During a recent meeting with foreign guests, President Chen Shui-bian (
Chen also said the referendums are a universal value, a basic human right and a God-given right that cannot be deprived or restricted.
Chen's argument is not empty talk. After all, as early as 1895 China wanted to stop Japan from taking over Taiwan when Li Hongzhang (
China was in fact the first country to come up with the idea of following the precedent set by Western countries and holding a referendum in Taiwan without any legal basis in order to resist the invading Japanese regime. If China could do it back then, why is it now trying to stop a referendum in Taiwan by way of threats?
Japan was successful in its Meiji reformation program and became an Eastern power, and it also gained tacit support from some powerful nations for its intent to annex Taiwan. China lost the Sino-Japanese war in 1895 and Li was unable to resist Japanese pressure. This eventually led to the Shimonoseki Treaty. The Qing court was shocked by the news.
According to a book on Taiwan's history by Chi Chia-lin (
Zhang immediately issued an order to Taiwan's governer Tang Jingsong (
However, because China and Japan already exchanged treaty documents in Shandong Province, China's ceding Taiwan to Japan was irreversible. The idea of a referendum in Taiwan died before it was born. After gaining an understanding with the Chinese government, the authorities in Taiwan started to seek independence and established the short-lived Taiwan Republic.
China wanted to use a referendum to give voice to the Taiwanese people's objection to Japanese rule, thereby seeking international sympathy and garnering the power of international justice. Unfortunately, international justice was no match for the international law of the jungle. Japan still took over Taiwan by force.
Today, the people of Taiwan want to hold referendums and yet they have come under vicious accusations and unreasonable suppression from Beijing. What inspiration can people gain from the past?
The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) has long been expansionist and contemptuous of international law. Under Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平), the CCP regime has become more despotic, coercive and punitive. As part of its strategy to annex Taiwan, Beijing has sought to erase the island democracy’s international identity by bribing countries to sever diplomatic ties with Taipei. One by one, China has peeled away Taiwan’s remaining diplomatic partners, leaving just 12 countries (mostly small developing states) and the Vatican recognizing Taiwan as a sovereign nation. Taiwan’s formal international space has shrunk dramatically. Yet even as Beijing has scored diplomatic successes, its overreach
In her article in Foreign Affairs, “A Perfect Storm for Taiwan in 2026?,” Yun Sun (孫韻), director of the China program at the Stimson Center in Washington, said that the US has grown indifferent to Taiwan, contending that, since it has long been the fear of US intervention — and the Chinese People’s Liberation Army’s (PLA) inability to prevail against US forces — that has deterred China from using force against Taiwan, this perceived indifference from the US could lead China to conclude that a window of opportunity for a Taiwan invasion has opened this year. Most notably, she observes that
For Taiwan, the ongoing US and Israeli strikes on Iranian targets are a warning signal: When a major power stretches the boundaries of self-defense, smaller states feel the tremors first. Taiwan’s security rests on two pillars: US deterrence and the credibility of international law. The first deters coercion from China. The second legitimizes Taiwan’s place in the international community. One is material. The other is moral. Both are indispensable. Under the UN Charter, force is lawful only in response to an armed attack or with UN Security Council authorization. Even pre-emptive self-defense — long debated — requires a demonstrably imminent
Since being re-elected, US President Donald Trump has consistently taken concrete action to counter China and to safeguard the interests of the US and other democratic nations. The attacks on Iran, the earlier capture of deposed of Venezuelan president Nicolas Maduro and efforts to remove Chinese influence from the Panama Canal all demonstrate that, as tensions with Beijing intensify, Washington has adopted a hardline stance aimed at weakening its power. Iran and Venezuela are important allies and major oil suppliers of China, and the US has effectively decapitated both. The US has continuously strengthened its military presence in the Philippines. Japanese Prime
RSS