The recently established pro-independence group Formosa Alliance on Oct. 20 organized a rally in Taipei to call for the right to hold a referendum against China’s plan to annex Taiwan. Despite opposition from the independence-leaning Democratic Progressive Party (DPP), the rally drew more than 120,000 people, with some traveling from as far afield as the US, Canada, Australia and Japan.
The alliance is demanding a referendum be held in April, on the 30th anniversary of the death of publisher and pro-democracy activist Deng Nan-jung (鄭南榕), known internationally for his self-immolation in support of freedom of speech.
Such a referendum would allow Taiwanese to vote for the right to refer to the nation as “Taiwan” instead of “Chinese Taipei,” thereby standing firm on the international stage, declaring itself a self-ruling democracy and laying the pathway to “normalize” itself as a country.
This comes against the backdrop of an increasingly belligerent Chinese Communist Party (CCP), which will not accept any move toward a formalized Taiwanese independence, and have repeatedly stated that in that direction lies war.
What will happen to Taiwan if China invades, or otherwise takes control of the nation?
First, people can take a look at Xinjiang, where hundreds of thousands of people are being held in camps, places China euphemistically calls “humane job-training centers.”
Such behavior has already raised global concerns and attracted the attention of the UN’s Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination.
Let us also remember China’s pledge to Hong Kong back in 1997. When the people of Hong Kong embraced reunification with China, the prevailing belief was that the wheels of governance would continue to turn as usual.
And why not, since in accordance with the 1984 Sino-British Joint Declaration, an international treaty — and thereby deposited with the UN — Hong Kong’s Basic Law guaranteed the implementation of a “one country, two systems” for 50 years.
Fast forward 20 years and look at where Hong Kong is today, political prisoners appear in the headlines once again and yet more disappear without international media attention.
Elsewhere, the eradication of Cantonese from the educational system has been set in motion. What happened to the CCP’s promise? Taiwan should be under no illusion when it comes to China’s assurances.
The CCP’s ferocious commitment to homogenize its population into a single, tightly defined ethnic group, a policy known as Hanification, is wiping out much of China’s heterogeneous cultural heritage.
The banning of any kind of religious ceremony or ritual is one of the policies enforced upon its people.
To create a unified China, a comprehensible “‘motherland,” the idea of a national homogeneity, extending unbroken down the length of Chinese history, has been told again and again, but it is a fiction that enables the cultivation of both nationalism and division among China’s Han and non-Han citizens.
The foundation of Taiwan’s democratic system, the Constitution written and adopted by the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) after its defeat by the CCP in 1949, does not consider Taiwan a nation in its own right, and it needs to be changed.
For those who consider “blood to be thicker than water,” it would be wise to think twice about this particular proverb when contemplating the relationship between Taiwan and China.
Taiwanese must resist the forces of a towering totalitarian governing body that confronts their daily existence.
The call for a referendum, which voices Taiwan’s desire to formally identify as a self-governing nation, is itself a statement of resistance to ever-encroaching Chinese pressure and it should not be met with any protest from its own government.
The DPP should seriously reconsider its attitude to such a referendum; that more than 120,000 people marched in spite of the DPP’s negative stance demonstrates the public’s appetite for a representative voice.
Such a referendum would provide a chance for the continued healthy growth of a democratic environment, with which all Taiwanese can engage.
As US Vice President Mike Pence said in a speech at the Hudson Institute on Oct. 4: “America will always believe that Taiwan’s embrace of democracy shows a better path for all the Chinese people.”
Why should we be robbed of this right to vote and voice the concerns of Taiwanese?
Yen Ching-chang is former minister of finance and the nation’s first ambassador to the WTO.
The EU’s biggest banks have spent years quietly creating a new way to pay that could finally allow customers to ditch their Visa Inc and Mastercard Inc cards — the latest sign that the region is looking to dislodge two of the most valuable financial firms on the planet. Wero, as the project is known, is now rolling out across much of western Europe. Backed by 16 major banks and payment processors including BNP Paribas SA, Deutsche Bank AG and Worldline SA, the platform would eventually allow a German customer to instantly settle up with, say, a hotel in France
On August 6, Ukraine crossed its northeastern border and invaded the Russian region of Kursk. After spending more than two years seeking to oust Russian forces from its own territory, Kiev turned the tables on Moscow. Vladimir Putin seemed thrown off guard. In a televised meeting about the incursion, Putin came across as patently not in control of events. The reasons for the Ukrainian offensive remain unclear. It could be an attempt to wear away at the morale of both Russia’s military and its populace, and to boost morale in Ukraine; to undermine popular and elite confidence in Putin’s rule; to
A traffic accident in Taichung — a city bus on Sept. 22 hit two Tunghai University students on a pedestrian crossing, killing one and injuring the other — has once again brought up the issue of Taiwan being a “living hell for pedestrians” and large vehicle safety to public attention. A deadly traffic accident in Taichung on Dec. 27, 2022, when a city bus hit a foreign national, his Taiwanese wife and their one-year-old son in a stroller on a pedestrian crossing, killing the wife and son, had shocked the public, leading to discussions and traffic law amendments. However, just after the
The international community was shocked when Israel was accused of launching an attack on Lebanon by rigging pagers to explode. Most media reports in Taiwan focused on whether the pagers were produced locally, arousing public concern. However, Taiwanese should also look at the matter from a security and national defense perspective. Lebanon has eschewed technology, partly because of concerns that countries would penetrate its telecommunications networks to steal confidential information or launch cyberattacks. It has largely abandoned smartphones and modern telecommunications systems, replacing them with older and relatively basic communications equipment. However, the incident shows that using older technology alone cannot
RSS