A combination of the good old days and modern populism can be a superb cocktail for winning an election. The problem for the Chinese Nationalist Party’s (KMT) populist presidential candidate, Kaohsiung Mayor Han Kuo-yu (韓國瑜), is that there are no good old days. Worse for the KMT, its continued promotion of Taiwan as Chinese reveals a party void of new forward-looking policies that truly embrace Taiwan’s uniqueness.
A look at the KMT’s recent past exposes its political and economic failures. Former president Ma Ying-jeou’s (馬英九) China-friendly policies ended in the Sunflower movement’s occupation of the Legislative Yuan and the promised benefits from economic agreements obtained between Taiwan and China never materialized. Taiwan also dropped in the international democracy ratings by Freedom House and Reporters Without Borders.
Those were no good old days and therefore it is counterproductive for the KMT when Han promotes cross-strait peace and the “1992 consensus” as in Ma’s presidency.
The KMT vision for Taiwan is a Chinese cultural vision in a nation with a diverse cultural heritage and a population that does not consider themselves to be Chinese. Despite this obvious reality, Han continues to talk about the Chinese Civil War and that he would sign a peace treaty with Beijing if Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) promised to renounce the use of force.
However, Taiwan was not part of the civil war in China and a peace treaty would effectively make Taiwan a part of China in the international community.
A future reality check would reveal a Taiwan promoted as Chinese to the public and in diplomatic circles if Han won the election. This would be a sad return to Ma’s policies. It would also be a challenge for the international community to separate Chinese attempts to promote Taiwan as Chinese from the KMT’s own policies.
This would be in stark contrast with the progress made over the past four years in promoting Taiwan as unique in its own way. Taiwan can stand out in its own way through its diverse culture, technologies and aspiration for international cooperation among democracies and emerging nations.
Taiwan can leverage this progress by engaging more with civil society groups in Europe and elsewhere. These groups can promote and engage ordinary European citizens, becoming an even stronger element in Taiwan’s diplomacy. Unleashing creativity and activity that stem from a passion for Taiwan, people in Europe can cooperate in politics, sports, computer games, culture, art and other fields.
It is great to see this multidimensional diplomacy combining international outreach and civil society is getting an even stronger footing in the current Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) administration, something that could not be expected of the KMT.
Taiwan is unique and many Europeans are realizing this by traveling to Taiwan in higher numbers. Taiwan shall live forward and understand itself looking backward — not like the KMT, which prefers to live in the past.
Michael Danielsen is the chairman of Taiwan Corner.
Late last month, Beijing introduced changes to school curricula in the Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region, requiring certain subjects to be taught in Mandarin rather than Mongolian. What is Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) seeking to gain from sending this message of pernicious intent? It is possible that he is attempting cultural genocide in Inner Mongolia, but does Xi also have the same plan for the democratic, independent nation of Mongolia? The controversy emerged with the announcement by the Inner Mongolia Education Bureau on Aug. 26 that first-grade elementary-school and junior-high students would in certain subjects start learning with Chinese-language textbooks, as
There are worrying signs that China is on the brink of a major food shortage, which might trigger a strategic contest over food security and push Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平), already under intense pressure, toward drastic measures, potentially spelling trouble for Taiwan and the rest of the world. China has encountered a perfect storm of disasters this year. On top of disruption due to the COVID-19 pandemic, torrential rains have caused catastrophic flooding in the Yangtze River basin, China’s largest agricultural region. Floodwaters are estimated to have already destroyed the crops on 6 million hectares of farmland. The situation has been
On Sept. 8, at the high-profile Ketagalan security forum, President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) urged countries to deal with the China challenge. She said: “It is time for like-minded countries, and democratic friends in the Indo-Pacific region and beyond, to discuss a framework to generate sustained and concerted efforts to maintain a strategic order that deters unilateral aggressive actions.” The “Taiwan model” to deal with the COVID-19 pandemic provides an alternative to China’s authoritarian way of handling it. Taiwan’s response to the health crisis has made it evident that countries across the world have much to learn from Taiwan’s best practices and if
Midday in Manhattan on Wednesday, September 16, was sunny and mild. Even with the pandemic’s “social distancing” it was a perfect day for “al fresco” dining with linen tablecloths and sidewalk potted palms outside one of New York City’s elegant restaurants. Two members of the press, outfitted with digital SLR cameras and voice recorders, were dispatched by The Associated Press to cover a rare outdoor diplomatic meeting on one of these New York streets. American diplomat Kelly Craft, Chief of the United States Mission to the United Nations, lunched in the open air with Taiwan’s ambassador-ranked representative in New York, James
RSS