Barking up the wrong tree
The speech entitled "A strong and moderate Taiwan" delivered by US Deputy Assistant Secretary for East Asian and Pacific Affairs Thomas Christensen to the US-Taiwan Business Council Defense Industry Conference at Annapolis, Maryland, on Tuesday was unusual diplomatic posturing that serves the purpose of appeasing China's communist rulers but does nothing to advance the objective of securing long-term peace and stability in the Asia-Pacific region.
It does not take a rocket scientist to know that the root of cross-strait tension is the inability of China's communist rulers to respect the will of people both inside and outside China's borders. With the ever-increasing Chinese military build up and the US' growing objection to overseas military intervention, the notion that the US is indefinitely capable of or willing to maintain tranquility across the Taiwan Strait is simply a myth.
The US' policy needs to focus steadfastly on transforming China into a stakeholder that is confident enough to negotiate with Taiwan on an equal footing. To do otherwise, such as the ill-conceived "frontal attack" on a democratically elected president of Taiwan, will do nothing but leave China's pledge of a "peaceful rise" sounding hollow and deceitful.
Lee Tun-Hou
Boston, Massachusetts
The IOC should wake up
When police in Beijing prevented the wife of an imprisoned Chinese social activist from going to the Philippines to receive a prestigious international humanitarian award on behalf of her husband, the international Olympic community should have been outraged by this brazen Soviet-style thuggery. And yet barely a peep was heard around the world. Even the Magsaysay Foundation, a private organization, refused to criticize China publicly.
What is going on here? In the run-up to next year's Olympics in China, the Chinese government forcibly prevents a Chinese citizen from traveling to a foreign country to receive a humanitarian leadership award for her imprisoned husband -- a 35-year-old blind man who is behind bars for unmasking abuses such as forced sterilizations and women being made to have abortions eight months into their pregnancy -- and the international Olympic community behaves as if nothing happened. Where is the world's conscience today?
Yuan Weijing (袁偉靜) is the wife of Chen Guangcheng (陳光誠), and she should be free to travel anywhere in the world. She has a valid passport and a visa from the Philippine government. What China did to her is immoral, unconscionable.
Why did the International Olympic Committee (IOC) give next year's Games to China if this same nation is going to make a mockery of the concepts of freedom and justice and morality? It's not as if the IOC wasn't warned.
This incident should really serve as proof that China does not deserve to host the Olympics. It's time to call China on the carpet and stop all preparations for the Olympics. A country that does not allow the wife of a jailed man to travel abroad to pick up an international award for her husband is a country that does not deserve to host the Olympics. It's that simple. Is an international boycott gaining steam now? Maybe.
When will the international community wake up to the very "un-Olympic" spirit of the current Chinese communist regime?
If China can prevent one of its own citizens from going overseas to pick up an international leadership award without any rational explanation, then how can the members of the IOC in all good conscience continue to prepare for next year's Games in Beijing? What China did to Yuan's wife is an outrage, or should be.
After this incident, the IOC really owes the world an explanation concerning why it continues to play into China's hands.
Dan Bloom
Chiayi";
Two sets of economic data released last week by the Directorate-General of Budget, Accounting and Statistics (DGBAS) have drawn mixed reactions from the public: One on the nation’s economic performance in the first quarter of the year and the other on Taiwan’s household wealth distribution in 2021. GDP growth for the first quarter was faster than expected, at 6.51 percent year-on-year, an acceleration from the previous quarter’s 4.93 percent and higher than the agency’s February estimate of 5.92 percent. It was also the highest growth since the second quarter of 2021, when the economy expanded 8.07 percent, DGBAS data showed. The growth
In the intricate ballet of geopolitics, names signify more than mere identification: They embody history, culture and sovereignty. The recent decision by China to refer to Arunachal Pradesh as “Tsang Nan” or South Tibet, and to rename Tibet as “Xizang,” is a strategic move that extends beyond cartography into the realm of diplomatic signaling. This op-ed explores the implications of these actions and India’s potential response. Names are potent symbols in international relations, encapsulating the essence of a nation’s stance on territorial disputes. China’s choice to rename regions within Indian territory is not merely a linguistic exercise, but a symbolic assertion
More than seven months into the armed conflict in Gaza, the International Court of Justice ordered Israel to take “immediate and effective measures” to protect Palestinians in Gaza from the risk of genocide following a case brought by South Africa regarding Israel’s breaches of the 1948 Genocide Convention. The international community, including Amnesty International, called for an immediate ceasefire by all parties to prevent further loss of civilian lives and to ensure access to life-saving aid. Several protests have been organized around the world, including at the University of California Los Angeles (UCLA) and many other universities in the US.
Every day since Oct. 7 last year, the world has watched an unprecedented wave of violence rain down on Israel and the occupied Palestinian Territories — more than 200 days of constant suffering and death in Gaza with just a seven-day pause. Many of us in the American expatriate community in Taiwan have been watching this tragedy unfold in horror. We know we are implicated with every US-made “dumb” bomb dropped on a civilian target and by the diplomatic cover our government gives to the Israeli government, which has only gotten more extreme with such impunity. Meantime, multicultural coalitions of US