The loss of El Salvador as a diplomatic ally to China has confirmed that Chinese decisionmakers are far from adopting modern values of cooperation, tolerance and mutually beneficial gains, a French specialist in cross-strait relations said on Tuesday.
The way the Chinese decisionmakers deal with Taiwan and the Taiwan issue worldwide “remains entrenched in pre-Second World War [WW2] values of sheer force, brutal diplomacy, territorial conquest and crude national interests,” said Stephane Corcuff, a professor of political science at France’s Lyon University.
In the latest move to squeeze Taiwan, El Salvador on Tuesday switched its recognition from the Republic of China (ROC), a relationship established in 1933, to China, forcing Taiwan to announce the termination of the relationship.
Corcuff said that when China was represented by the ROC at the UN, it helped with the construction of a positive international society by contributing to the drafting of the UN charter and to the International Declaration of Human Rights.
“Today’s China is embodying the return of authoritarianism, the radical dismissal of humanism and the negation of progressive values in international society worldwide,” Corcuff said in an e-mailed reply. “It is inciting a growing number of countries to do so by showing a terrible example.”
The ROC lost its seat at the UN after the body’s General Assembly passed Resolution No. 2758 in 1971 that recognizes the People’s Republic of China (PRC) as the only lawful representative of China to the UN.
Since President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) of the Democratic Progressive Party took office in May 2016, Taiwan has lost five allies — Sao Tome and Principe, Panama, the Dominican Republic, Burkina Faso and El Salvador — which have been lured away by financial incentives offered by China.
Corcuff said that by taking away Taiwan’s diplomatic allies, “China will only further alienate Taiwan’s population.”
“China understands only force. It is not only in great opposition to the values that founded the world system after WW2, but also to its own traditional philosophical and cultural system of wisdom, from which the whole world could benefit,” he said.
“Alas, China is the No. 1 country to reject them and, in place, sends terrible signs in terms of its political values and international views,” he said. “We still hope that China one day will be free from tyranny, terminate these policies and come to terms with Taiwan on a mutually beneficial basis.”
Former president Ma Ying-jeou’s (馬英九) mention of Taiwan’s official name during a meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) on Wednesday was likely a deliberate political play, academics said. “As I see it, it was intentional,” National Chengchi University Graduate Institute of East Asian Studies professor Wang Hsin-hsien (王信賢) said of Ma’s initial use of the “Republic of China” (ROC) to refer to the wider concept of “the Chinese nation.” Ma quickly corrected himself, and his office later described his use of the two similar-sounding yet politically distinct terms as “purely a gaffe.” Given Ma was reading from a script, the supposed slipup
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,
The bodies of two individuals were recovered and three additional bodies were discovered on the Shakadang Trail (砂卡礑) in Taroko National Park, eight days after the devastating earthquake in Hualien County, search-and-rescue personnel said. The rescuers reported that they retrieved the bodies of a man and a girl, suspected to be the father and daughter from the Yu (游) family, 500m from the entrance of the trail on Wednesday. The rescue team added that despite the discovery of the two bodies on Friday last week, they had been unable to retrieve them until Wednesday due to the heavy equipment needed to lift