Human rights for all
The preamble to the UN Declaration of Human Rights includes a powerful warning for wayward dictatorships: “Whereas it is essential, if man is not to be compelled to have recourse, as a last resort, to rebellion against tyranny and oppression, that human rights should be protected by the rule of law.”
No UN member state may justify any violation of the final article of the declaration, which states that no “state, group or person [has] any right to engage in any activity or to perform any act aimed at the destruction of any of the rights and freedoms set forth [in the declaration].”
All true countries — whether they are recognized by the rest of the world or not — that seek an alliance of nations for the greatest good must uphold the “Universal Declaration of Human Rights as a common standard of achievement for all peoples and all nations, to the end that every individual and every organ of society, keeping this declaration constantly in mind, shall strive by teaching and education to promote respect for these rights and freedoms, and by progressive measures, national and international, to secure their universal and effective recognition and observance, both among the peoples of member states themselves and among the peoples of territories under their jurisdiction.”
Any governments that believe or preach otherwise, or that connive with specious arguments to convene and cultivate a cabal of barbarians — such as the South-South “Human Rights” Forum — and whose sole aim it is to undermine even one article of the declaration, those nations are themselves in serious error of understanding.
The rights of human beings, because they are human beings, supersede diversity, culture and even malevolent contrarians.
Correct yourselves, and remember, the original Commission on Human Rights consisted of 18 members from various political, cultural and religious backgrounds. These intellects included vice chairman of the committee, Chinese diplomat Chang Pengchung (張彭春).
“Dr Chang was a pluralist and held forth in charming fashion on the proposition that there is more than one kind of ultimate reality... Dr Chang suggested that the secretariat might well spend a few months studying the fundamentals of Confucianism,” commission chairwoman Eleanor Roosevelt said.
So, any government spokesman or dictator who suggests that the Declaration of Human Rights forces a Western perspective on the world’s diversity of cultures, mind history’s peacemakers, such as the esteemed Chang, a Chinese with indomitable human characteristics.
Xue Meng-ren
Taichung
The Cabinet on Nov. 6 approved a NT$10 billion (US$318.4 million) four-year plan to build tourism infrastructure in mountainous areas and the south. Premier Cho Jung-tai (卓榮泰) on Tuesday announced that the Ministry of Transportation and Communications would offer weekday accommodation discounts, birthday specials and other domestic travel incentives beginning next March, aiming to encourage more travel outside the usual weekend and holiday peaks. The government is right to focus on domestic tourism. Although the data appear encouraging on the surface — as total domestic trips are up compared with their pre-COVID-19 pandemic numbers — a closer look tells a different
For more than seven decades, the Chinese Communist Party has claimed to govern Tibet with benevolence and progress. I have seen the truth behind the slogans. I have listened to the silences of monks forbidden to speak of the Dalai Lama, watched the erosion of our language in classrooms, and felt the quiet grief of a people whose prayers are monitored and whose culture is treated as a threat. That is why I will only accept complete independence for Tibet. The so-called “autonomous region” is autonomous in name only. Decisions about religion, education and cultural preservation are made in Beijing, not
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
I recently watched a panel discussion on Taiwan Talks in which the host rightly asked a critical question: Why is the Inter-Parliamentary Alliance on China (IPAC) spearheading a robust global movement to reject China’s ongoing distortion of UN Resolution 2758? While the discussion offered some context, a more penetrating analysis and urgent development was missed. The IPAC action is not merely a political gesture; it is an essential legal and diplomatic countermeasure to China’s escalating and fundamentally baseless campaign to manufacture a claim over Taiwan through the deliberate misinterpretation of a 1971 UN resolution. Since the inauguration of Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) as
RSS