Premier Liu Chao-shiuan (劉兆玄) is under pressure. When not taking fire from the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) opposition over commodities and gas prices, Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) legislators and party officials consider it good sport to smack him around in public if he does not conduct himself in the ideological and administrative manner they expect.
Now he has been badgered into making an astonishing gaffe on Taiwan-Japan ties. KMT Legislator Chen Ken-te (陳根德) of Taoyuan County asked the premier questions that linked anti-Japanese language from Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) before he became president to the ongoing spat over the Diaoyutai islets and this week’s collision between a Japanese patrol vessel and a Taiwanese fishing boat.
At one point, Chen wanted to know if Taiwan’s military was prepared for hostilities with Japan over the matter. Liu’s naive response to an irresponsible question was to play down the matter but still confirm that “war” was an option, if only the final option.
Liu has been in the job for less than a month. Without stronger support from the president and the KMT legislative caucus, it has to be asked if Liu will last the summer.
But if Liu is incapable of understanding the importance of diplomatic language and cannot brush aside rabble-rousing legislators looking to set him up, then he may as well quit now.
The response by DPP legislators to Liu’s words was less shrill than might be expected. Lee Chun-yee (李俊毅), who represents part of Tainan County, gave Liu a relatively polite lecture on the need for diplomatic language when dealing with neighboring states.
The president must take a large share of the responsibility for his premier’s misfortune and growing discomfort. As Taipei mayor, Ma was no friend of Taiwan’s Japanese heritage, let alone that in Taipei City. He also made inflammatory comments about using force to protect the Diaoyutai islets from Japanese incursions. Ma has form on Japan, and this is Liu’s cross to bear.
During his presidential campaign, Ma went to some effort to combat his poor press in Japan, traveling there widely and making a good impression overall.
But the actions of KMT legislators and party officials — conveniently timed to impress Chinese officials as negotiations continue in Beijing — may undo all of that.
Still more questions are emerging about what Ma intends to do overall with a legislature whose members on both sides of politics treat his premier like a punching bag. Ma might consider stepping out from behind his protective media veil and start standing up for his own appointments. That would be the decent thing to do. It is also essential politics.
In the meantime, in a show of patriotic hubris, members of the Diplomacy and National Defense Committee, led by the deputy legislative speaker, expect to tour the location where the sinking of the Taiwanese vessel took place.
The learned gentlemen of the committee need not bother wasting their time and defense resources in commandeering a destroyer.
As far as symbolism is concerned, there is already enough damage being inflicted on ties with Japan by KMT legislators seeking to blow this incident way out of proportion.
And as for the site of the incident, all they will see is salt water.
On May 7, 1971, Henry Kissinger planned his first, ultra-secret mission to China and pondered whether it would be better to meet his Chinese interlocutors “in Pakistan where the Pakistanis would tape the meeting — or in China where the Chinese would do the taping.” After a flicker of thought, he decided to have the Chinese do all the tape recording, translating and transcribing. Fortuitously, historians have several thousand pages of verbatim texts of Dr. Kissinger’s negotiations with his Chinese counterparts. Paradoxically, behind the scenes, Chinese stenographers prepared verbatim English language typescripts faster than they could translate and type them
More than 30 years ago when I immigrated to the US, applied for citizenship and took the 100-question civics test, the one part of the naturalization process that left the deepest impression on me was one question on the N-400 form, which asked: “Have you ever been a member of, involved in or in any way associated with any communist or totalitarian party anywhere in the world?” Answering “yes” could lead to the rejection of your application. Some people might try their luck and lie, but if exposed, the consequences could be much worse — a person could be fined,
Taiwan aims to elevate its strategic position in supply chains by becoming an artificial intelligence (AI) hub for Nvidia Corp, providing everything from advanced chips and components to servers, in an attempt to edge out its closest rival in the region, South Korea. Taiwan’s importance in the AI ecosystem was clearly reflected in three major announcements Nvidia made during this year’s Computex trade show in Taipei. First, the US company’s number of partners in Taiwan would surge to 122 this year, from 34 last year, according to a slide shown during CEO Jensen Huang’s (黃仁勳) keynote speech on Monday last week.
When China passed its “Anti-Secession” Law in 2005, much of the democratic world saw it as yet another sign of Beijing’s authoritarianism, its contempt for international law and its aggressive posture toward Taiwan. Rightly so — on the surface. However, this move, often dismissed as a uniquely Chinese form of legal intimidation, echoes a legal and historical precedent rooted not in authoritarian tradition, but in US constitutional history. The Chinese “Anti-Secession” Law, a domestic statute threatening the use of force should Taiwan formally declare independence, is widely interpreted as an emblem of the Chinese Communist Party’s disregard for international norms. Critics