Imagine what would happen if Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Central Standing Committee member Sean Lien (連勝文) invited you for a cup of tea in his apartment in The Palace in Taipei. Now imagine that, instead of standing on ceremony like a normal guest, you insisted that the meeting could only go ahead if he agreed that the luxury apartment actually belonged to you. No matter how much of a gentleman Lien may be, he would probably raise his middle finger and tell you in no uncertain terms to get lost.
That is the attitude that Chen Deming (陳德銘), chairman of China’s Association for Relations Across the Taiwan Straits, displayed when responding to an invitation from the Straits Exchange Foundation.
Chen insisted that if Taiwan did not recognize the “one China” principle, it would mean that he was visiting Taiwan as a foreigner, in which case he could not possibly accept the invitation.
Chen qualified “one China” with the words “separately ruled,” but consider his logic. Chen thinks that if Taiwan does not accept “one China,” that would mean he was from another country. In that case he would still be a foreigner whether he comes to Taiwan or not — unless he applied for Republic of China citizenship.
Taiwan does not belong to China, nor are Taiwan and China affiliated with one another. Legal principles and facts both attest to that.
Minister of Foreign Affairs David Lee (李大維) said that cross-strait relations are not diplomatic relations and he is quite right, because diplomatic relations can only be established by mutual agreement, not to mention that, under the existing system, cross-strait affairs are the remit not of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, but of the Mainland Affairs Council (MAC).
MAC Minister Katherine Chang (張小月) said that “cross-strait relations are cross-strait relations.”
Although that is a rather vague statement, it is also quite right, because although there are civil, commercial and cultural exchanges between the two sides, there are no political or official relations between them.
China is always trying to find ways to establish political relations under which Taiwan belongs to China. Taiwan, on the other hand, wants to establish equal relations between two nations, one on each side of the Taiwan Strait, with neither of them belonging to the other. This is where the two sides disagree.
Most Taiwanese, as well President Tsai Ing-wen’s (蔡英文) administration, cannot accept the condition that Taiwan belongs to China.
In response, China has found various ways to meddle in Taiwan’s domestic policies. For example, it invited eight mayors and county commissioners from Taiwan — six from the KMT and two KMT-friendly “pan blue” independents — to visit China in September last year and offered special incentives to their cities and counties.
Another tactic is to require universities and colleges that have student exchange deals with China to sign a letter of agreement promising that they will not teach prospective Chinese students content that contravenes the “one China” principle.
Chen is being rather arrogant. What could have motivated him to get so out of line? Perhaps he was on the list to be purged if he did not.
The government might not be in a position to give Chen the middle finger or tell China where to stick its crafty plots, but ordinary Taiwanese who cherish freedom and democracy can speak their minds more freely.
James Wang is a media commentator.
Translated by Julian Clegg
The image was oddly quiet. No speeches, no flags, no dramatic announcements — just a Chinese cargo ship cutting through arctic ice and arriving in Britain in October. The Istanbul Bridge completed a journey that once existed only in theory, shaving weeks off traditional shipping routes. On paper, it was a story about efficiency. In strategic terms, it was about timing. Much like politics, arriving early matters. Especially when the route, the rules and the traffic are still undefined. For years, global politics has trained us to watch the loud moments: warships in the Taiwan Strait, sanctions announced at news conferences, leaders trading
Eighty-seven percent of Taiwan’s energy supply this year came from burning fossil fuels, with more than 47 percent of that from gas-fired power generation. The figures attracted international attention since they were in October published in a Reuters report, which highlighted the fragility and structural challenges of Taiwan’s energy sector, accumulated through long-standing policy choices. The nation’s overreliance on natural gas is proving unstable and inadequate. The rising use of natural gas does not project an image of a Taiwan committed to a green energy transition; rather, it seems that Taiwan is attempting to patch up structural gaps in lieu of
The saga of Sarah Dzafce, the disgraced former Miss Finland, is far more significant than a mere beauty pageant controversy. It serves as a potent and painful contemporary lesson in global cultural ethics and the absolute necessity of racial respect. Her public career was instantly pulverized not by a lapse in judgement, but by a deliberate act of racial hostility, the flames of which swiftly encircled the globe. The offensive action was simple, yet profoundly provocative: a 15-second video in which Dzafce performed the infamous “slanted eyes” gesture — a crude, historically loaded caricature of East Asian features used in Western
The Executive Yuan and the Presidential Office on Monday announced that they would not countersign or promulgate the amendments to the Act Governing the Allocation of Government Revenues and Expenditures (財政收支劃分法) passed by the Legislative Yuan — a first in the nation’s history and the ultimate measure the central government could take to counter what it called an unconstitutional legislation. Since taking office last year, the legislature — dominated by the opposition alliance of the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) and Taiwan People’s Party — has passed or proposed a slew of legislation that has stirred controversy and debate, such as extending
RSS