After many years of controversy, Taiwan on Monday finally started issuing passports with the word "Taiwan" on the cover. The government's primary goal behind this move is to clearly tell the international community that the passport-holder comes from a high-income, democratic nation -- not from the People's Republic of China, for which Taiwan has long been mistaken. The old version of the passport only has "Republic of China" on the cover -- a name too close to "People's Republic of China." It is no wonder that immigration officers in many countries could not figure out the true origin of the passport-holders. This has resulted in countless problems for Taiwanese people traveling abroad.
However, this wise and reasonable act has long been blindly boycotted by politicians bent on the Great China ideology. It has also come under fire from the pro-unification media, which keep on saying that adding "Taiwan" to passports will raise Beijing's ire and incur retaliatory action. As a result, the process has been jeopardized and frustrated on many occasions. Only now, under the DPP administration, have we completed a process that helps the international community distinguish Taiwanese passports from Chinese ones.
Of course, passports are in the first place an indicator of sovereignty. The government has stated that the ROC's effective jurisdiction covers only Taiwan, Penghu, Kinmen and Matsu, which are represented by "Taiwan." This is in accordance with history as well as the reality. There is nothing sneaky about it. Being residents of Taiwan, we must understand that the KMT's long-running claim that the ROC's territory includes Taiwan is a blatant lie. The ROC Constitution promulgated by Chiang Kai-shek (
We need to take a look back at the earlier basis of that constitution, namely the 1936 draft constitution written by the KMT according to Sun Yat-sen's (
The best explanation of Taiwan's status is to be found in the San Francisco Peace Treaty, which clearly shows that Taiwan does not belong to China, Japan or any other country. In other words, Taiwan's status remains undetermined.
In light of this, former president Lee Teng-hui (李登輝) was correct to claim that the ROC no longer exists. The ROC as defined by that 1936 draft constitution disappeared into the dust of history just like all other Chinese dynasties. The claim that Taiwan belongs to China is a myth created by the KMT government after losing the Chinese Civil War to the Communists and beating a retreat to Taiwan. There is no official document whatsoever to prove this claim.
In light of this, using "Taiwan" to represent Taiwan, Penghu, Kinmen and Matsu is compatible with the nation's status and the international community's understanding. All countries that employ reason and the rule of law should welcome this pragmatic move by the Taiwan government instead of dancing to Beijing's tune.
Speaking at the Asia-Pacific Forward Forum in Taipei, former Singaporean minister for foreign affairs George Yeo (楊榮文) proposed a “Chinese commonwealth” as a potential framework for political integration between Taiwan and China. Yeo said the “status quo” in the Taiwan Strait is unsustainable and that Taiwan should not be “a piece on the chessboard” in a geopolitical game between China and the US. Yeo’s remark is nothing but an ill-intentioned political maneuver that is made by all pro-China politicians in Singapore. Since when does a Southeast Asian nation have the right to stick its nose in where it is not wanted
As China’s economy was meant to drive global economic growth this year, its dramatic slowdown is sounding alarm bells across the world, with economists and experts criticizing Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) for his unwillingness or inability to respond to the nation’s myriad mounting crises. The Wall Street Journal reported that investors have been calling on Beijing to take bolder steps to boost output — especially by promoting consumer spending — but Xi has deep-rooted philosophical objections to Western-style consumption-driven growth, seeing it as wasteful and at odds with his goal of making China a world-leading industrial and technological powerhouse, and
More Taiwanese semiconductor companies, from chip designers to suppliers of equipment and raw materials, are feeling the pinch due to increasing competition from their Chinese peers, who are betting all their resources on developing mature chipmaking technologies in a push for self-sufficiency, as their access to advanced nodes has been affected by US tech curbs. A lack of chip manufacturing technology such as extreme ultraviolet lithography (EUV) would ensure that Chinese companies — Huawei Technology Co in particular — lag behind Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC) and South Korea’s Samsung Electronics Co by five to six years, some analysts have said.
For Xi Jinping (習近平) and the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), the military conquest of Taiwan is an absolute requirement for the CCP’s much more fantastic ambition: control over our solar system. Controlling Taiwan will allow the CCP to dominate the First Island Chain and to better neutralize the Philippines, decreasing the threat to the most important People’s Liberation Army (PLA) Strategic Support Force (SSF) space base, the Wenchang Satellite Launch Center on Hainan Island. Satellite and manned space launches from the Jiuquan and Xichang Satellite Launch Centers regularly pass close to Taiwan, which is also a very serious threat to the PLA,
RSS