A day after several Argentine athletes carried Republic of China national flags into the Taipei Municipal Stadium during the closing ceremony of the Taipei Summer Universiade on Wednesday last week, the International University Sports Federation issued a warning to the team.
In response to the incident, Taipei Mayor Ko Wen-je (柯文哲) said in an interview: “First of all I want to inform China that the flag incident had nothing to do with us. It was the Argentine athletes who did it.”
What would the Argentine team think about Ko’s remarks?
When foreigners do something that could annoy Beijing and is essentially good for Taiwan, why would the mayor of Taipei be so afraid and feel the need to report to China?
Why is Ko so concerned about how China feels?
Since President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) took office last year, Beijing has done everything in its power to force her administration to acknowledge the so-called “1992 consensus” — including ceasing all formal communications and exchanges with the Taiwanese government.
However, on the day of the Universiade opening ceremony, Huang Wentao (黃文濤), head of the Department of Exchange at China’s Taiwan Affairs Office (TAO), came to Taiwan with the People’s Republic of China’s athletes as the team’s leader and consultant.
As the highest-ranking official to have visited since Tsai’s inauguration, Huang came with a special purpose.
However, his purpose was not to meet with the Tsai administration, but to meet with Ko.
It is still unknown what Huang and Ko talked about.
Does Ko not owe the residents of Taipei an explanation as to what happened?
It is possible that the talks were directly related to Ko’s eagerness to tell China he was not responsible for the flags incident?
That such an important TAO official should skip the Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) and directly meet with the Taipei City Government should not become the new normal.
Those who find it acceptable should ask themselves if they would be happy if Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) mayors were to do likewise.
As the host of this year’s BRICS summit, China last month sent a representative to Kinmen to discuss security cooperation for the event.
Kinmen County Commissioner Chen Fu-hai (陳福海) told the representative that as the matter was outside the local government’s jurisdiction, it would discuss it with the central government.
As mayor of Taipei, elected by Taiwanese, Ko should have done the same and made it clear to Huang from the beginning that he should contact the MAC before meeting him to show respect for the nation’s political system.
Unfortunately, Ko chose to improve his relationship with China for his own political interests, rather than protect the nation’s status.
In the same interview, Ko described people on both sides of the Taiwan Strait as “one big family.”
Moreover, at both the opening and the closing ceremonies of the Universiade, the audience were banned from carrying flags showing profiles of Taiwan.
A man who waved a flag with the word “Taiwan” on it at the closing ceremony was even carried out of the stadium by a group of military police dressed in black.
Has Ko forgotten the ideals he had when he decided to pursue a career in politics?
Liou Je-wei is a student in the department of political science at National Taiwan University.
Translated by Tu Yu-an
US President Donald Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) were born under the sign of Gemini. Geminis are known for their intelligence, creativity, adaptability and flexibility. It is unlikely, then, that the trade conflict between the US and China would escalate into a catastrophic collision. It is more probable that both sides would seek a way to de-escalate, paving the way for a Trump-Xi summit that allows the global economy some breathing room. Practically speaking, China and the US have vulnerabilities, and a prolonged trade war would be damaging for both. In the US, the electoral system means that public opinion
They did it again. For the whole world to see: an image of a Taiwan flag crushed by an industrial press, and the horrifying warning that “it’s closer than you think.” All with the seal of authenticity that only a reputable international media outlet can give. The Economist turned what looks like a pastiche of a poster for a grim horror movie into a truth everyone can digest, accept, and use to support exactly the opinion China wants you to have: It is over and done, Taiwan is doomed. Four years after inaccurately naming Taiwan the most dangerous place on
In their recent op-ed “Trump Should Rein In Taiwan” in Foreign Policy magazine, Christopher Chivvis and Stephen Wertheim argued that the US should pressure President William Lai (賴清德) to “tone it down” to de-escalate tensions in the Taiwan Strait — as if Taiwan’s words are more of a threat to peace than Beijing’s actions. It is an old argument dressed up in new concern: that Washington must rein in Taipei to avoid war. However, this narrative gets it backward. Taiwan is not the problem; China is. Calls for a so-called “grand bargain” with Beijing — where the US pressures Taiwan into concessions
Wherever one looks, the United States is ceding ground to China. From foreign aid to foreign trade, and from reorganizations to organizational guidance, the Trump administration has embarked on a stunning effort to hobble itself in grappling with what his own secretary of state calls “the most potent and dangerous near-peer adversary this nation has ever confronted.” The problems start at the Department of State. Secretary of State Marco Rubio has asserted that “it’s not normal for the world to simply have a unipolar power” and that the world has returned to multipolarity, with “multi-great powers in different parts of the
RSS