President without a country
In a recent speech, President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) said that Taiwan and China do not have a nation-to-nation relationship, but rather a special relationship. In saying so, Ma has converted himself into a president without a country — a president in exile — and stripped all Taiwanese of their nationality.
Taiwan and China had a special nation-to-nation relationship under former president Lee Teng-hui (李登輝) and were separate countries on either side of the Taiwan Strait under former president Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁). Chen let Taiwanese carry passports with the name Taiwan in parentheses so that Taiwanese would not be mistaken for Chinese.
Ma is proud of his “non-nation-to-nation relationship” slogan, indicating that peace could be maintained with such a relationship. Such a slogan is equivalent to a white flag.
The truth is that, under Ma, Taiwan has been under increased military, economic and political threat for more than three years. The modernization of the missiles aimed at Taiwan, implementation of the Economic Cooperation Framework Agreement as a domestic agreement and intentional mislabeling of Taiwan as “Taiwan, China” are just a few examples of these threats.
Ma has also indicated that food safety is more important than the independence/unification issue and that Taiwan is influencing China.
As president, it is Ma’s responsibility to handle all national issues positively. Taiwanese are more concerned about their own security and identity than influencing China.
A president without a country is Ma’s own choice, but Ma will be held accountable by history for letting Taiwanese lose their nationality, dignity, security and safety.
CHARLES HONG
Columbus, Ohio
Heads buried in the sand
I enjoyed reading the recent article in which US Representative Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, chairperson of the US House of Representatives’ Foreign Affairs Committee, outlined her plans to hold hearings on the US’ relationship with Taiwan (“US lawmaker warns China on Taiwan,” June 13, page 1).
In doing so, the lawmaker observed that John Copper, Robert Sutter and others (including myself) have been correct to argue that US support for Taiwan has eroded, while China’s power and clout in the global community continues to accelerate.
In fact, I find it illuminating that she quoted Robert Sutter directly when saying she was “increasingly troubled about recent trends in US-Taiwan relations, trends which suggest, as one academic writes; ‘a marked decline in US support for the island’s freedom of action.’”
As it happens, Sutter and others were criticized in the May/June issue of the Taiwan Communique, which is edited by Gerrit van der Wees, for stating the obvious.
That is why on May 16, I was astonished to read van der Wees’ article that attacked John Copper for weaving “a tale of misconstructions and outright falsehoods” because he dared to make similar observations in your paper (“US will continue to support Taiwan,” May 16, page 8 and “Could US policy abandon Taiwan?” May 11, page 8).
The attack on Copper prompted me to write my first letter to your paper while I was sitting in the lounge of Chicago’s O’Hare International Airport waiting for a flight to Taipei.
The letter called on all of the “Taiwan-centric” analysts to take off their “rose-colored glasses” and “wake up and smell the coffee” (Letters, May 30, page 8).
Despite the hate-mail I received from several Americans living in Taiwan, I will now repeat that call because the first step to correcting a problem is to admit that the problem exists. I fully realize that it is difficult to accept the fact that the world is changing, and some do not always like those changes.
However, as Ros-Lehtinen observed, Taiwan is being “marginalized” (her expression) by the US.
Therefore, it might prove to be wise policy to try to do something about it rather than bury our heads in the sand and pretend it is not happening or viciously attack those who believe that problems do indeed exist.
DENNIS HICKEY
Springfield, Missouri
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