Responding to a recent article by Kyodo News Agency titled “When Taiwan-Japan relations run afoul, there’s always Hatta Yoichi,” the Taipei Economic and Cultural Representative Office in Tokyo last week once again highlighted the government’s tendency to obfuscate and its refusal to acknowledge public apprehension about its policies.
The office called a passage in the report “groundless” that read “while Ma has wooed China, restarted formal negotiations across the Taiwan Strait and signed trade agreements with Beijing, Taipei’s relations with Tokyo have mostly stagnated.” Yet the office did not meet the allegations directly, choosing instead to rehash the old platitudes of President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) — no unification, no independence and no use of force — while adding that the ongoing negotiations with China are “based not on political but rather economic objectives.”
The response defies reality. If, as the office claims, Ma’s administration “wishes to enhance its substantial relationship with Japan,” then how do we explain a series of unnecessary and avoidable political spats since Ma took office?
Soon after Ma became president in May last year, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs recalled its envoy to Japan over a maritime incident near the Diaoyutai (釣魚台) involving Japanese and Taiwanese vessels. Less than a year later, it was raising a storm over perfectly acceptable comments by Japanese envoy Masaki Saito to the effect that Taiwan’s status remains “unresolved.” The Ma administration played the hurt party and refused to meet Saito for months.
If Taipei wanted to enhance relations with Tokyo, it would have handled those minor matters differently.
Meanwhile, Beijing continues to threaten Taiwan by deploying more missiles across the Strait, and Chinese academics and generals speak of war on visits to Taiwan — a rejection of the nation’s status far worse than Saito’s comments. Yet Ma says nothing. No Chinese officials are barred from coming; in fact, more are welcome.
If questioning Taiwan’s status were an offense in Ma’s eyes, then not a single academic or Chinese official would be allowed on this side of the Strait.
It is also evident that the objectives of ongoing negotiations with Beijing are, despite what the office says, not solely economic. Time and again, the top leadership in Beijing has said that economic integration is part of its plan to annex Taiwan. That the financial agreements are a Trojan Horse cannot be wished away.
This is not the first time a government agency defends its policies in such a matter. The Ministry of Justice has responded to open letters concerning the erosion of rights and liberties in Taiwan and the trial of former president Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁). Like the Tokyo office’s letter, the ministry’s replies engaged in avoidance while encouraging the illusion that the Ma administration is beyond reproach.
The truth, as Kyodo highlighted in its article, is that the Ma administration has neglected Japan at the expense of better relations with China, and that it is putting Taiwan’s sovereignty at risk by ignoring the political ramifications of “economic” deals. Unless the government provides clear, direct answers to those allegations, we will continue to treat its indignant responses as mere propaganda.
An old Latin adage reads: Si vis pacem, para bellum. Translated it means: “If you wish peace, then prepare for war.” This adage has many variants and claims to authorship, but what is most important is its message for a peaceful Taiwan. Why should Taiwan prepare for war? The reasons are many and obvious. Certainly, such preparation is not because Taiwan wants war or is a warlike nation. Instead, the answer is found in its neighbor, China. The Chinese Communist Party (CCP), which rules China as a one-party state, is ambitious and troubled — and that combination makes war a viable option,
Unless Hollywood movies like Greenland, Deep Impact, and Armageddon have predictive powers and a rogue space rock is heading our way, stopping Chinese Communist Party expansionism is likely to prove the single most challenging and dangerous problem of our lifetimes. How can the United States, Taiwan, and other liberal democracies prepare for and prevent attacks from China? How can Washington bolster Taipei’s confidence when it doesn’t recognize Taiwan as a real country and, so far, lacks the political will to make major adjustments to its ossified China policy and Taiwan policy? How can Taiwan make itself heard on the world stage when
Hypersonic weapons are defined as armaments capable of traveling at speeds faster than Mach 5 and can be broadly classified into two types: hypersonic glide vehicles (HGV) and hypersonic cruise missiles. The former are launched into the upper atmosphere by ballistic missiles. The vehicle is then separated from the booster to maneuver, or glide, toward its target. The latter can be launched from a jet plane or rocket to reach supersonic speed before igniting a scramjet engine to achieve hypersonic speeds. As the US engages in a great-power competition with China and Russia, all three countries are racing to field hypersonic
As a Reserve Officers’ Training Corps (ROTC) cadet, I frequently get asked how quickly the Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA) might overrun Taiwan if it invaded before 2040. My answer is that the PLA will not be able to take over Taiwan within that time frame, because the more eager the PLA is to complete the task in a short period, the more likely it would fail — and fail big. Having a slim chance of winning is what keeps the PLA from taking action. From time to time, some PLA leaders or keyboard fighters make threats — one of the
RSS