Next year’s elections
The Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) is not cooperating with the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) over the proposed same-sex marriage bill. Why would it when it has 77 percent of Taiwanese behind it on this issue, as last year’s referendums demonstrated.
This percentage converted into votes will see the KMT win next year’s elections in a landslide. However, having been gifted this opportunity by President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) and the DPP, the KMT could still blow it by cozying up too closely with Beijing, a move that would concern most Taiwanese.
The KMT has, in the past, been slow to come to terms with public opinion on Taiwan’s future direction and has paid a price electorally.
Gavan Duffy
Queensland, Australia
Trump, Nobel and the CCP
Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe has nominated US President Donald Trump for the Nobel Peace Prize. Eighteen Republican senators made a similar proposal. The world, especially Japan, finally has experienced respite from the fear of North Korean missiles and nuclear war after Trump’s summit with North Korean leader Kim Jong-un in June last year.
Taiwan, as a member of the US-led Indo-Pacific Alliance against Chinese communist expansion, must join this important movement to support President Trump and protect her free democracy.
Taiwan has been a victim of Chinese autocracy (the Chinese Nationalist Party, KMT) since immediately after Japan’s surrender at the end of World War II. While Taiwan struggled to establish democracy with painful sacrifices, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) joined the KMT to combat Taiwan’s advance of democracy. The suffering of Taiwan is aggravated by the erroneous judgement of the free nations that economic development would transform China into a democracy similar to Taiwan. The result speaks volumes. The spectacular economic growth of China is now used by the CCP to legitimize its authoritarian rule.
Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) repeatedly rejects democracy and prefers socialism with Chinese characteristics.
He is now the sole ruler of the CCP. He threatens to occupy Taiwan by force if necessary.
The book Why Nations Fail explains why China is still on the authoritarian path of no return and its economy will fail, similar to the old Soviet Union. Awaiting the natural course of the CCP’s self-destruction will take time and risks the possibility of the communist autocracy overthrowing free-world democracies.
The current precarious state of Taiwan’s democracy due to CCP interference might occur in the US, as the CCP has already infiltrated all walks of life in that country.
The CCP must be considered a malignant, even lethal and hostile country. The only remedy is the peaceful dialogue from a position of strength being conducted by the Trump administration. The CCP and its twin brother, the KMT, have already sacrificed more than 1 billion innocent civilians with impunity.
China has contributed to the degradation of Venezuela into a nation of unimaginable misery. The hope of democracy in the Arab Spring has devolved into chaos due to CCP interference. Syria is still suffering severe destruction and human miseries, and has become a fertile ground for murderous Islamic State terrorists.
The CCP’s support of African despots has resulted in massive migration of desperate poor people to Europe. The One Belt One Road Initiative seems to conceal those old crimes.
Binzu Young,
Scottsdale, Arizona
Zuyu Ann
Tampa, Florida
Two sets of economic data released last week by the Directorate-General of Budget, Accounting and Statistics (DGBAS) have drawn mixed reactions from the public: One on the nation’s economic performance in the first quarter of the year and the other on Taiwan’s household wealth distribution in 2021. GDP growth for the first quarter was faster than expected, at 6.51 percent year-on-year, an acceleration from the previous quarter’s 4.93 percent and higher than the agency’s February estimate of 5.92 percent. It was also the highest growth since the second quarter of 2021, when the economy expanded 8.07 percent, DGBAS data showed. The growth
In the intricate ballet of geopolitics, names signify more than mere identification: They embody history, culture and sovereignty. The recent decision by China to refer to Arunachal Pradesh as “Tsang Nan” or South Tibet, and to rename Tibet as “Xizang,” is a strategic move that extends beyond cartography into the realm of diplomatic signaling. This op-ed explores the implications of these actions and India’s potential response. Names are potent symbols in international relations, encapsulating the essence of a nation’s stance on territorial disputes. China’s choice to rename regions within Indian territory is not merely a linguistic exercise, but a symbolic assertion
More than seven months into the armed conflict in Gaza, the International Court of Justice ordered Israel to take “immediate and effective measures” to protect Palestinians in Gaza from the risk of genocide following a case brought by South Africa regarding Israel’s breaches of the 1948 Genocide Convention. The international community, including Amnesty International, called for an immediate ceasefire by all parties to prevent further loss of civilian lives and to ensure access to life-saving aid. Several protests have been organized around the world, including at the University of California Los Angeles (UCLA) and many other universities in the US.
Every day since Oct. 7 last year, the world has watched an unprecedented wave of violence rain down on Israel and the occupied Palestinian Territories — more than 200 days of constant suffering and death in Gaza with just a seven-day pause. Many of us in the American expatriate community in Taiwan have been watching this tragedy unfold in horror. We know we are implicated with every US-made “dumb” bomb dropped on a civilian target and by the diplomatic cover our government gives to the Israeli government, which has only gotten more extreme with such impunity. Meantime, multicultural coalitions of US