Cross-strait flights
Adding more flights is not a guarantee that China Airlines, EVA Airways or Chinese airlines will use their yield management systems to offer more low-fare seats. As long as the number of airlines flying these routes remains limited it is easier for each carrier to sell tickets at a higher price. Airline seats are not a commodity like a bag of sugar as the Fair Trade Commission or the Civil Aeronautics Administration seem to think, nor is it possible to store empty seats for later use. Costs vary per destination, route, direction, class, aircraft and company, just to name a few contributory factors — which is why indirect routes such as via Hong Kong can sometimes be cheaper than direct routes. The question has to be, now that fines have been issued and thereby increased the cost of doing business, will the same scrutiny be applied to other routes and airlines?
JAN DE VRIES
Keelung
Free Taiwan
In his article “Running for president, for what?” (Liberty Times, March 5, section A6), Lee Min-yung (李敏勇) said: “If we cannot break away from the dilemma posed by the “Republic of China,” then running for president amounts to little more than playing power games to accumulate personal fame or wealth... Future candidates for the presidency need to tell the people how they plan to lead Taiwan in the building of a new community with the real structure of a nation.”
I believe that the most important mission for any future president is to ensure Taiwanese establish a new and independent state based on freedom, democracy, justice and liberty.
Dr Shigeru Oda, a justice at the International Court for 27 years, demonstrated his affection for Taiwan in his book Witnessing One Hundred Years of Taiwan (the Japanese-language edition was published in 2002, the Chinese-language edition in 2009). In a note added to the Taiwan edition of the book last year, Oda said in the last paragraph:
“In the mid-1990s, when I was still an international judicial magistrate at the Hague International Court of Justice, I was visited by Ma Ying-Jeou (馬英九) who had only recently resigned his post as minister of justice, in his capacity as an international law associate professor from National Chengchi University in Taiwan. To this day I still remember the passion he displayed when talking about ‘New Taiwanese’ and ‘Taiwan belonging to Taiwanese.’ Naturally, after he became president I was full of expectation that he would strive to ensure that the dreams of 23 million Taiwanese would now come true.”
However, Ma forgot what he said to Oda and as a result expectations that Taiwan might become an independent state any time soon are unrealistic.
Faced with this dilemma, Taiwanese need to understand the basic principles of international law. In order to ensure “Taiwan belongs to the Taiwanese,” and establish a new and independent country, we need to use people power combined with international pressure. Only then can we break from the “ROC-in-exile” framework by which Taiwan is governed.
Whoever runs for the president of Taiwan needs to articulate how such a goal is to be achieved if he or she is to lead the Taiwanese in establishing a country of their own.
YANG LIU HSIU-HWA
Taipei
Saudi Arabian largesse is flooding Egypt’s cultural scene, but the reception is mixed. Some welcome new “cooperation” between two regional powerhouses, while others fear a hostile takeover by Riyadh. In Cairo, historically the cultural capital of the Arab world, Egyptian Minister of Culture Nevine al-Kilany recently hosted Saudi Arabian General Entertainment Authority chairman Turki al-Sheikh. The deep-pocketed al-Sheikh has emerged as a Medici-like patron for Egypt’s cultural elite, courted by Cairo’s top talent to produce a slew of forthcoming films. A new three-way agreement between al-Sheikh, Kilany and United Media Services — a multi-media conglomerate linked to state intelligence that owns much of
The US and other countries should take concrete steps to confront the threats from Beijing to avoid war, US Representative Mario Diaz-Balart said in an interview with Voice of America on March 13. The US should use “every diplomatic economic tool at our disposal to treat China as what it is... to avoid war,” Diaz-Balart said. Giving an example of what the US could do, he said that it has to be more aggressive in its military sales to Taiwan. Actions by cross-party US lawmakers in the past few years such as meeting with Taiwanese officials in Washington and Taipei, and
Denmark’s “one China” policy more and more resembles Beijing’s “one China” principle. At least, this is how things appear. In recent interactions with the Danish state, such as applying for residency permits, a Taiwanese’s nationality would be listed as “China.” That designation occurs for a Taiwanese student coming to Denmark or a Danish citizen arriving in Denmark with, for example, their Taiwanese partner. Details of this were published on Sunday in an article in the Danish daily Berlingske written by Alexander Sjoberg and Tobias Reinwald. The pretext for this new practice is that Denmark does not recognize Taiwan as a state under
The Republic of China (ROC) on Taiwan has no official diplomatic allies in the EU. With the exception of the Vatican, it has no official allies in Europe at all. This does not prevent the ROC — Taiwan — from having close relations with EU member states and other European countries. The exact nature of the relationship does bear revisiting, if only to clarify what is a very complicated and sensitive idea, the details of which leave considerable room for misunderstanding, misrepresentation and disagreement. Only this week, President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) received members of the European Parliament’s Delegation for Relations