Warnings of eroding democracy since President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) took office become harder to ignore when people like former political prisoner Peng Ming-min (彭明敏) add their voice to the chorus. Over the past year, the political system has been undermined by a government that meddles in the judiciary, sidelines the legislature and ignores objections to pro-China policies.
For Ma, dealing with China is like looking into Nietzsche’s abyss — except China’s abyss looked back at Ma long and hard from the very start. No country can engage China without its democracy being tarnished by the experience, particularly if that engagement is political in nature.
Ma, who will become Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) chairman at the end of next month, is turning into a diluted version of his Chinese Communist Party counterparts — brooking little dissent while amassing executive and legislative power.
It’s one thing for democracy to lose its luster at home; it’s another when Taiwan rubs elbows with regional bullies and reinforces their regimes.
The effects of Beijing’s “no questions asked” trade policy on countries such as Sudan and Zimbabwe, where trade is detached from human rights and environmental considerations, are well noted. Another country where Chinese economic activity has bolstered despots — if less theatrically — is Myanmar.
Taiwan is following suit with an announcement by the Taiwan External Trade Development Council (TAITRA) that it signed a memorandum of understanding last week with the Union of Myanmar Federation of Chambers of Commerce and Industry to forge closer economic ties.
In its annual report, Amnesty International wrote that the human rights situation in Myanmar continues to deteriorate, with thousands of prisoners of conscience in jail and more than 100 people killed in a crackdown last year. As a result of these abuses and many others, sanctions have been imposed on the military junta from around the civilized world.
The UN Security Council has attempted to issue resolutions criticizing Myanmar, but each has been vetoed by China, whose growing trade relationship with the generals has not only resulted in serious deforestation in the north, but also acts as a lifeline when the junta weathers international opprobrium.
Back in 2003, when the Democratic Progressive Party was in power, Taiwanese businesspeople operating in Myanmar complained that Taipei wasn’t doing enough to foster better relations. Taipei did support trade with Myanmar, as it happens, but its reluctance to develop closer relations with the regime was in part a result of its atrocious human rights record. The junta’s behavior since then has only deteriorated.
Ironically, in 2007 Myanmar’s foreign ministry expressed opposition to Taiwanese efforts to join the UN, saying that it saw Taiwan as an “integral part of China.” Apparently, neither oppression nor insults have deterred the Ma government in its mission to increase trade there, with TAITRA making no secret of the fact that it sees the country as “an ideal place to open labor-intensive production lines because workers are paid only US$30 to US$50 a month on average.”
In completely ignoring human rights, TAITRA has pulled off a convincing impersonation of a Chinese government agency: an opportunistic body that shows utter disregard for the cost of its actions on ordinary people in other lands.
The “Republic of China” government, it seems, is hell-bent on returning to the bad old days of exporting misery to the citizens of pariah states.
Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) has created a dilemma that could soon cause him to be hoisted with his own petard, bringing his leadership of China to an end. His threatening rhetoric over the unification of Taiwan with China, in which he has said, “we are willing to draw blood if necessary,” has placed Xi in a corner. Xi is portrayed as a strong world leader, yet he has created a scenario for himself that most likely would have an unfavorable outcome. With the 20th National Congress of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) scheduled to convene this month, Xi cannot
The 77th session of the UN General Assembly opened on Sept. 13. More than 10 overseas Taiwanese organizations had submitted a petition to the UN secretary-general, protesting that 23.5 million Taiwanese are excluded from representation. As president of the Taiwan United Nations Alliance, I also submitted a letter to the UN, saying that Taiwanese should have the right to be represented under the name of Taiwan. The government has been asking its allies to support Taiwan’s entry into the UN, but under its official name, the Republic of China (ROC). Doing so would have involved the right to represent China, with
I was privileged to meet with many of Taiwan’s leaders and leading thinkers during a study tour visit in August. One theme I heard several times during that trip was that bad relations between the United States and China benefit Taiwan. At first thought, I empathize with the argument. After all, there is a troubling record of America’s leaders negotiating with Beijing over the heads of Taiwan’s leaders. For example, President Franklin Delano Roosevelt returned Taiwan to China after World War II. President Richard Nixon surprised Taiwan leaders with his 1972 trip to China. President Jimmy Carter unilaterally chose to normalize
Washington’s “one China” policy has not changed and the US does not take a position on Taiwan’s sovereignty issue, a US Department of State spokesperson has said. He said that this has been the principle of US policy toward Taiwan since 1979, and the policy has remained in effect. He also said that US Secretary of State Antony Blinken has privately made this clear to Chinese Minister of Foreign Affairs Wang Yi (王毅). The US’ “one China” policy and China’s “one China” principle recognize China as the “representative of China.” The two diverge on the issue of Taiwan: Beijing asserts sovereignty
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