The stalemate between the Chinese and Taiwanese governments has continued for more than 50 years and it is often unclear to outsiders just what the two sides are fighting about or what they want. The ruckus over the Olympic torch relay is a standard example of how the two sides communicate and may offer some insights for the uninitiated observer.
From the outset, China has wanted to leverage the Olympic Games to showcase its national might and project the torch relay in a way that would bundle Taiwan up with Hong Kong and Macau, giving the international community the mistaken impression that Taiwan is a part of China's territory.
At the same time, China has been changing Taiwan's Olympic designation from "Chinese Taipei" (
After months of negotiations, China's Olympic committee finally declared that Taipei would be listed as "a city of an outside territory" and invited Tsai Chen-wei (
This might have been the end of the matter, but when Tsai arrived in Beijing to sign the agreement, he found the agreement had been nothing but bait. New conditions had been added: Taiwan's national flag and anthem could not appear during the torch relay. Because of the changes, Tsai returned home empty-handed.
There are two lessons to be learned from this. First, China is not to be trusted. Even when an agreement is reached and publicly announced, changes can be expected. Raising the national flag and anthem at the signing of the agreement rather than during negotiations is a clear sign that China wanted it to fall through.
Secondly, Beijing's Taiwan experts don't understand this country. Requiring spontaneous public displays of the national flag to be banned as Taiwan nears two major elections is both humiliating and a violation of democratic rights. Such violations might be possible in China, but in democratic Taiwan, the right to display the national flag is a given and there's nothing the government could -- or should -- do about it.
By making such unreasonable demands, China even made the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) presidential candidate -- who favors eventual unification -- take an opposing stand.
Taiwan's involvement with the Olympic torch relay seems to have flickered and died in this process, which provides further fuel for local election campaigns. If the torch finally does pass through Taiwan, a lot of people will display the Republic of China flag and other flags offensive to Beijing. How ironic if images were to appear in the international media of police tussling with the public because the government would not allow them to display their flag.
Beijing may have tried hard to study public opinion in Taiwan, and more than once it has said that it pins its hopes on the Taiwanese public, but judging from its actions, it is clear that it doesn't have the first clue about what drives the Taiwanese.
Donald Trump’s return to the White House has offered Taiwan a paradoxical mix of reassurance and risk. Trump’s visceral hostility toward China could reinforce deterrence in the Taiwan Strait. Yet his disdain for alliances and penchant for transactional bargaining threaten to erode what Taiwan needs most: a reliable US commitment. Taiwan’s security depends less on US power than on US reliability, but Trump is undermining the latter. Deterrence without credibility is a hollow shield. Trump’s China policy in his second term has oscillated wildly between confrontation and conciliation. One day, he threatens Beijing with “massive” tariffs and calls China America’s “greatest geopolitical
US President Donald Trump’s seemingly throwaway “Taiwan is Taiwan” statement has been appearing in headlines all over the media. Although it appears to have been made in passing, the comment nevertheless reveals something about Trump’s views and his understanding of Taiwan’s situation. In line with the Taiwan Relations Act, the US and Taiwan enjoy unofficial, but close economic, cultural and national defense ties. They lack official diplomatic relations, but maintain a partnership based on shared democratic values and strategic alignment. Excluding China, Taiwan maintains a level of diplomatic relations, official or otherwise, with many nations worldwide. It can be said that
Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Chairwoman Cheng Li-wun (鄭麗文) made the astonishing assertion during an interview with Germany’s Deutsche Welle, published on Friday last week, that Russian President Vladimir Putin is not a dictator. She also essentially absolved Putin of blame for initiating the war in Ukraine. Commentators have since listed the reasons that Cheng’s assertion was not only absurd, but bordered on dangerous. Her claim is certainly absurd to the extent that there is no need to discuss the substance of it: It would be far more useful to assess what drove her to make the point and stick so
The central bank has launched a redesign of the New Taiwan dollar banknotes, prompting questions from Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) legislators — “Are we not promoting digital payments? Why spend NT$5 billion on a redesign?” Many assume that cash will disappear in the digital age, but they forget that it represents the ultimate trust in the system. Banknotes do not become obsolete, they do not crash, they cannot be frozen and they leave no record of transactions. They remain the cleanest means of exchange in a free society. In a fully digitized world, every purchase, donation and action leaves behind data.
RSS