Taiwan is a free country, with a level of political rights and civil liberties ranking second in Asia, behind Japan, according to an academic quoting the latest report of Freedom House, an organization devoted to the rating of freedom in countries.
Taiwan and 85 other countries, representing nearly 41 percent of the world's population, are considered "free," according to the results of a survey released recently by Freedom House.
The survey, conducted annually since 1981, classifies the world's countries as "free," "partly free" or "not free" based on their respective performances in the areas of political rights and civil liberties, according to Lee You-tan (
The study entitled Freedom in the World 2002-2003 concluded that, over the past year, Taiwan's citizens have enjoyed a level of political rights and civil liberties equal to that of the people of South Korea, Lee said.
Reporting the findings of Freedom House's latest survey at a symposium on democracy and human rights jointly sponsored by the institute and the non-profit Democracy Foundation, Lee said Freedom House praised Taiwan in 2000 for its transition to full democracy.
"Free and fair presidential elections and the orderly transfer of power in Taiwan further improved the country's level of political freedom," Freedom House said in its 2000-2001 report, in which Taiwan was ranked on a level similar to 30 other "free nations" including Japan, Germany, France, Italy and the UK.
This year, due to different assessment criteria, Taiwan was not ranked as high as it was in the 2000-2001 survey, but it still ranked second best in Asia along with South Korea, according to Lee.
Taiwan's "slightly lower" ranking this year reflects the fact that there is still ample room for Taiwan to improve its freedom, human rights and democratization, Lee said, adding that several issues, including corruption, sex discrimination in the workplace, domestic violence, teenage prostitution and abuse of foreign laborers all still need to be tackled.
Meanwhile, Singapore continued to be classified as a "partly free" state in the latest survey, while mainland China was again classified as "not free," Lee said.
Freedom House, established in New York in 1941, is a non-profit, non-partisan organization which promotes democracy and freedom around the world.
Former Czech Republic-based Taiwanese researcher Cheng Yu-chin (鄭宇欽) has been sentenced to seven years in prison on espionage-related charges, China’s Ministry of State Security announced yesterday. China said Cheng was a spy for Taiwan who “masqueraded as a professor” and that he was previously an assistant to former Cabinet secretary-general Cho Jung-tai (卓榮泰). President-elect William Lai (賴清德) on Wednesday last week announced Cho would be his premier when Lai is inaugurated next month. Today is China’s “National Security Education Day.” The Chinese ministry yesterday released a video online showing arrests over the past 10 years of people alleged to be
THE HAWAII FACTOR: While a 1965 opinion said an attack on Hawaii would not trigger Article 5, the text of the treaty suggests the state is covered, the report says NATO could be drawn into a conflict in the Taiwan Strait if Chinese forces attacked the US mainland or Hawaii, a NATO Defense College report published on Monday says. The report, written by James Lee, an assistant research fellow at Academia Sinica’s Institute of European and American Studies, states that under certain conditions a Taiwan contingency could trigger Article 5 of NATO, under which an attack against any member of the alliance is considered an attack against all members, necessitating a response. Article 6 of the North Atlantic Treaty specifies that an armed attack in the territory of any member in Europe,
LIKE FAMILY: People now treat dogs and cats as family members. They receive the same medical treatments and tests as humans do, a veterinary association official said The number of pet dogs and cats in Taiwan has officially outnumbered the number of human newborns last year, data from the Ministry of Agriculture’s pet registration information system showed. As of last year, Taiwan had 94,544 registered pet dogs and 137,652 pet cats, the data showed. By contrast, 135,571 babies were born last year. Demand for medical care for pet animals has also risen. As of Feb. 29, there were 5,773 veterinarians in Taiwan, 3,993 of whom were for pet animals, statistics from the Animal and Plant Health Inspection Agency showed. In 2022, the nation had 3,077 pediatricians. As of last
XINJIANG: Officials are conducting a report into amending an existing law or to enact a special law to prohibit goods using forced labor Taiwan is mulling an amendment prohibiting the importation of goods using forced labor, similar to the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act (UFLPA) passed by the US Congress in 2021 that imposed limits on goods produced using forced labor in China’s Xinjiang region. A government official who wished to remain anonymous said yesterday that as the US customs law explicitly prohibits the importation of goods made using forced labor, in 2021 it passed the specialized UFLPA to limit the importation of cotton and other goods from China’s Xinjiang Uyghur region. Taiwan does not have the legal basis to prohibit the importation of goods