Ma blind to ECFA danger
There is a general rule for the political leaders of this world — self interest.
Without self-interest, negotiations cannot be settled, as both sides must feel they have somehow benefited from interaction with the other side. All over the world, it appears, however, that the public’s desires are considered last, even when a minority of people support a government’s egocentric plans, just as those who voted for President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) last year — naively, greedily or as a result of manipulation from the media.
People are easily manipulated into believing that they will benefit from these government agendas. US President Barack Obama promised change, just as Ma did with his 6-3-3 agenda. They used attractive campaign slogans to win votes. For those reasons, they both won the presidencies. But why has the approval rate of both leaders dropped so quickly? Obama at least has tried to maintain people’s trust in him, but Ma plays the game inside a closed box with a phone to tell his Cabinet what to do next.
“Anti-war” Obama is now moving the focus away from Iraq toward Pakistan. So the war continues — but on another turf. Similarly, Ma’s “no” promise about unification with China is also crumbling, as have most of the other promises he made.
During an economic crisis, people want governments to do whatever it takes to end the pain. While many developed countries are bailing out those who caused the economic crisis, Ma is using his close relationship with the People’s Republic of China as an excuse to improve Taiwan’s economy by emphasizing the importance of an economic cooperation framework agreement (ECFA), whose content remains a mystery.
Should the people fall for it? Will things really improve for Taiwan with this agreement? Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) Chairperson Tsai Ing-wen’s (蔡英文) letter to the Taipei Times (Letters, March 1, page 8) is more convincing than Ma’s repetitive words about why he feels the ECFA is better. Tsai gave more than 10 reasons why an ECFA would have disastrous consequences for Taiwan, while Ma cannot even give half that many reasons as to why it would be beneficial.
ALEX RAYMOND
Niaosong, Kaohsiung County
Prosecute kitten ‘sadist’
If National Taiwan University believes that the student who is suspected of skinning kittens he adopted and throwing them off buildings is responsible, he should be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law — for the sake of animals and the community as a whole (“University vows to probe abuse, deaths of kittens,” Feb. 25, page 2).
People who think that making animals suffer is “fun” need immediate intervention to prevent their violence from escalating. Animal abusers are cowards who take their issues out on “easy victims” — often including members of their own species. Psychiatrists, criminal profilers and law enforcement officials have repeatedly documented that young people who are cruel to animals often turn that violence against humans. The standard diagnostic and treatment manual for conduct disorders also lists cruelty to animals as a criterion for diagnosis.
People who hurt animals need prison time, counseling and a ban on contact with animals to prevent their sadism from continuing.
JASON BAKER
Hong Kong
228 bias? Think again
I was shocked to learn that a group of so-called “academic historians” has accused the 228 Memorial Foundation of being biased in its interpretation of the 228 Incident (“Academic accuses 228 Foundation of historical bias,” March 1, page 2).
If those historians who are supposed to be experts on Taiwanese history have a non-biased version of the truth, why aren’t they presenting evidence to the public to rebut the so-called biased interpretations agreed upon by academics the world over?
One of the historians even had the nerve to attack former US naval attache George Kerr, claiming that his interpretation of the 228 Incident was the result of Kerr’s support for the independence camp, which sullied the image of the regime of dictator Chiang Kai-shek (蔣介石). What an outlandish accusation!
It is obvious that those so-called expert historians and their diehard KMT cohorts still do not accept the truth, known around the world, that Chiang and former president Chiang Ching-kuo (蔣經國) terrorized Taiwan for decades and massacred thousands of innocent people who were critical of their rulings.
Taiwanese should be grateful to Kerr, whose eyewitness account of the 228 Incident and the subsequent arrests and execution of Taiwanese is so well presented in his book Formosa Betrayed, which should be required reading for every college student.
In his book, Kerr wrote that a prominent person told him “he had witnessed the notorious ‘Rape of Nanking’ by the Japanese in 1937, but that this [rape of Formosa] surpassed it, for the Nanking Rape was a product of war, a wild outburst of wartime passion, whereas this was coldly calculated revenge perpetrated by the Nationalist Government upon its own people [in peacetime].”
Despite Ma’s gestures of reconciliation toward 228 victims’ families, the wound of the savage incident will never heal because Ma and his KMT followers continue to exonerate the Chiangs’ crimes by saying they did not do the killing themselves and therefore should not be held accountable.
KRIS LIAO
San Francisco, California
In the US’ National Security Strategy (NSS) report released last month, US President Donald Trump offered his interpretation of the Monroe Doctrine. The “Trump Corollary,” presented on page 15, is a distinctly aggressive rebranding of the more than 200-year-old foreign policy position. Beyond reasserting the sovereignty of the western hemisphere against foreign intervention, the document centers on energy and strategic assets, and attempts to redraw the map of the geopolitical landscape more broadly. It is clear that Trump no longer sees the western hemisphere as a peaceful backyard, but rather as the frontier of a new Cold War. In particular,
When it became clear that the world was entering a new era with a radical change in the US’ global stance in US President Donald Trump’s second term, many in Taiwan were concerned about what this meant for the nation’s defense against China. Instability and disruption are dangerous. Chaos introduces unknowns. There was a sense that the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) might have a point with its tendency not to trust the US. The world order is certainly changing, but concerns about the implications for Taiwan of this disruption left many blind to how the same forces might also weaken
As the new year dawns, Taiwan faces a range of external uncertainties that could impact the safety and prosperity of its people and reverberate in its politics. Here are a few key questions that could spill over into Taiwan in the year ahead. WILL THE AI BUBBLE POP? The global AI boom supported Taiwan’s significant economic expansion in 2025. Taiwan’s economy grew over 7 percent and set records for exports, imports, and trade surplus. There is a brewing debate among investors about whether the AI boom will carry forward into 2026. Skeptics warn that AI-led global equity markets are overvalued and overleveraged
As the Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA) races toward its 2027 modernization goals, most analysts fixate on ship counts, missile ranges and artificial intelligence. Those metrics matter — but they obscure a deeper vulnerability. The true future of the PLA, and by extension Taiwan’s security, might hinge less on hardware than on whether the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) can preserve ideological loyalty inside its own armed forces. Iran’s 1979 revolution demonstrated how even a technologically advanced military can collapse when the social environment surrounding it shifts. That lesson has renewed relevance as fresh unrest shakes Iran today — and it should
RSS