Two months ago this newspaper warned about China's secret assistance to Taiwan's opposition parties in the Dec. 1 elections -- a story the world heard about in a CNN report on Wednesday. The CNN report pointed out that during closed-door meetings with important KMT personnel, China's officials promised to give the KMT support to ensure the DPP loses the elections -- by reducing the number of seats held by the DPP in the Legislative Yuan.
Even though Taiwan's biggest opposition party has strongly denied the veracity of the CNN report, there are good reasons to believe it is close to the truth. The party's conduct since it lost last year's presidential election has made it appear to be a puppet dancing to China's manipulations to disrupt Taiwan's political stability.
For example, in autumn last year the KMT and other opposition parties abused their legislative majority in an attempt to recall President Chen Shui-bian (
China has made repeated attempts to interfere whenever Taiwan has held elections. China's missile tests in March 1996 and subsequent military practices during Taiwan's elections clearly demonstrate the degree to which it is willing to go to meddle. Thankfully, however, each time Beijing has tried large-scale intimidation tactics, its plans have backfired by triggering widespread among the voters of Taiwan. Parties and candidates whom China strongly disapproved of won with landslides victories, such as former president Lee Teng-hui (
The only way Taiwan can survive living next to such a bully is to firmly stand its ground. In each election the people of Taiwan must continue to tell China, through their votes, that they do not welcome any political interference from the other side of the Strait.
Some people, of course, do vote for pro-Beijing politicians, but they are not representative of the general public and have no chance of becoming a majority. So Beijing is just wasting its money by supporting political dinosaurs who don't seem to realize they are close to extinction. While localized parties which advocate a "Taiwan first" ideology have not yet become a stable legislative majority, they will, given time. It is even possible that this goal of many Taiwanese will become a reality after next week's legislative elections.
This newspaper has said before and will continue to press home the message that the voters of Taiwan must use every opportunity they have to tell Beijing loud and clear that no matter how much money China spends, no matter how much aid it might give opposition parties to help them buy TV and newspaper ads, or how many military exercises it stages, the people of Taiwan should and will continue to say "no" to Beijing.
By choosing candidates who truly advocate the "Taiwan first" ideology, voters will be ensuring that they and their descendents will enjoy the right to vote and to live in a democratic nation.
Concerns that the US might abandon Taiwan are often overstated. While US President Donald Trump’s handling of Ukraine raised unease in Taiwan, it is crucial to recognize that Taiwan is not Ukraine. Under Trump, the US views Ukraine largely as a European problem, whereas the Indo-Pacific region remains its primary geopolitical focus. Taipei holds immense strategic value for Washington and is unlikely to be treated as a bargaining chip in US-China relations. Trump’s vision of “making America great again” would be directly undermined by any move to abandon Taiwan. Despite the rhetoric of “America First,” the Trump administration understands the necessity of
US President Donald Trump’s challenge to domestic American economic-political priorities, and abroad to the global balance of power, are not a threat to the security of Taiwan. Trump’s success can go far to contain the real threat — the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) surge to hegemony — while offering expanded defensive opportunities for Taiwan. In a stunning affirmation of the CCP policy of “forceful reunification,” an obscene euphemism for the invasion of Taiwan and the destruction of its democracy, on March 13, 2024, the People’s Liberation Army’s (PLA) used Chinese social media platforms to show the first-time linkage of three new
If you had a vision of the future where China did not dominate the global car industry, you can kiss those dreams goodbye. That is because US President Donald Trump’s promised 25 percent tariff on auto imports takes an ax to the only bits of the emerging electric vehicle (EV) supply chain that are not already dominated by Beijing. The biggest losers when the levies take effect this week would be Japan and South Korea. They account for one-third of the cars imported into the US, and as much as two-thirds of those imported from outside North America. (Mexico and Canada, while
I have heard people equate the government’s stance on resisting forced unification with China or the conditional reinstatement of the military court system with the rise of the Nazis before World War II. The comparison is absurd. There is no meaningful parallel between the government and Nazi Germany, nor does such a mindset exist within the general public in Taiwan. It is important to remember that the German public bore some responsibility for the horrors of the Holocaust. Post-World War II Germany’s transitional justice efforts were rooted in a national reckoning and introspection. Many Jews were sent to concentration camps not
RSS