Taiwan dangling in limbo
The US State Department recognizes 194 states, including city-states such as the Holy See and Singapore and the principalities, or “micro-states,” of Liechtenstein and Monaco.
Excluded from this list is an entity that the State Department says may or may not be considered a country, depending on who you talk to.
The outsider is Taiwan, which meets all requirements for a sovereign country.
That Taiwan meets all criteria of a sovereign country is absolutely indisputable and beyond contention:
1. It has a clearly defined territory with internationally recognized boundaries.
2. It has a permanent population who possess identity cards, passports and home residency certificates.
3. It has a highly organized and advanced economy; it regulates both foreign and domestic trade/commerce. It issues its own currency.
4. It maintains educational institutions at all levels, thus proving itself capable of “social engineering.”
5. It has a highly developed transportation system for moving both people and goods.
6. It has five branches of government (executive, legislative, judicial, oversight and examination), in addition to a police force.
7. It has its own armed forces — army, navy, air force and marines.
8. It has a postal and banking system.
9. It has sovereignty over its defined territory.
10. It is recognized (albeit limited recognition) by other countries.
Tawan’s political problems have their sources in three main areas.
The deluded, megalomaniacal fools who control Taiwan pathetically insist that they have sovereignty over territory that they do not control. They pathetically cling to the chimerical “Republic of China,” which was superseded decades ago by the communist government of the People’s Republic of China across the Taiwan Strait. It is the abysmally wide gap or disjunction between reality and the delusional perceptions of Taiwan’s present rulers that causes so much trouble for Taiwan.
Taiwan’s problems are also a result of China’s incessant bullying, intimidation and meddling.
Lastly, Taiwan’s problems come, in no small measure, from political expediency, hypocrisy and shameful cowardice on the part of other nations — especially the “Great Western Democracies.” As an American, I am forced to admit that the US can be assigned much of the blame in regard to Taiwan’s unfortunate status.
Taiwan’s lonely “outsider” status is the result of dreadfully misguided policies by enemies of Taiwan — both external and internal.
MICHAEL SCANLON
East Hartford, Connecticut
Parking needs to be green
Park your car in downtown Hualien for more than a minute and you’re bound to find a parking ticket fluttering on your windshield.
The city is extremely vigilant about ensuring that drivers pay to park. The city counts on this revenue, and rightly so.
My question is: Why do the parking enforcement officers drive around on scooters while issuing these tickets rather than riding bicycles?
There is a veritable army of enforcement officers patrolling very short “beats” of typically between one and two blocks in the downtown core.
Each officer does nothing but drive back and forth, issuing tickets in his or her short area, covering the same piece of ground literally hundreds of times each day.
The result, of course, is a lot of totally unnecessary pollution, not to mention unwarranted expense.
The environmentally friendly and cost-effective solution seems obvious: Replace these scooters with bicycles.
Selling the existing fleet of scooters could cover the cost of acquiring the bicycles, and the city would immediately realize significant savings by cutting fuel, maintenance and insurance costs.
In addition, locals and tourists alike could breathe easier with this sizable fleet of polluting scooters taken off the roads.
I hope the Hualien City government will recognize the merits of this course of action and do the responsible thing by making the change immediately.
It’s high time to go green!
JASON GRENIER
Hualien
Minister of Labor Hung Sun-han (洪申翰) on April 9 said that the first group of Indian workers could arrive as early as this year as part of a memorandum of understanding (MOU) between the Taipei Economic and Cultural Center in India and the India Taipei Association. Signed in February 2024, the MOU stipulates that Taipei would decide the number of migrant workers and which industries would employ them, while New Delhi would manage recruitment and training. Employment would be governed by the laws of both countries. Months after its signing, the two sides agreed that 1,000 migrant workers from India would
In recent weeks, Taiwan has witnessed a surge of public anxiety over the possible introduction of Indian migrant workers. What began as a policy signal from the Ministry of Labor quickly escalated into a broader controversy. Petitions gathered thousands of signatures within days, political figures issued strong warnings, and social media became saturated with concerns about public safety and social stability. At first glance, this appears to be a straightforward policy question: Should Taiwan introduce Indian migrant workers or not? However, this framing is misleading. The current debate is not fundamentally about India. It is about Taiwan’s labor system, its
Japan’s imminent easing of arms export rules has sparked strong interest from Warsaw to Manila, Reuters reporting found, as US President Donald Trump wavers on security commitments to allies, and the wars in Iran and Ukraine strain US weapons supplies. Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi’s ruling party approved the changes this week as she tries to invigorate the pacifist country’s military industrial base. Her government would formally adopt the new rules as soon as this month, three Japanese government officials told Reuters. Despite largely isolating itself from global arms markets since World War II, Japan spends enough on its own
On March 31, the South Korean Ministry of Foreign Affairs released declassified diplomatic records from 1995 that drew wide domestic media attention. One revelation stood out: North Korea had once raised the possibility of diplomatic relations with Taiwan. In a meeting with visiting Chinese officials in May 1995, as then-Chinese president Jiang Zemin (江澤民) prepared for a visit to South Korea, North Korean officials objected to Beijing’s growing ties with Seoul and raised Taiwan directly. According to the newly released records, North Korean officials asked why Pyongyang should refrain from developing relations with Taiwan while China and South Korea were expanding high-level
RSS