With the 18th anniversary of the Tiananmen Square Massacre approaching, President Chen Shui-bian (
"The Chinese government must think about how to utilize its growing national strength and learn a lesson from the rise of other big powers," Chen said. "It will bring happiness to the people of China, Taiwan and the world if China transforms itself from the role of a potential invader, attacker and destroyer to a peaceful, safe and constructive force via a democratic system."
Chen made the remarks in the latest issue of his weekly electronic newsletter.
Chen said history has proven that a strong but undemocratic country is often dangerous and aggressive. Three of the most prominent examples were Japan, Germany and the Soviet Union, he said, because their rapidly growing economies and authoritarian rule led to militarism and hegemony.
Since the military crackdown on the Tiananmen Square protests in 1989, Chen said China's military spending has seen double-digit growth each year, well exceeding its economic growth and self-defense requirements.
As China has grown from a regional power to a global military power, Chen said its military buildup has a far-reaching influence on China itself and the world.
Over the past 18 years, China has experienced dramatic changes, but the only thing that remains unchanged is its one-party, authoritarian reign and merciless suppression of freedom and democracy, Chen said.
Likening Chinese Communist Party's rule to the wax and wane of the moon, Chen said that China has its bright side, but there is always the dark side to counter any positive developments.
While most people were overwhelmed by China's economic development, they tended to ignore China's notorious human rights record, social instability and the fact that it is not democratic, free or humane.
From 2003 to 2005, Chen said the frequency of demonstrations and the number of protesters in China has increased by 15 to 18 percent annually.
China has enjoyed unprecedented economic growth since President Hu Jintao (
China has topped the chart of countries detaining journalists over the past eight years, Chen said, and it was hard to imagine that in a knowledge-based age China has more than 300,000 "Internet police" constantly monitoring the on-line activities of Chinese netizens.
LOUD AND PROUD Taiwan might have taken a drubbing against Australia and Japan, but you might not know it from the enthusiasm and numbers of the fans Taiwan might not be expected to win the World Baseball Classic (WBC) but their fans are making their presence felt in Tokyo, with tens of thousands decked out in the team’s blue, blowing horns and singing songs. Taiwanese fans have packed out the Tokyo Dome for all three of their games so far and even threatened to drown out home team supporters when their team played Japan on Friday. They blew trumpets, chanted for their favorite players and had their own cheerleading squad who dance on a stage during the game. The team struggled to match that exuberance on the field, with
Taiwanese paleontologists have discovered fossil evidence that pythons up to 4m long inhabited Taiwan during the Pleistocene epoch, reporting their findings in the international scientific journal Historical Biology. National Taiwan University (NTU) Institute of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology associate professor Tsai Cheng-hsiu (蔡政修) led the team that discovered the largest snake fossil ever found in Taiwan. The single trunk vertebra was discovered in Tainan at the Chiting Formation, dated to between 400,000 and 800,000 years ago in the Middle Pleistocene, the paper said. The area also produced Taiwan’s first avian fossil, as well as crocodile, mammoth, saber-toothed cat and rhinoceros fossils, it said. Discoveries
Taiwanese paleontologists have discovered fossil evidence that pythons up to 4m long inhabited Taiwan during the Pleistocene epoch, reporting their findings in the international scientific journal Historical Biology. National Taiwan University (NTU) Institute of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology associate professor Tsai Cheng-hsiu (蔡政修) led the team that discovered the largest snake fossil ever found in Taiwan. A single trunk vertebra was discovered in Tainan at the Chiting Formation, dated to between 800,000 to 400,000 years ago in the Middle Pleistocene, the paper said. The area also produced Taiwan’s first avian fossil, as well as crocodile, mammoth, sabre-toothed cat and rhinoceros fossils, it said. Discoveries
Whether Japan would help defend Taiwan in case of a cross-strait conflict would depend on the US and the extent to which Japan would be allowed to act under the US-Japan Security Treaty, former Japanese minister of defense Satoshi Morimoto said. As China has not given up on the idea of invading Taiwan by force, to what extent Japan could support US military action would hinge on Washington’s intention and its negotiation with Tokyo, Morimoto said in an interview with the Liberty Times (sister paper of the Taipei Times) yesterday. There has to be sufficient mutual recognition of how Japan could provide
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