In October 1995 the pro-Beijing ideologue and erstwhile leader of the New Party, Chao Shao-kong (
The ROC may have been on Taiwan for 50 years, but it is not of Taiwan. As the British Consul in Tamshui wrote to the Foreign Office in London in late October 1949: "The people are more interested in good government, social order, and justice than in independence as such. It is estimated that about 10 percent would welcome the Communists and another 10 percent would like to have the Japanese back, whereas the remainder don't mind who rules them provided they have good government ... [but] there is hardly [any]one who would wish the continuation of the present [KMT] regime."
The ROC on Taiwan was an alien regime imposed upon an unwilling people.
It needn't have been like this. After all, Taiwan had been surrendered to the Allies and it was seriously debated whether the island's governance should revert to General Douglas MacArthur's Supreme Command Allied Powers in Tokyo pending the settlement of Taiwan's status in a peace treaty. The reversion to SCAP control never happened, of course, nor did the peace treaty settle Taiwan's status. As a result, the exiled ROC regime squatted in Taiwan for more than four decades before legitimizing itself at the polls. During this time it engineered a cultural devastation that may take another four decades to rectify.
Any country that has been colonized knows the Taiwan experience. The suppression of local languages and culture, the imposition of the occupier's history and world view, the anger and frustration of being a politically impotent second-class citizen in your own land. But there is a spiritual corrosion about occupation that breeds resistance and resentment and, if it continues too long, rebellion.
Rebellion can be nasty, though it doesn't have to be -- think of Czechoslovakia in 1989. But it involves a purging of a culture of what has been imposed upon it. Perhaps Taiwan's tragedy is that the KMT has proved too adaptable, and as a result such a purging has never taken place. Yet the falsification of history still thrives in Taiwan, as does the warping of cultural values and an education system which has taught three generations of Taiwanese to revere the semi-alien culture of a foreign country -- despite that culture's now being only a historical memory.
That Taiwan history and culture wasn't a part of school syllabuses until two years ago says much for the cultural dislocation that still exists. The Mainland Affairs Council's regular polls of the people of Taiwan's feelings about national identity -- are you Chinese, Taiwanese both or neither -- are the depressing evidence of a people deeply confused about who they are and where their loyalties lie. For most of them, the ROC is someone else's cherished myth with which they cannot identify. But since Taiwan is a place to be squabbled over by others, how can one nail the flag of one's loyalty to its mast? The emptiness of the colonial experience has been followed by what many see as the hollowness of democratic change, change which somehow has failed to remove the ideologies of the occupiers. The "ROC on Taiwan" set out 50 years ago to alienate the Taiwanese from their own land. To a depressing degree, it has succeeded.
The cancelation this week of President William Lai’s (賴清德) state visit to Eswatini, after the Seychelles, Madagascar and Mauritius revoked overflight permits under Chinese pressure, is one more measure of Taiwan’s shrinking executive diplomatic space. Another channel that deserves attention keeps growing while the first contracts. For several years now, Taipei has been one of Europe’s busiest legislative destinations. Where presidents and foreign ministers cannot land, parliamentarians do — and they do it in rising numbers. The Italian parliament opened the year with its largest bipartisan delegation to Taiwan to date: six Italian deputies and one senator, drawn from six
When Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) sits down with US President Donald Trump in Beijing on Thursday next week, Xi is unlikely to demand a dramatic public betrayal of Taiwan. He does not need to. Beijing’s preferred victory is smaller, quieter and in some ways far more dangerous: a subtle shift in American wording that appears technical, but carries major strategic meaning. The ask is simple: replace the longstanding US formulation that Washington “does not support Taiwan independence” with a harder one — that Washington “opposes” Taiwan independence. One word changes; a deterrence structure built over decades begins to shift.
Recently, Taipei’s streets have been plagued by the bizarre sight of rats running rampant and the city government’s countermeasures have devolved into an anti-intellectual farce. The Taipei Parks and Street Lights Office has attempted to eradicate rats by filling their burrows with polyurethane foam, seeming to believe that rats could not simply dig another path out. Meanwhile, as the nation’s capital slowly deteriorates into a rat hive, the Taipei Department of Environmental Protection has proudly pointed to the increase in the number of poisoned rats reported in February and March as a sign of success. When confronted with public concerns over young
China has long given assurances that it would not interfere in free access to the global commons. As one Ministry of Defense spokesperson put it in 2024, “the Chinese side always respects the freedom of navigation and overflight entitled to countries under international law.” Although these reassurances have always been disingenuous, China’s recent actions display a blatant disregard for these principles. Countries that care about civilian air safety should take note. In April, President Lai Ching-te (賴清德) canceled a planned trip to Eswatini for the 40th anniversary of King Mswati III’s coronation and the 58th anniversary of bilateral diplomatic
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