Your report that? "US Deputy Secretary of State John Negroponte said that the bid to enter the world body under the name `Taiwan' would be a move to change the `status quo'" ("Referendum a mistake, US official says", Aug. 29, page 1] sent me to the CIA World Factbook Web site (www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/), which closely reflects the political nuances of US international nomenclature. There I found Taiwan, out of the alphabetical order of countries, second from the bottom of the list.
Here is a relevant extract:
Country name:
conventional long form: none
conventional short form: Taiwan
In other words, the US does not even list?"Republic of China" (which suggests Chineseness)? as a possible name for your country (though we do list "Democratic People's Republic of Korea" for North Korea, which we do not recognize diplomatically). Instead, for decades we have insisted on "Taiwan" exclusively, which indicates to me that use of that name has long been integral to the "status quo."
Given this fact, I would like to respectfully ask the US deputy secretary of state to suggest the appropriate name to be used in your UN application. Or perhaps the problem is not the name, but rather the possibility that your 23 million people might be represented there?
Arthur Waldron
Lauder Professor of
International Relations
University of Pennsylvania
Negroponte seems to be offering US support for democracy, prosperity and fraternity in return for Taiwan giving up its demand for freedom and independence.
If the US State Department is so beholden to China that it continues to back Taiwan into that dismal corner and continues to assist China in suppressing Taiwan in everything from healthcare to wildlife, the Taiwanese will surely be driven to give the same answer as Patrick Henry in 1775: "Give me liberty or give me death."
As US President George W. Bush frequently reminds us, freedom and democracy are indivisible and universal values that cannot be parsed, sequenced, prioritized or put on hold. Is the US State Department so busy cutting deals around the world that it has forgotten its own mission? Or is its "intelligence" on cross-strait relations on a par with its intelligence on Iraq?
John Pickles
Taipei
The referendum to join the UN as "Taiwan" set off another firestorm in Taiwan-US relations with Negroponte accusing Taiwan of seeking to alter the "status quo." The fact that he said this in an interview broadcast on Chinese media is even more unnerving.
We all know that the "status quo" favors China and threatens Taiwan, yet US officials continue to drive this point in an era when China is expanding and modernizing its military, openly conducting cyber warfare and selling weapons to rogue states.
Taiwanese have lived under the shadow of those infamous two words for too long and have started to realize that perhaps the "status quo" does need to be redefined; not by politicians in Washington, not by the communists in Beijing, but by the good people of Taiwan.
If countries like North Korea, Iran, Syria and Cuba are allowed to become UN members, what reasonable argument is there to deny the Taiwanese, who enjoy a vibrant economy and democracy, the right to join the organization?
Perhaps the "status quo" between Taiwan and the US needs to be re-evaluated as well.
Eugene Liu
Atlanta, Georgia
There is much evidence that the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) is sending soldiers from the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) to support Russia’s invasion of Ukraine — and is learning lessons for a future war against Taiwan. Until now, the CCP has claimed that they have not sent PLA personnel to support Russian aggression. On 18 April, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelinskiy announced that the CCP is supplying war supplies such as gunpowder, artillery, and weapons subcomponents to Russia. When Zelinskiy announced on 9 April that the Ukrainian Army had captured two Chinese nationals fighting with Russians on the front line with details
On a quiet lane in Taipei’s central Daan District (大安), an otherwise unremarkable high-rise is marked by a police guard and a tawdry A4 printout from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs indicating an “embassy area.” Keen observers would see the emblem of the Holy See, one of Taiwan’s 12 so-called “diplomatic allies.” Unlike Taipei’s other embassies and quasi-consulates, no national flag flies there, nor is there a plaque indicating what country’s embassy this is. Visitors hoping to sign a condolence book for the late Pope Francis would instead have to visit the Italian Trade Office, adjacent to Taipei 101. The death of
By now, most of Taiwan has heard Taipei Mayor Chiang Wan-an’s (蔣萬安) threats to initiate a vote of no confidence against the Cabinet. His rationale is that the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP)-led government’s investigation into alleged signature forgery in the Chinese Nationalist Party’s (KMT) recall campaign constitutes “political persecution.” I sincerely hope he goes through with it. The opposition currently holds a majority in the Legislative Yuan, so the initiation of a no-confidence motion and its passage should be entirely within reach. If Chiang truly believes that the government is overreaching, abusing its power and targeting political opponents — then
The Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT), joined by the Taiwan People’s Party (TPP), held a protest on Saturday on Ketagalan Boulevard in Taipei. They were essentially standing for the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), which is anxious about the mass recall campaign against KMT legislators. President William Lai (賴清德) said that if the opposition parties truly wanted to fight dictatorship, they should do so in Tiananmen Square — and at the very least, refrain from groveling to Chinese officials during their visits to China, alluding to meetings between KMT members and Chinese authorities. Now that China has been defined as a foreign hostile force,
RSS