In recent months there have been enough reports and commentaries on Taiwan's attempts to enter the UN to test the patience of a saint.
This should surprise no one because this is, in effect, election time and UN entry is a valuable object with which the government and the opposition can beat each other -- and Washington -- over the head to express superior patriotic credentials.
Normally the UN is portrayed in the Taiwanese media as an organization that is worth joining because of the benefits membership brings, though in Taiwan's case membership would be benefit enough. Even so, government departments frequently cite UN standards and policies as things to emulate because this is thought to lend their activities credibility.
However, when the UN does something that is disruptive to the comfort zones of Taiwanese politicians and bureaucrats, the tone changes.
Such is the case with the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, which is making no headlines locally, even if the consequences for Taiwan's Aborigines are potentially far-reaching.
The declaration, a tortuously long 20 years in the making, was approved by a wide majority of the UN General Assembly on Thursday.
Local Aboriginal activists now have new, concrete benchmarks against which they can judge and, as is often necessary, embarrass the government.
Health is one key area. Levels of tuberculosis in Aboriginal communities remain unacceptably high.
But even more important for Aboriginal people is the issue of self-determination -- including special access to land, resources and cultural property -- which has long been a thorn in the side of governments terrified at the prospect of ceding power and property to ethnic minorities.
Around half of Taiwan's land mass consists of townships that are dominantly -- if sparsely -- populated by Aboriginal people. The UN's latest declaration should give impetus to activists to refocus on what is important: improving living standards of communities through control over local affairs.
It may also energize others to focus on Aboriginal problems that are not of their own making, starting with those caused by government agencies themselves, particularly the Forestry Bureau, national park administrations and Taipower, which retains a nuclear waste dump on Lanyu (
Aboriginal affairs in Taiwan are notable not for a tendency to conflict, ugly publicity and entrenched racism but for superficiality in media coverage and indifference in the executive. Aboriginal social problems are substantial but rarely addressed without considerable efforts at securing publicity by a dwindling group of skilled activists.
There is a case to argue that much of the stupor that defines Aboriginal activism today is a function of the co-opting of latter-day activists by the executive.
This is worsened by Aboriginal legislators, most of whose productive activities are compromised by a culture of patronage and vote-buying, a problem that has given "democracy" a bad name among indigenous people.
And despite reforms, it appears these legislators will not be held singularly accountable to their electorates: The downsizing process did not change their geographical and voting structures, unlike for their Han compatriots.
The UN declaration may put a new spotlight on all of these problems. And it is a spotlight that few officials will welcome, given that it has the potential to disrupt their administrative "status quo."
The scene is set, then, for a test of how committed Taiwanese officials, politicians and members of the public really are to a subset of UN principles that are genuinely honorable.
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
As former president Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) wrapped up his visit to the People’s Republic of China, he received his share of attention. Certainly, the trip must be seen within the full context of Ma’s life, that is, his eight-year presidency, the Sunflower movement and his failed Economic Cooperation Framework Agreement, as well as his eight years as Taipei mayor with its posturing, accusations of money laundering, and ups and downs. Through all that, basic questions stand out: “What drives Ma? What is his end game?” Having observed and commented on Ma for decades, it is all ironically reminiscent of former US president Harry