Nov. 3, 2008, was a historic day for Taiwan, not because Straits Exchange Foundation (SEF) Chairman Chiang Pin-kung (江丙坤) and Association for Relations Across the Taiwan Strait (ARATS) Chairman Chen Yunlin (陳雲林) met, but because it was the first of several days when the capital of the Republic of China was effectively ruled by the People’s Republic of China (PRC).
Nov. 3 was a day that saw both the nation’s dignity and human rights trampled.
No national symbol of the ROC was allowed where Chen and his delegation might see it. National flags, a representation of national sovereignty, were seized by police from protesters and passers-by alike. People waving the five-starred PRC flag, however, were left alone.
Freedom of speech was suppressed. Police broke into hotel rooms without cause or warrant, as in the case of four Democratic Progressive Party Taichung City councilors whose room on the sixth floor of the Grand Hotel was raided after the councilors exercised their freedom of speech by unfurling banners from the balcony.
Individual human rights were suppressed. Police seized property without legitimate reason, a motorcyclist was stopped by police simply because the scooter was decorated with Tibetan flags and individuals having afternoon tea at hotels that Chen visited were dragged away. People were stopped and questioned on the street for wearing T-shirts reading “Taiwan is my country.” A music store was ordered to turn off its sound system and close its doors because it was playing Song of Taiwan. The list goes on.
It appears the PRC’s territory does not end in the plane that carried Chen to Taiwan but is in force wherever Chen goes during his stay.
President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) promised he would safeguard Taiwan’s dignity. He says the Presidential Office did not order ROC flags removed from the Grand Hotel and other spots. How could Ma expect such sophistry to be taken seriously when the flag has vanished from every site Chen has visited or passed?
The Presidential Office said everything has been done according to the law. This does not identify which law was broken by people wearing a favorite T-shirt, playing a favorite song or hanging a protest banner.
The image of the police has also been badly tarnished. Instead of being seen as helpful public servants, they appear arrogant, abusive and partisan.
There has been widespread speculation about how Chen will address Ma when they meet today. What will it matter if Chen calls him “Mr. President” when Ma and his administration have so badly trashed the country’s dignity?
Those who say the heavy police presence and repression will disappear once Chen leaves town miss the point. Everything that has happened this week shows not only how far from democratic a Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) government is, but offers a taste of what could be expected if Taiwan were to become part of China.
For those too young to remember the Martial Law era, for those who wonder what Taiwan would be like if it were annexed by China, remember what has happened in Taipei this week. Taiwanese have come too far and fought too hard to go willingly into the darkness once again.
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