As Beijing continues to condemn President Chen Shui-bian for (
Reportedly, ROC passports can fetch US$30,000 on the black market -- or as much as US$50,000 if the passport contains a US visa. The cost of applying for a passport is approximately NT$10,000 while getting a visa from the American Institute in Taipei is NT$1,500. No wonder many college students are reportedly selling their passports to earn some quick cash -- it's less painful then selling blood and much faster to boot.
Why are ROC passports in such hot demand? Given Taiwan's high level of economic development and lack of travel restrictions imposed on its citizens, people from Taiwan find it much easier to obtain visas from the US, Japan and European countries than do PRC citizens. In fact, Chinese are the biggest buyers of ROC passports on the black market.
But a passport provides identity documentation not only of the passport holder but also his or her country and government. How can members of the international community continue to slam shut the doors of international organizations in Taiwan's face, when they have long acknowledged Taiwan's sovereign status by accepting ROC passports? How can China continue to turn a blind eye to the existence of Taiwan's sovereign status, when its own people are willing to pay big bucks to pose as citizens of Taiwan with ROC passports purchased in the black market?
If Chinese sovereignty truly extends to Taiwan and that PRC genuinely represents the people of Taiwan, as China's ambassador to the UN, Wang Ingfan (
Sadly, gagged by China's harsh condemnation and pressured by the international community, Taiwan can't even launch another high-profile bid for UN entry this year, further reducing its already thin chance for admission.
Taiwan's difficult predicament is highlighted by the fact that as Switzerland prepares to become a UN member, Taiwan and the Vatican are the only remaining sovereignties who remain outside the world body. Even East Timor was guaranteed admission once it became independent.
The UN General Assembly's Resolution 2758 simply confirmed that the PRC is the representative government of China. It did not address the issue of Taiwan's representation. The truth of the matter is that the 23 million people of Taiwan have no voice in the world body. How much longer will the UN and the international community continue to turn a blind eye to reality?
Monday was the 37th anniversary of former president Chiang Ching-kuo’s (蔣經國) death. Chiang — a son of former president Chiang Kai-shek (蔣介石), who had implemented party-state rule and martial law in Taiwan — has a complicated legacy. Whether one looks at his time in power in a positive or negative light depends very much on who they are, and what their relationship with the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) is. Although toward the end of his life Chiang Ching-kuo lifted martial law and steered Taiwan onto the path of democratization, these changes were forced upon him by internal and external pressures,
Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) caucus whip Fu Kun-chi (傅?萁) has caused havoc with his attempts to overturn the democratic and constitutional order in the legislature. If we look at this devolution from the context of a transition to democracy from authoritarianism in a culturally Chinese sense — that of zhonghua (中華) — then we are playing witness to a servile spirit from a millennia-old form of totalitarianism that is intent on damaging the nation’s hard-won democracy. This servile spirit is ingrained in Chinese culture. About a century ago, Chinese satirist and author Lu Xun (魯迅) saw through the servile nature of
In their New York Times bestseller How Democracies Die, Harvard political scientists Steven Levitsky and Daniel Ziblatt said that democracies today “may die at the hands not of generals but of elected leaders. Many government efforts to subvert democracy are ‘legal,’ in the sense that they are approved by the legislature or accepted by the courts. They may even be portrayed as efforts to improve democracy — making the judiciary more efficient, combating corruption, or cleaning up the electoral process.” Moreover, the two authors observe that those who denounce such legal threats to democracy are often “dismissed as exaggerating or
The National Development Council (NDC) on Wednesday last week launched a six-month “digital nomad visitor visa” program, the Central News Agency (CNA) reported on Monday. The new visa is for foreign nationals from Taiwan’s list of visa-exempt countries who meet financial eligibility criteria and provide proof of work contracts, but it is not clear how it differs from other visitor visas for nationals of those countries, CNA wrote. The NDC last year said that it hoped to attract 100,000 “digital nomads,” according to the report. Interest in working remotely from abroad has significantly increased in recent years following improvements in
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