Tseng Sheng-kuang (曾聖光), a 25-year-old Taiwanese who volunteered to fight in Ukraine, is believed to be the first known soldier from East Asia to die in the conflict in Europe.
Tseng’s wife said he traveled to Ukraine in June, and last contacted her on Oct. 23 before a five-day mission. He was injured in a battle in the eastern province of Luhansk and died en route to a hospital.
She described her husband as “an honest man with a strong sense of justice.”
With the young men in uniform who have gone to their graves, covered with flowers picked by young women to say goodbye to their husbands going to war, the world has witnessed a sad story repeating itself through history. Yet, the bravery and the sacrifice of young men like Tseng keeps the dream of yesterday, the hope of today and the reality of tomorrow.
Tseng is a shining example of someone defending democracy, protecting freedom, fighting for justice, and securing liberties for current and future generations.
As US House of Representative Speaker Nancy Pelosi said: “Democracy is majestic, but it is fragile... Democracy must be forever defended from forces that wish it harm.”
Dictators have no concern for the welfare of humankind. They hold countries hostage, enslave people, break constitutions, and destroy lives and livelihoods. With their twisted life purposes such as empire building, they have caused so much pain and destruction, past and present.
The world must unite to rid itself of dictators. We, the people, are one world, one destiny. This sentiment is apparent in Taiwan as many Taiwanese — including Tseng — have seen the parallels between Taiwan’s resistance against China and Ukraine’s struggle against Russia.
Faced with the constant threat of invasion by China, Taiwanese are particularly sympathetic about Ukrainians fighting for their democracy and independence, and thinking about a similar fate that could befall them. Fighting on the front line to defend democracy and freedom for Ukraine, Tseng is a model world citizen who made the ultimate sacrifice for the ideal of a world free from fear, injustice, suppression, brutality and poverty.
A farewell ceremony to honor Tseng was held in the western Ukrainian city of Lviv, with Tseng’s family members attending. Ukrainian officials delivered moving tributes to his heroism.
Meanwhile, young Russians, out of their conscience, are running away to avoid being sent to fight in Ukraine.
However, to be everywhere is to be nowhere. Staying home to fighting dictatorships ought to be a duty. The same can be said about Chinese and business tycoons who are fleeing China. There is no reason to wait until the dictators send us to kill each other.
When will we ever learn where all the flowers have gone?
James J.Y. Hsu is a retired physics professor.
Taiwan stands at the epicenter of a seismic shift that will determine the Indo-Pacific’s future security architecture. Whether deterrence prevails or collapses will reverberate far beyond the Taiwan Strait, fundamentally reshaping global power dynamics. The stakes could not be higher. Today, Taipei confronts an unprecedented convergence of threats from an increasingly muscular China that has intensified its multidimensional pressure campaign. Beijing’s strategy is comprehensive: military intimidation, diplomatic isolation, economic coercion, and sophisticated influence operations designed to fracture Taiwan’s democratic society from within. This challenge is magnified by Taiwan’s internal political divisions, which extend to fundamental questions about the island’s identity and future
Media said that several pan-blue figures — among them former Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) chairwoman Hung Hsiu-chu (洪秀柱), former KMT legislator Lee De-wei (李德維), former KMT Central Committee member Vincent Hsu (徐正文), New Party Chairman Wu Cheng-tien (吳成典), former New Party legislator Chou chuan (周荃) and New Party Deputy Secretary-General You Chih-pin (游智彬) — yesterday attended the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) military parade commemorating the 80th anniversary of the end of World War II. China’s Xinhua news agency reported that foreign leaders were present alongside Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平), such as Russian President Vladimir Putin, North Korean leader Kim
Taiwan People’s Party (TPP) Chairman Huang Kuo-chang (黃國昌) is expected to be summoned by the Taipei City Police Department after a rally in Taipei on Saturday last week resulted in injuries to eight police officers. The Ministry of the Interior on Sunday said that police had collected evidence of obstruction of public officials and coercion by an estimated 1,000 “disorderly” demonstrators. The rally — led by Huang to mark one year since a raid by Taipei prosecutors on then-TPP chairman and former Taipei mayor Ko Wen-je (柯文哲) — might have contravened the Assembly and Parade Act (集會遊行法), as the organizers had
Minister of Foreign Affairs Lin Chia-lung (林佳龍) last week made a rare visit to the Philippines, which not only deepened bilateral economic ties, but also signaled a diplomatic breakthrough in the face of growing tensions with China. Lin’s trip marks the second-known visit by a Taiwanese foreign minister since Manila and Beijing established diplomatic ties in 1975; then-minister Chang Hsiao-yen (章孝嚴) took a “vacation” in the Philippines in 1997. As Taiwan is one of the Philippines’ top 10 economic partners, Lin visited Manila and other cities to promote the Taiwan-Philippines Economic Corridor, with an eye to connecting it with the Luzon
RSS