Dispatch to London
In contrast to David Pendery’s complaint (“Taiwan, I love you,” Aug. 26, page 8) about the thinness of Chris Wood’s farewell trade-show brochure (“On leaving Taiwan: Britain’s role,” Aug. 23, page 8), I prefer to imagine what the outgoing representative’s valedictory dispatch back to London would look like.
Would Wood review the history of Britain’s interaction with Taiwan, recalling imperial subjects such as James Laidlaw Maxwell and George Leslie Mackay? They established one of the most influential civil society institutions, the Presbyterian Church in Taiwan, which celebrated its 150th anniversary last year.
How about their successor Thomas Barclay, who introduced printing and journalism to Formosa? Remarkably, they achieved these not by being a colonizing power, but through compassion and service.
Would the representative call to mind the Commonwealth prisoners of war in the camps of Kim-koe-chioh — then Kinkaseki — and contemplate how wars over natural resources, egged on by nationalism, can sweep ordinary people — fishing folk, young soldiers — into much suffering, and how similar conflicts are again threatening the nearby seas?
Would he celebrate the contribution of Taiwanese-British citizens? The most prominent among them was the late theologian Ng Chiong-hui (Shoki Coe, 黃彰輝), erstwhile director of the World Council of Churches’ Theological Education Fund. He negotiated the cultural distances as well as the tumultuous circumstances during his life, all the while working for the ecumenical movement and maintaining a personal connection between the two nations.
As for current political realities, would Wood reflect on constitutional reforms, drawing comparisons between the two democracies? Can a moat be kept between free trade and deeper integration? Can first-past-the-post disproportionality be ameliorated with top-up seats? Are referendums competing with parliamentary decisionmaking for legitimacy?
Wood said that his office would continue to promote exchanges about “green” issues and sustainability.
So looking to the future, do the security and ecological implications of nuclear power get a mention in the dispatch, with both Hinkley and Gongliao projects stalled?
Sadly, such dispatches can only be released to the public after many decades, if ever.
For the moment, I can only amuse myself with the 1980s correspondence on the disposal of Fort Santo Domingo, in New Taipei City’s Tamsui District (淡水), after it was decommissioned as a British consulate. This has been released and is available on the Web.
Te Khai-su
Helsingfors, Finland
Apart from the first arms sales approval for Taiwan since US President Donald Trump took office, last month also witnessed another milestone for Taiwan-US relations. Trump signed the Taiwan Assurance Implementation Act into law on Tuesday. Its passing without objection in the US Senate underscores how bipartisan US support for Taiwan has evolved. The new law would further help normalize exchanges between Taiwanese and US government officials. We have already seen a flurry of visits to Washington earlier this summer, not only with Minister of Foreign Affairs Lin Chia-lung (林佳龍), but also delegations led by National Security Council Secretary-General Joseph Wu
When the towers of Wang Fuk Court turned into a seven-building inferno on Wednesday last week, killing 128 people, including a firefighter, Hong Kong officials promised investigations, pledged to review regulations and within hours issued a plan to replace bamboo scaffolding with steel. It sounded decisive. It was not. The gestures are about political optics, not accountability. The tragedy was not caused by bamboo or by outdated laws. Flame-retardant netting is already required. Under Hong Kong’s Mandatory Building Inspection Scheme — which requires buildings more than 30 years old to undergo inspection every decade and compulsory repairs — the framework for
Ho Ying-lu (何鷹鷺), a Chinese spouse who was a member of the Chinese Nationalist Party’s (KMT) Central Standing Committee, on Wednesday last week resigned from the KMT, accusing the party of failing to clarify its “one China” policy. In a video released in October, Ho, wearing a T-shirt featuring a portrait of Mao Zedong (毛澤東), said she hoped that Taiwan would “soon return to the embrace of the motherland” and “quickly unify — that is my purpose and my responsibility.” The KMT’s Disciplinary Committee on Nov. 19 announced that Ho had been suspended from her position on the committee, although she was
Two mayors have invited Japanese pop icon Ayumi Hamasaki to perform in their cities after her Shanghai concert was abruptly canceled on Saturday last week, a decision widely interpreted as fallout from the latest political spat between Japan and China. Organizers in Shanghai pulled Hamasaki’s show at the last minute, citing force majeure, a justification that convinced few. The cancelation came shortly after Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi remarked that a Chinese attack on Taiwan could prompt a military response from Tokyo — comments that angered Beijing and triggered a series of retaliatory moves. Hamasaki received an immediate show of support from
RSS