When National Security Council (NSC) secretary-general Su Chi (蘇起) stepped down last month, he did so because he had become a disgrace. Despite his claim that family and health reasons were behind his decision, we all know that he made it, or was told to do so, because the chorus clamoring for his resignation was getting too loud to ignore.
True, his ham-fisted handling of the US beef issue was the straw that broke the camel’s back, but the reasons he had to go were far more numerous. He had lost the trust of US officials and alienated Ministry of Foreign Affairs staff and Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) members. His murky involvement in the delaying of foreign humanitarian assistance during Typhoon Morakot — ostensibly over cross-strait political considerations — also left a wound that Taiwanese would not forget anytime soon. Many, from ministry officials to specialists on Taiwan used one word to describe Su at the NSC: incompetent.
This, of course, wasn’t enough to dissuade an equally amateurish Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) administration from conferring upon Su the Order of Propitious Clouds, First Class earlier this month for his “meritorious” service.
So “meritorious” was Su’s service to this nation that he was part of the very same KMT-led legislature that, during eight “sick” — so Su claims — years of Democratic Progressive Party rule under then-president Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁), blocked hundreds of resolutions and brought national development to a standstill. So “meritorious” was legislator Su that he made unsubstantiated claims that the Chen administration was seeking to develop nuclear weapons. If lies and incompetence are signs of merit, then Su truly deserved Ma’s medal.
That said, there is no doubt that Su, with his extensive experience in government has had access to large amounts of state secrets. Equally problematic is intelligence that placed him in Beijing, sometime in March 2005, getting really friendly with senior Chinese Communist Party officials.
A little more than a month after he stepped down, the now unemployed Su has confirmed that he will “resurface” by attending the Boao Forum in China next month. Beijing has already confirmed that Vice President Xi Jinping (習近平), President Hu Jintao’s (胡錦濤) likely successor, will be attending.
While Su has said that he will not be delivering speeches at the meeting, this will be an occasion for him to meet people and possibly engage in the type of backdoor, quasi-official diplomacy that has characterized the Ma administration’s approach to cross-strait affairs. Given the lack of transparency that has accompanied such talks in the past 20 months, Su could now find himself in a position where he can cause even more harm to Taiwan’s interests than he did when he was in government.
At a time when the Ma administration is portraying a controversial economic cooperation framework agreement (ECFA) as an inevitability — contradicting officials’ comments that it would only sign the deal if it was widely supported by the public, which it isn’t — and amid fears that Taiwan’s sovereignty is hanging in the balance, the government should put the brakes on Su’s desire to “make new friends” by preventing him from attending the forum. Laws exist that regulate the ability of former officials who, in the exercise of their functions had access to classified material, from going to China.
If ever such laws applied, they should in Su’s case, both because of what he had access to and his track record as an official and academic who seems to put China’s interests first and Taiwan’s second.
Su fell from grace. He should keep a low profile a little longer.
In the first year of his second term, US President Donald Trump continued to shake the foundations of the liberal international order to realize his “America first” policy. However, amid an atmosphere of uncertainty and unpredictability, the Trump administration brought some clarity to its policy toward Taiwan. As expected, bilateral trade emerged as a major priority for the new Trump administration. To secure a favorable trade deal with Taiwan, it adopted a two-pronged strategy: First, Trump accused Taiwan of “stealing” chip business from the US, indicating that if Taipei did not address Washington’s concerns in this strategic sector, it could revisit its Taiwan
The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) challenges and ignores the international rules-based order by violating Taiwanese airspace using a high-flying drone: This incident is a multi-layered challenge, including a lawfare challenge against the First Island Chain, the US, and the world. The People’s Liberation Army (PLA) defines lawfare as “controlling the enemy through the law or using the law to constrain the enemy.” Chen Yu-cheng (陳育正), an associate professor at the Graduate Institute of China Military Affairs Studies, at Taiwan’s Fu Hsing Kang College (National Defense University), argues the PLA uses lawfare to create a precedent and a new de facto legal
Chile has elected a new government that has the opportunity to take a fresh look at some key aspects of foreign economic policy, mainly a greater focus on Asia, including Taiwan. Still, in the great scheme of things, Chile is a small nation in Latin America, compared with giants such as Brazil and Mexico, or other major markets such as Colombia and Argentina. So why should Taiwan pay much attention to the new administration? Because the victory of Chilean president-elect Jose Antonio Kast, a right-of-center politician, can be seen as confirming that the continent is undergoing one of its periodic political shifts,
Taiwan’s long-term care system has fallen into a structural paradox. Staffing shortages have led to a situation in which almost 20 percent of the about 110,000 beds in the care system are vacant, but new patient admissions remain closed. Although the government’s “Long-term Care 3.0” program has increased subsidies and sought to integrate medical and elderly care systems, strict staff-to-patient ratios, a narrow labor pipeline and rising inflation-driven costs have left many small to medium-sized care centers struggling. With nearly 20,000 beds forced to remain empty as a consequence, the issue is not isolated management failures, but a far more
RSS