A senior envoy said on Thursday that Taiwan's democracy is flourishing at both the political and social levels and that the nation wants to share its democratic experience with China.
Michael Tsai (蔡明憲), deputy representative of the Taipei Economic and Cultural Representative Office in the US, made the statement at a forum entitled "Project on Justice in Times of Transition" held at Harvard University.
Tsai and Maysing Yang (
"We believe Taiwan's example can provide lessons for other nations grappling with similar challenges," she added.
Speaking at Harvard's Kennedy School of Government, Tsai told the audience Taiwan's process of democratization "has emphasized the dignity and respect to which all people in Taiwan are entitled."
He called it "one of the ultimate ironies of our time" that free and democratic Taiwan, which is a faithful and steadfast friend of the US, has been excluded not only from the UN and all its peripheral agencies, but also from most other inter-governmental organizations.
This "unfair, unjust and unreasonable situation results not from any misdeed on our part, but instead solely from the discriminatory politics of one single and powerful state, the People's Republic of China," he pointed out.
Beijing's inability to acknowledge and accept the existence of genuine pluralistic democracy in Taiwan, is "deeply troubling to us, and it should be to others as well," Tsai said.
Pointing out that Taiwan is a fully institutionalized, democratic product of popular free will, he warned that "rejecting Taiwan's democracy can only irritate the already tense relations across the Taiwan Strait."
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