Donovan Smith wrote about in the Taipei Times in “With the Sunflower movement Taiwan dodged a bullet” — Ma’s political swansong in China, which included fawning dithyrambs