The friendship visit by US House of Representatives Speaker Nancy Pelosi was greatly appreciated by Taiwanese and government officials alike. It was followed by the visits of hostile warplanes, missiles, drones and submarines from China, which were very much unwelcome by locals.
It seems that China’s ruling elites believe that the intimidation of war, the tyranny of dominance and the threat of destruction can win the hearts and minds of Taiwanese. Their illogical and far-fetched concept is based on, according to Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokeswoman Hua Chunying (華春瑩), the presence of 38 Shandong dumpling restaurants and 67 Shanxi noodle restaurants in Taiwan, which apparently demonstrate the public’s affection for China.
Sarcastically, former US Department of State spokesperson Morgan Ortagus countered that China, with its thousands of KFC restaurants, “has always been part of Kentucky.”
Meanwhile, China’s ambassadors to Australia and France have advocated the “re-education of Taiwanese” — a tacit admission that Xinjiang’s internment camps are used to re-educate Uighurs and other Muslims — showing that Chinese diplomates are no better than propagandists who lack an understanding of democracy and human rights.
Beyond the incompetence of officials who were neither scrutinized nor chosen by the people, there are more shortcomings in an autocratic government that suppresses freedom and deprives people of creativity. Without media freedoms, it is difficult to identify, report and punish corruption. This makes a nation impossible to govern in the long run. Worse, the purge of corruption has always been a tool to consolidate power during regime change, only to add more chaos to a treacherous transfer of power.
Without institutional integrity and independence, justice and social fairness cannot be guaranteed. The lack of check and balance easily lead to fatalities such as those during the COVID-19 pandemic lockdowns — crimes such as police cooperating with gangs, secret societies and “Chinese mafia,” bribery of national and local government officials and insecure bank loans to powerful elites.
Without freedom in enterprise, a planned economy by the central government could enable a society to thrive in a relatively underdeveloped economy. However, it lacks the natural selection process through economic evolution to prevent mistakes from piling up. That means non-performing financial assets will grow, efficiency will be jeopardized and productivity will fall, contributing to a loss in competitive edge. These were clearly revealed in the Soviet Union before its collapse, and evidently emerging in China.
What followed the planned economy can be difficult, if not impossible, for a centralized government to tackle, since it intrinsically lacks the innovation to compete in the marketplace. In a free economy of capitalism, the natural selection of strong enterprise and the “creative destruction” of inferior companies constantly improves efficiency, productivity, quality and even labor relations. While capitalism tends to create wealth disparity, a planned economy has a far worse record of wealth creation. Furthermore, capitalism, with the right social agenda, can in principle reduce wealth inequality, although that remains to be worked out.
China is now dominated by the culture of Mao Zedong (毛澤東): a mix of communism, autocracy, party and worse. The burst of its housing bubble, a run on its banks, unprofitable high-speed rail systems, the debt burden its Belt and Road Initiative and high unemployment, especially among the young people, are clear signs that the days of the Chinese Communist Party are numbered.
James J. Y. Hsu is a retired physics professor.
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,
US President Trump weighed into the state of America’s semiconductor manufacturing when he declared, “They [Taiwan] stole it from us. They took it from us, and I don’t blame them. I give them credit.” At a prior White House event President Trump hosted TSMC chairman C.C. Wei (魏哲家), head of the world’s largest and most advanced chip manufacturer, to announce a commitment to invest US$100 billion in America. The president then shifted his previously critical rhetoric on Taiwan and put off tariffs on its chips. Now we learn that the Trump Administration is conducting a “trade investigation” on semiconductors which
By now, most of Taiwan has heard Taipei Mayor Chiang Wan-an’s (蔣萬安) threats to initiate a vote of no confidence against the Cabinet. His rationale is that the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP)-led government’s investigation into alleged signature forgery in the Chinese Nationalist Party’s (KMT) recall campaign constitutes “political persecution.” I sincerely hope he goes through with it. The opposition currently holds a majority in the Legislative Yuan, so the initiation of a no-confidence motion and its passage should be entirely within reach. If Chiang truly believes that the government is overreaching, abusing its power and targeting political opponents — then
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