On Wednesday, China’s Taiwan Affairs Office issued a statement saying that issues “concerning China’s sovereignty and territorial integrity should be decided by all Chinese, including [our] compatriots in Taiwan.”
The day before, China’s State Council released a “white paper” detailing its total authority over Hong Kong and reiterating that any autonomy enjoyed by the territory is subject to the Chinese central government’s authorization.
This blatant disregard for universal human rights, and lack of respect for the democratic values and autonomy of people in Taiwan and Hong Kong further reveal the fascist face of China.
The council — China’s Cabinet — and the office have clearly never heard what Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) once said about brushing up on Chinese history and the rise and fall of past dynasties to understand the situation the country is in today. If they do not know about Chinese Communist Party (CCP) leader Mao Zedong’s (毛澤東) struggle for an independent Hunan Province, how could they have anything to say about self-determination?
In the years that he worked at the Beijing University Library, Mao studied Hunanese independence. In 1920, as the Republic of China was celebrating Double Ten National Day, Mao proposed the idea of founding a “Republic of Hunan” in an opinion piece.
The article advocated that China’s provinces and administrative regions be split into 27 independent nation-states. He also contended that the “true China” could only be created once these 27 states were running smoothly, making Mao the pioneer of anti-unification movements in China.
This is all very clear. In the end, the independence drive came to naught when the Soviet Union started nurturing the CCP’s rise to power, which gained further momentum during the Second Sino-Japanese War. The Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT), fraught with venality and corruption, also fell out of favor with the people, which left the Chinese mainland open for grabs and allowed the CCP to successfully establish its own authoritarian regime.
History is replete with examples of the world’s great motherlands eventually disintegrating, included when the US declared independence from Great Britain, Australia and Canada’s split from Great Britain, and that between Austria and Germany. Even the Soviet Union eventually disintegrated into several nation-states. Given this, does talking about anti-independence movement not seem a bit antiquated now?
Furthermore, China is an authoritarian, one-party state where people do not have the freedom to choose their leaders and lack the right to exercise free will in deciding at any level who should run the government. To say that the nation’s future will be jointly decided by the people of Taiwan and China is the biggest joke ever.
Taiwan is a democratic nation, not an authoritarian one-party state. Taiwanese choose their president and representatives at every level of government, and the central government has changed hands twice. Taiwanese are indubitably in charge of their nation and no single political party can decide its future — this can in no way be compared to Mao’s “Republic of Hunan.”
Moreover, China’s “Anti-Secession” Law was written by a single political party that was trying to concoct a pretext for further colonization after the Republic of China government took over Taiwan, Penghu, Kinmen and Matsu.
Its being an independent, autonomous democracy means that Taiwan has nothing to do with China, be it the China of the Manchu Qing Dynasty or post-World War II China. Beijing can in no way justify rampant fascist suppression of democracy in Hong Kong and Taiwan, neither legally speaking nor based on public sentiment.
The fates of Taiwan and Hong Kong are intertwined, so if Taiwanese sit idly by and refuse to lend Hong Kongers a helping hand, their nation will be next in line. For that same reason, Taiwanese must also speak up for any liberal or democratic-minded Chinese, or else risk remaining enslaved forever.
If the nature of the CCP and of its dictatorial system never change, there would be no human rights, freedom and democracy to speak of, and we would all become victims of the authoritarian jackals.
Lu I-ming is the former publisher and president of the Taiwan Shin Sheng Daily News.
Translated by Kyle Jeffcoat
Donald Trump’s return to the White House has offered Taiwan a paradoxical mix of reassurance and risk. Trump’s visceral hostility toward China could reinforce deterrence in the Taiwan Strait. Yet his disdain for alliances and penchant for transactional bargaining threaten to erode what Taiwan needs most: a reliable US commitment. Taiwan’s security depends less on US power than on US reliability, but Trump is undermining the latter. Deterrence without credibility is a hollow shield. Trump’s China policy in his second term has oscillated wildly between confrontation and conciliation. One day, he threatens Beijing with “massive” tariffs and calls China America’s “greatest geopolitical
On Sunday, 13 new urgent care centers (UCC) officially began operations across the six special municipalities. The purpose of the centers — which are open from 8am to midnight on Sundays and national holidays — is to reduce congestion in hospital emergency rooms, especially during the nine-day Lunar New Year holiday next year. It remains to be seen how effective these centers would be. For one, it is difficult for people to judge for themselves whether their condition warrants visiting a major hospital or a UCC — long-term public education and health promotions are necessary. Second, many emergency departments acknowledge
US President Donald Trump’s seemingly throwaway “Taiwan is Taiwan” statement has been appearing in headlines all over the media. Although it appears to have been made in passing, the comment nevertheless reveals something about Trump’s views and his understanding of Taiwan’s situation. In line with the Taiwan Relations Act, the US and Taiwan enjoy unofficial, but close economic, cultural and national defense ties. They lack official diplomatic relations, but maintain a partnership based on shared democratic values and strategic alignment. Excluding China, Taiwan maintains a level of diplomatic relations, official or otherwise, with many nations worldwide. It can be said that
Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Chairwoman Cheng Li-wun (鄭麗文) made the astonishing assertion during an interview with Germany’s Deutsche Welle, published on Friday last week, that Russian President Vladimir Putin is not a dictator. She also essentially absolved Putin of blame for initiating the war in Ukraine. Commentators have since listed the reasons that Cheng’s assertion was not only absurd, but bordered on dangerous. Her claim is certainly absurd to the extent that there is no need to discuss the substance of it: It would be far more useful to assess what drove her to make the point and stick so
RSS