On Thursday, China weighed in on the IMF succession issue, saying the next managing director of the fund should be chosen “based on merit, transparency and fairness.” Beijing has every right to comment, but there must have been more than a few snickers at the idea of Zhongnanhai bosses urging a leadership selection based on a process they have never experienced and would never endorse for themselves.
Even discounting the fact that picking the leadership of international organizations has always been a political and diplomatic horse-trading process, it was not the first time that pronouncements from Beijing have been more of the “do as we say, not as we do” school. Nevertheless, it was another reminder of how far removed the Chinese Communist Party leadership is from the real world.
The problem is that such bland pronouncements (or bold-faced lies) are no longer something just the Chinese have to live with. As Beijing flexes its increasing economic and diplomatic power, more countries must deal with the fact that Chinese laws, business agreements and diplomatic pacts aren’t worth the paper they are written on if Beijing’s rulers (or lower-level municipal powers) change their minds. For Taiwan, the problem hits even closer to home.
Beijing’s spokespeople go on and on about how China’s Constitution and laws protect and serve its people, but it’s the people who suffer from misguided policies — from Mao Zedong’s (毛澤東) disastrous Great Leap Forward to the showcase Three Gorges Dam. The latter is such a mess that the State Council was forced to admit late on Wednesday that while the project was “a great success,” it had caused several major environmental, geological and economic problems. It’s doubtful that the 1.4 million people forced to move to make way for the dam will take much comfort from the council saying their livelihood and environmental protection must be ensured. Barn door, horse, shut, come to mind.
Look how well all those promises about food safety being a priority — made after the melamine-tainted milk powder scandal two years ago — have panned out. This spring has seen one nauseating food scandal after another in China, as the New York Times pointed out on May 8: the drug clenbuterol found in pork, pork soaked in borax so it can be sold as beef; cadmium-contaminated rice; arsenic in soy sauce; bleach in popcorn and mushrooms; an animal antibiotic in bean sprouts; outdated steamed buns recycled for sale and “eggs” made out of chemicals, gelatin and paraffin. That’s on top of the tainted toothpaste and pet food scandals of 2007 that affected consumers in many countries.
You have to wonder why Beijing bothered to ban fish, vegetables and other food items from areas near Japan’s Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear power plant. A slight chance of radioactivity in their diet would seem to be the least of Chinese consumers’ worries.
It’s not that other countries, including Taiwan, don’t have food scandals, but at least those nations have regulatory systems that work, even if they take a while. And ordinary people or activists who try to expose the problems or lobby for remedies aren’t beaten, jailed or killed like they are in China. Just ask Gao Zhisheng (高智晟), Ai Weiwei (艾未未), Chen Guangcheng (陳光誠), Hu Jia (胡佳) or Nobel Peace laureate Liu Xiaobo (劉曉波) — if you can find them.
One would hope that all these horrors would serve as cautionary tales for the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) administration as it rushes to lock Taiwan in China’s embrace or businesspeople as they rush to set up shop in China. Unfortunately, they haven’t.
So to preserve the “transparency and fairness” that Beijing officials talk about, it is up to Taiwanese to protect themselves. One of the benefits of Taiwan’s two-decades-plus democratization process has been the development of increasingly effective consumers’ rights, environmental protection and judicial reform groups. They deserve our support — and they will need it more than ever as Taiwan is dragged closer and closer to China.
The Chinese government on March 29 sent shock waves through the Tibetan Buddhist community by announcing the untimely death of one of its most revered spiritual figures, Hungkar Dorje Rinpoche. His sudden passing in Vietnam raised widespread suspicion and concern among his followers, who demanded an investigation. International human rights organization Human Rights Watch joined their call and urged a thorough investigation into his death, highlighting the potential involvement of the Chinese government. At just 56 years old, Rinpoche was influential not only as a spiritual leader, but also for his steadfast efforts to preserve and promote Tibetan identity and cultural
Former minister of culture Lung Ying-tai (龍應台) has long wielded influence through the power of words. Her articles once served as a moral compass for a society in transition. However, as her April 1 guest article in the New York Times, “The Clock Is Ticking for Taiwan,” makes all too clear, even celebrated prose can mislead when romanticism clouds political judgement. Lung crafts a narrative that is less an analysis of Taiwan’s geopolitical reality than an exercise in wistful nostalgia. As political scientists and international relations academics, we believe it is crucial to correct the misconceptions embedded in her article,
The gutting of Voice of America (VOA) and Radio Free Asia (RFA) by US President Donald Trump’s administration poses a serious threat to the global voice of freedom, particularly for those living under authoritarian regimes such as China. The US — hailed as the model of liberal democracy — has the moral responsibility to uphold the values it champions. In undermining these institutions, the US risks diminishing its “soft power,” a pivotal pillar of its global influence. VOA Tibetan and RFA Tibetan played an enormous role in promoting the strong image of the US in and outside Tibet. On VOA Tibetan,
Sung Chien-liang (宋建樑), the leader of the Chinese Nationalist Party’s (KMT) efforts to recall Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) Legislator Lee Kun-cheng (李坤城), caused a national outrage and drew diplomatic condemnation on Tuesday after he arrived at the New Taipei City District Prosecutors’ Office dressed in a Nazi uniform. Sung performed a Nazi salute and carried a copy of Adolf Hitler’s Mein Kampf as he arrived to be questioned over allegations of signature forgery in the recall petition. The KMT’s response to the incident has shown a striking lack of contrition and decency. Rather than apologizing and distancing itself from Sung’s actions,
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