The severance of diplomatic ties between Taiwan and the Dominican Republic can help Taiwanese better understand cross-strait relations and might also be conducive for forging a Taiwan-centric consensus on the issue of independent sovereignty, an academic said yesterday.
“The suspension of diplomatic ties with the Dominican Republic could turn out to be a good thing for Taiwan, because it could help clarify the relationship between the two sides of the Taiwan Strait,” Taiwan Foundation for Democracy vice president Yan Jiann-fa (顏建發) said at a seminar in Taipei.
“People who harbored unrealistic expectations regarding China should have gained a better understanding,” Yan said. “There is no need to have fantasies about cross-strait ties, which simply cannot be achieved unilaterally by Taiwan.”
Photo: Peter Lo, Taipei Times
Taiwan has chosen to side with the “alliance,” which is led by the US and includes Europe and Japan, at a time when competition has erupted between China and the US, he said.
What Taiwan should do now is to strengthen itself and diversify its risk by reaching out to the rest of the world and walking away from the framework established by China, Yan said.
In the face of pressure from China, maintaining the “status quo” is the best scenario that can be visualized in cross-strait relations, he added.
Taiwan should also turn its sights on the global picture instead of looking only at China, “unless Beijing one day begins internal reform,” he said.
Another academic, National Taiwan Normal University professor Fan Shih-ping (范世平), expressed a similar view, saying that the severance of diplomatic ties between Taiwan and the Dominican Republic would only make Taiwan stronger and push it closer to the US and Japan.
“Although it was regrettable, the development will have no effect on Taiwanese,” Fan said.
“The number of diplomatic allies carries some symbolic significance, but does not mean anything substantial to Taiwanese, given the limited amount of bilateral trade and commercial ties,” Fan said.
China will continue its efforts to lure Taiwan’s diplomatic allies, but Taiwanese have become used to China’s bullying tactics and are not ruffled by them, he said.
Beijing’s actions will only serve to stir up antagonism among Taiwanese toward China, and make President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) more resilient in her leadership of Taiwan, he added.
As Taiwan and the US prepare to hold their annual defense industry conference this month — in Taiwan for the first time in 16 years — China timed its diplomatic move to show Chinese that it can punish Taiwan and the US, and to bolster internal unity around Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平), Fan said.
The termination of formal diplomatic relations between Taiwan and the Dominican Republic on Monday has left Taiwan with only 19 diplomatic allies, including the Vatican and others in Latin America, the Caribbean, Africa and the Pacific.
A magnitude 6.4 earthquake struck off the coast of Hualien County in eastern Taiwan at 7pm yesterday, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said. The epicenter of the temblor was at sea, about 69.9km south of Hualien County Hall, at a depth of 30.9km, it said. There were no immediate reports of damage resulting from the quake. The earthquake’s intensity, which gauges the actual effect of a temblor, was highest in Taitung County’s Changbin Township (長濱), where it measured 5 on Taiwan’s seven-tier intensity scale. The quake also measured an intensity of 4 in Hualien, Nantou, Chiayi, Yunlin, Changhua and Miaoli counties, as well as
Credit departments of farmers’ and fishers’ associations blocked a total of more than NT$180 million (US$6.01 million) from being lost to scams last year, National Police Agency (NPA) data showed. The Agricultural Finance Agency (AFA) said last week that staff of farmers’ and fishers’ associations’ credit departments are required to implement fraud prevention measures when they serve clients at the counter. They would ask clients about personal financial management activities whenever they suspect there might be a fraud situation, and would immediately report the incident to local authorities, which would send police officers to the site to help, it said. NPA data showed
ENERGY RESILIENCE: Although Alaska is open for investments, Taiwan is sourcing its gas from the Middle East, and the sea routes carry risks, Ho Cheng-hui said US government officials’ high-profile reception of a Taiwanese representative at the Alaska Sustainable Energy Conference indicated the emergence of an Indo-Pacific energy resilience alliance, an academic said. Presidential Office Secretary-General Pan Men-an (潘孟安) attended the conference in Alaska on Thursday last week at the invitation of the US government. Pan visited oil and gas facilities with senior US officials, including US Secretary of the Interior Doug Burgum, US Secretary of Energy Chris Wright, Alaska Governor Mike Dunleavy and US Senator Daniel Sullivan. Pan attending the conference on behalf of President William Lai (賴清德) shows a significant elevation in diplomatic representation,
The Taipei MRT is to begin accepting mobile payment services in the fall, Taipei Rapid Transit Corp said on Saturday. When the company finishes the installation of new payment units at ticketing gates in October, MRT passengers can use credit cards, Apple Pay, Google Pay and Samsung Pay, the operator said. In addition, the MRT would also provide QR payment codes — which would be compatible with Line Pay, Jkopay, iPass Money, PXPay Plus, EasyWallet, iCash Pay, Taiwan Pay and Taishin Pay — to access the railway system. Currently, passengers can access the Taipei MRT by buying a single-journey token or using EasyCard,
RSS