Why so forthcoming?
I am shocked by how forthcoming Taipei prosecutors have been in providing the public with details about an investigation that has just begun. This raises the following questions:
First, is it not illegal in Taiwan for a prosecutor to disclose private information about an ongoing case, in which charges have yet to be lain?
Second, did the Swiss Assistant Federal Prosecutor Graziella de Falco Haldemann agree to and authorize Taipei authorities to reveal that she is working with Taipei prosecutor Ching Chi-jen (慶啟人) on a “money laundering” case?
Third, has de Falco Haldemann actually stated that the case involves “money laundering” and did she permit the Taipei authorities to give her name as a source in the investigation?
It would be interesting to hear Ching’s and de Falco Haldemann’s answers to these questions.
SING YOUNG
Taoyuan
Avoiding a deep freeze
Recent remarks pertaining to US arms sales to Taiwan by officials in Taiwan and the US have been contradictory and may have blurred the picture.
What seems clear, however, is that Washington has at least mulled the possibility of a “temporary freeze.”
Equally clear is that in this three-way tug-of-war on arming Taiwan, Beijing’s resolve is pitted against Washington’s ambivalence and President Ma Ying-jeou’s (馬英九) hidden agenda, a mix that could very well result in a temporary freeze becoming permanent.
A freeze could stem from the belief that the rationale for strengthening Taiwan’s defenses — as cited a few months ago in the Pentagon’s Annual Report on Military Power of the People’s Republic of China — has disappeared, or from Washington having found an alternative accommodation for Taiwan.
However, Taipei’s efforts to diminish tensions and, in the process, Ma’s abrogation of Taiwan’s sovereignty have not resulted in a diminution of China’s military threat to Taiwan. The missile threat against Taiwan has reportedly continued to grow both quantitatively and qualitatively.
Despite the Taiwan Relations Act, Taiwan’s democracy could easily lose out to US strategic and economic interests, which would have an impact on Washington’s arms sales to Taiwan.
Were it not for international economic considerations, Taiwan — once a key link in the US Western Pacific strategic chain of democracies — would be relegated by the freeze to a land that must be kept out of Beijing’s hands lest the Chinese military use it as a base for force projection in the Pacific.
Commercial interests, the equivalent of a life jacket for Taiwan, are what Ma seems to be trying to remove, as if he were intent on diminishing Taiwan’s importance to the US. Ma is on his way to lifting practically all restrictions on exporting sensitive technologies to China, with an eye to relocating Taiwan’s high-tech industries there.
Under such circumstances, turmoil in Taiwan — even to the extent that it would preclude its use as a military base for either China or the US — would pose little threat to international trade, which is essential to China’s survival and US economic health.
Perhaps this scenario is what Beijing and Washington have in mind, in which case an arms freeze would make sense. The scandals surrounding former president Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁) could make such an outcome more feasible.
Ma recently reclassified as “open source” all the documents that Chen had classified to shield himself from prosecution stemming from his alleged misappropriation of “state affairs funds.” This was followed by the unreeling of Chen’s possible improprieties involving multi-million dollar foreign account deposits.
Combined, these two developments hold the potential of dealing a terrible blow to Taiwanese consciousness, for which Chen once was the spearhead.
All these developments could set the stage for the Chinese Nationalist Party’s (KMT) implementation of China’s “Anti-Secession” Law, which poses a direct threat to the survival of this nation.
Unless Taiwanese get back on their feet fast enough and start opposing Ma’s pro-China policies, the nightmarish scenario of an impoverished nation facing perpetual unrest could materialize.
HUANG JEI-HSUAN
Los Angeles, California
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.
In the 2022 book Danger Zone: The Coming Conflict with China, academics Hal Brands and Michael Beckley warned, against conventional wisdom, that it was not a rising China that the US and its allies had to fear, but a declining China. This is because “peaking powers” — nations at the peak of their relative power and staring over the precipice of decline — are particularly dangerous, as they might believe they only have a narrow window of opportunity to grab what they can before decline sets in, they said. The tailwinds that propelled China’s spectacular economic rise over the past