The Vice Chairman of Freedom House yesterday hailed Taiwan's democracy and said that Taiwan should feel proud of its democratic achievements.
"Taiwanese should not feel depressed at the tumultuous situation in the pursuit of democracy, for Taiwan has actually achieved the highest level of freedom," said Mark Palmer, a former US Ambassador to Hungary, in a recent interview with the Liberty Times, sister newspaper of the Taipei Times. Palmer said Taiwanese should seek to educate the Chinese on how to pursue democracy so that the autocratic regime in China could be eradicated by 2025.
Palmer currently serves as the vice chairman of Freedom House, a non-profit, nonpartisan organization aiming to advance worldwide expansion of political and economic freedom.
According to the organization's 2006 Freedom in the World global survey, Taiwan received the highest rating of "1" in the categories of political rights and civil liberties.
Speaking of cross-strait issues, Palmer suggested that both sides of the Strait should not touch on the issue of unification until both have embraced the principle of democracy. He added that Asian countries should form a democratic alliance to urge Asian nations to pursue democracy and Taiwan should at least be an observer at the meetings of such an alliance, for it is one of the few nations in Asia willing to promote democracy.
Palmer said foreign investors together with the Chinese people should press Beijing to practice democracy and uphold human rights. For example, they should ask the Chinese government to lay out a timetable for elections at different levels of government. Although China has made progress in recent years, the attitude of its leadership remains unchanged, Palmer said, adding that it is its people who have demonstrated the will to reform the nation.
In 2003, Palmer proposed in his book, Breaking the Real Axis of Evil, that democratic nations should take action to oust the world's last 45 dictators by 2025. Such a proposition was once a topic of heated debate among top politicians and academics in the US.
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