Three past Olympic cities
Since World War II, only three communist countries have been chosen to host the Olympics. Sadly, two failed to conform to the spirits of the International Olympic Movement and the third was ravaged by a civil war six years after the Games.
Moscow was the first communist city to hold the Olympics in 1980. One year earlier, the armed forces of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR) invaded Afghanistan. The invasion drew international criticism and protests, and it resulted in a boycott of the Olympics by 62 countries, including the US. The war led to widespread destruction in Afghanistan, economic decline in the USSR, and the collapse of the superpower in 1991.
The second city, Sarajevo, successfully hosted the Winter Olympics in 1984. The uneasy socialist union of various ethnic groups started to break up in 1990 under economic pressures, just six years after the Olympics were held. The breakup then escalated into a series of horrific civil wars that were characterized by ethnic cleansing.
Beijing is the third communist city to host the Olympics. China originally hoped to showcase the “peaceful rise” of the People’s Republic of China. Instead, even before the opening ceremony began, it was deeply mired in controversies relating to human rights violations.
Persecution and human rights abuses in China are incompatible with the Olympic Spirit set out in Article 1 of the Olympic Charter that seeks “respect for universal, fundamental and ethical principles.” Beijing is now besieged with paranoia of impending civil unrest. Regardless of the outcome, the Beijing Olympics have cast China in a negative way.
Furthermore, Beijing will once again intentionally humiliate Taiwan by using the incomprehensible name “Chinese Taipei.” This intentional Chinese insult is an open violation of the second principle in the Fundamental Principles of Olympism, which is concerned with the preservation of human dignity via sports.
At this time of Beijing Olympic propaganda, freedom loving peoples must be vigilant to the danger of communist expansion and infiltration under the guise of a “peaceful rise,” “harmonious society” and “one world one dream.” Do not forget the past crimes against humanity committed by communists, led by China and the former USSR. Taiwan must wake up to the evil nature of communism and avoid becoming the second Tibet.
Samuel Yang
Bloomfield Hills, Michigan
An image of polar retreats
Andrew Simms’ opinion piece from the Guardian (“Time is running out to stop the climate change tipping point,” Aug. 7, page 9), has given readers a chance to glimpse what the future might be like. Simms says humankind has 100 months to tackle climate change. He is not optimistic, but neither is he pessimistic. He just wanted to yell “fire” and “[point] to the nearest emergency exit,” as he wrote.
Taiwan is not on the frontlines of the climate change battle. The frontlines are in the US, Europe, China and India, as well as the oil countries of the Middle East. There isn’t much to worry about here in Taiwan. Even if global warming becomes a reality in the future, people won’t suffer a great deal here on beautiful “Formosa.”
However, one Taiwanese man has done some deep thinking about global warming and climate change, and although he does not have a doctorate or corporate sponsorship, Deng Cheng-hong (鄧承閎) of Chiayi City has come up with a series of illustrations that show what future “Lovelock Retreats,” or “polar cities,” might look like as safe refuges for survivors of global warming in the far distant future. Nobody else in the world has done what Deng has done, and his computer-generated pictures are worth taking a look at on the Web site: polarcitylibertytimes.blogspot.com.
Dan Bloom
Chiayi City
Let’s call it like it is
While I was back on vacation from Taiwan to the UK, I recently watched the Ladies “British Open Golf 2008” on my beloved BBC. Of course I followed Taiwan’s Yani Tseng (曾雅妮) with as much spirit and support as possible from my armchair. I was a little upset at the start as the leaderboard stated her country was TPE.
I watched her great game of golf progress through the summer wind and rain of England. Tseng’s second place was supported by the BBC’s correct recognition of her nationality — Taiwanese! Of course one should not mix politics with sports, but I was pleased with the BBC’s stance.
After all, it was the Chinese that recently changed Taiwan’s ladies team name to “Chinese Taipei,” leaving the girls in tears halfway through the South Africa world golf event. Anyway, well done to Tseng and to the great BBC.
Jon Parkes
Taoyuan
Chinese agents often target Taiwanese officials who are motivated by financial gain rather than ideology, while people who are found guilty of spying face lenient punishments in Taiwan, a researcher said on Tuesday. While the law says that foreign agents can be sentenced to death, people who are convicted of spying for Beijing often serve less than nine months in prison because Taiwan does not formally recognize China as a foreign nation, Institute for National Defense and Security Research fellow Su Tzu-yun (蘇紫雲) said. Many officials and military personnel sell information to China believing it to be of little value, unaware that
Before 1945, the most widely spoken language in Taiwan was Tai-gi (also known as Taiwanese, Taiwanese Hokkien or Hoklo). However, due to almost a century of language repression policies, many Taiwanese believe that Tai-gi is at risk of disappearing. To understand this crisis, I interviewed academics and activists about Taiwan’s history of language repression, the major challenges of revitalizing Tai-gi and their policy recommendations. Although Taiwanese were pressured to speak Japanese when Taiwan became a Japanese colony in 1895, most managed to keep their heritage languages alive in their homes. However, starting in 1949, when the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) enacted martial law
“Si ambulat loquitur tetrissitatque sicut anas, anas est” is, in customary international law, the three-part test of anatine ambulation, articulation and tetrissitation. And it is essential to Taiwan’s existence. Apocryphally, it can be traced as far back as Suetonius (蘇埃托尼烏斯) in late first-century Rome. Alas, Suetonius was only talking about ducks (anas). But this self-evident principle was codified as a four-part test at the Montevideo Convention in 1934, to which the United States is a party. Article One: “The state as a person of international law should possess the following qualifications: a) a permanent population; b) a defined territory; c) government;
The central bank and the US Department of the Treasury on Friday issued a joint statement that both sides agreed to avoid currency manipulation and the use of exchange rates to gain a competitive advantage, and would only intervene in foreign-exchange markets to combat excess volatility and disorderly movements. The central bank also agreed to disclose its foreign-exchange intervention amounts quarterly rather than every six months, starting from next month. It emphasized that the joint statement is unrelated to tariff negotiations between Taipei and Washington, and that the US never requested the appreciation of the New Taiwan dollar during the
RSS