An overseas Taiwanese academic yesterday urged Chinese expatriates in the US to learn from Taiwan's experience and help speed up the democratization process in China.
Peter Chow (周鉅原), a professor at the City University of New York, said that during the 1960s and 1970s, Taiwanese students studying abroad and other expatriates worked with democracy activists on the island, accelerating the collapse of the authoritarian regime in Taiwan.
Chinese students studying overseas and expatriates "should not just jeer at the negative reports about Taiwan's democracy," he told a seminar sponsored by the New York branch of the Global Alliance for Democracy and Peace. Instead, they should learn from Taiwan's democratization experience and avoid repeating its mistakes when they help their motherland democratize, the economics professor said.
As the anniversary of the 1989 Tiananmen Square massacre approaches, Chow said most Chinese people, influenced by the Chinese regime's media distortion and society's fixation on making money, have gradually forgotten the June 4 student movement which sought democracy for China.
Chow said he does not see any possibility in the near future of China's communist regime acknowledging its mistakes in militarily cracking down on the student protesters in 1989 in Beijing.
"If the inheritors of power in Beijing were to boldly acknowledge that something very bad had happened in Tiananmen Square in 1989, they would probably win even greater support," he said.
Li Hongkuan (李洪寬), a Chinese pro-democracy activist and Internet expert, said two "good conditions" currently exist for a similar democracy movement to erupt again in China. These are the fact that the Beijing regime has not changed at all since 1989, in terms of opening itself up to dissident voices, and that communications technologies have progressed tremendously, making it impossible for the regime to suppress information to the same extent that it did 16 years ago. However, Li also said there is no doubt that the Beijing authorities will adopt a strategy of "nip it in the bud" when it comes to suppressing any democracy movement that may arise.
"They will never tolerate a similar democracy movement; they have better riot gear than before; they will never relent in arresting activists," he said.
Chow elaborated on his view that the Beijing regime has not changed, saying that it has failed to solve the social problems that led to the 1989 student movement and that the problems have actually expanded to the areas of education, housing and income, leading to feelings of frustration among a greater portion of society.
MONITORED BY JETS: Chinese aircraft included Y-20 aerial refueling aircraft, suggesting that China refueled its short-range jets during flight The air force scrambled again yesterday to warn away 27 Chinese aircraft that entered its air defense identification zone (ADIZ), the Ministry of National Defense said, the latest increase in tensions across the sensitive Taiwan Strait. Taiwan has complained for a year or more of repeated missions by China’s air force near the nation, often in the southwestern part of its ADIZ, close to the Taiwan-controlled Pratas Islands (Dongsha Islands, 東沙群島). Over a four-day period beginning on Oct. 1, when China marked its national day, Taiwan said that nearly 150 Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA) military aircraft entered its ADIZ, not territorial
DESTABILIZING: Beijing’s efforts to choke Taiwan, pressure its friends and hamper its democracy are a threat to the world, AIT Director Sandra Oudkirk said China’s provocative military activities near Taiwan are destabilizing and risk “miscalculation,” American Institute in Taiwan (AIT) Director Sandra Oudkirk said yesterday, reiterating the US’ objection to any unilateral changes to the “status quo” in the Taiwan Strait. Oudkirk made the remarks in a speech at the annual conference of the Association of International Relations in Taipei. “In the Indo-Pacific region, America’s effort to resolve and manage differences with the leadership of the People’s Republic of [PRC] faces distinct challenges,” she said, referencing a range of actions by China that she said run counter to the shared values and interests of the
EXTRADITION POSSIBLE? The suspect, who is quarantining upon arrival in Xiamen, is accused of killing a coffee trader on a street near his house in Sindian District The suspect in an execution-style murder of a businessman in New Taipei City’s Sindian District (新店) has fled to China and officials are negotiating his extradition, the New Taipei City Police Department said on Tuesday. The suspect, surnamed Huang (黃), took a flight from Taiwan Taoyuan International Airport at 2pm on that day to Xiamen, where he is staying in a quarantine hotel, as required by Chinese COVID-19 regulations, the department said. Investigators accuse Huang of shooting dead a local coffee trader surnamed He (何) on a street near his residence when he was returning from dropping off his daughter at her
BACK HOME: Lawmakers said the government should have known that the military reservist would be turned away from his United Airlines flight from Guam to Palau A military reservist vaccinated with Medigen’s COVID-19 vaccine, who was not allowed to board a United Airlines transit flight from Guam to Palau on Sunday, has returned to Taiwan, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs said yesterday. After local media reported the incident on Tuesday, Minister of Health and Welfare Chen Shih-chung (陳時中), who heads the Central Epidemic Command Center, told a news briefing that day that the reservist might not have paid enough attention to the US territory’s quarantine regulations. At a meeting of the legislature’s Foreign Affairs and National Defense Committee yesterday, lawmakers asked Ministry of Foreign Affairs officials to clarify
RSS