During this year’s hot summer, a document was published that perhaps did not receive sufficient attention in Taiwan, where people were preoccupied with a number of domestic issues.
The publication of “Document No. 9” in Beijing was revealed in a New York Times article on Aug. 19 headlined “China takes aim at Western ideas,” by Chris Buckley.
Buckley describes how under Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) Beijing is working hard to eradicate the “seven perils” that endanger the grip of the Chinese Communist Party on society. This campaign against “Western ideas” is actually an extension of Xi’s “Chinese dream.”
Glancing through the list of perils in the document, these perils seem to represent the core values of democracy, freedom and human rights as they are known in the US and Europe. They also represent the values that Taiwanese fought so hard to achieve in their transition to democracy in the 1980s and 1990s.
First on the list is “Western constitutional democracy.” Then follows the promotion of “universal values” of human rights, Western-inspired notions of media independence and civil society, pro-market “neo-
liberalism” and a few others.
So, it seems Xi’s government is determined to totally eradicate these values This runs contrary to the expectations of many that Xi would be a reformer: He seems to be moving China further away from democracy.
What does this mean for Taiwan and its cross-strait policies? What would this mean for Taiwan’s democracy, freedom and human rights if it moved closer to China? It is clear that closer relations with China means Taiwan will lose much of its freedom.
If Taiwan wants to preserve its “status quo” as a free, prosperous and democratic nation, it should keep a safe political, economic and social distance from this China. Yes, Taiwan can and should have contact, communication and consultations with Beijing, but this could be done from a position of strength.
In addition, these contacts should take place with a clear understanding of the direction in which China is heading. If the country is moving in the direction of a freer society, it would be good to stimulate cross-strait communication, but “Document No. 9” makes the ultimate goals of China’s rulers clear. Under these circumstances, Taiwan’s people and government should exercise caution in dealing with Beijing.
Against the backdrop of “Document No. 9,” should Taiwan move toward the service trade agreement with China? Would it be wise to make the Taiwanese economy more dependent on China’s? Should Taipei accept “favors” from Beijing in the international arena, such as its observer status at the WHO or “guest” status at the International Civil Aviation Organization? These favors only cement Taiwan’s token involvement in these organizations at the grace of Beijing under odd titles including “Taiwan, Province of China” or “Chinese Taipei.”
Taiwanese have worked hard for their freedom and democracy. To preserve these achievements, the nation needs to align itself more closely with the democratic neighbors who live by, and respect, the basic values which all free people cherish.
By the same token, if a neighbor does not respect those values, and instead continuously strives to undermine another nation’s sovereignty and dignity, then its people are well-advised to beware.
Nat Bellocchi is a former chairman of the American Institute in Taiwan and a special adviser to the Liberty Times Group. The views expressed in this article are his own.
“History does not repeat itself, but it rhymes” (attributed to Mark Twain). The USSR was the international bully during the Cold War as it sought to make the world safe for Soviet-style Communism. China is now the global bully as it applies economic power and invests in Mao’s (毛澤東) magic weapons (the People’s Liberation Army [PLA], the United Front Work Department, and the Chinese Communist Party [CCP]) to achieve world domination. Freedom-loving countries must respond to the People’s Republic of China (PRC), especially in the Indo-Pacific (IP), as resolutely as they did against the USSR. In 1954, the US and its allies
A response to my article (“Invite ‘will-bes,’ not has-beens,” Aug. 12, page 8) mischaracterizes my arguments, as well as a speech by former British prime minister Boris Johnson at the Ketagalan Forum in Taipei early last month. Tseng Yueh-ying (曾月英) in the response (“A misreading of Johnson’s speech,” Aug. 24, page 8) does not dispute that Johnson referred repeatedly to Taiwan as “a segment of the Chinese population,” but asserts that the phrase challenged Beijing by questioning whether parts of “the Chinese population” could be “differently Chinese.” This is essentially a confirmation of Beijing’s “one country, two systems” formulation, which says that
Mainland Affairs Council Deputy Minister Shen You-chung (沈有忠) on Thursday last week urged democratic nations to boycott China’s military parade on Wednesday next week. The parade, a grand display of Beijing’s military hardware, is meant to commemorate the 80th anniversary of Japan’s surrender in World War II. While China has invited world leaders to attend, many have declined. A Kyodo News report on Sunday said that Japan has asked European and Asian leaders who have yet to respond to the invitation to refrain from attending. Tokyo is seeking to prevent Beijing from spreading its distorted interpretation of wartime history, the report
Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi arrived in China yesterday, where he is to attend a summit of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) with Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) and Russian President Vladimir Putin today. As this coincides with the 50 percent US tariff levied on Indian products, some Western news media have suggested that Modi is moving away from the US, and into the arms of China and Russia. Taiwan-Asia Exchange Foundation fellow Sana Hashmi in a Taipei Times article published yesterday titled “Myths around Modi’s China visit” said that those analyses have misrepresented India’s strategic calculations, and attempted to view