The Russian city of Vladivostok lies approximately 45km from the Sino-Russian border on the Sea of Japan. The area was not always Russian territory: It was once the site of a Chinese settlement.
The settlement would later be known as Yongmingcheng (永明城), the “city of eternal light,” during the Yuan Dynasty. That light was extinguished in 1858 when a large area of land was ceded by the Qing Dynasty to the Russian Empire with the signing of the Treaty of Aigun.
The People’s Republic of China founded by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) has never ruled Taiwan. Taiwan was governed by the Qing Dynasty from 1683 to 1895, before it was ceded to Imperial Japan in the Treaty of Shimonoseki in 1895.
Both treaties were signed by a weakened Qing Dynasty during China’s “century of humiliation,” a period that provides the driving force behind Chinese President Xi Jinping’s (習近平) “dream of the rejuvenation of the Chinese nation,” and his obsession with unifying China and Taiwan.
There is no “dream.” Xi’s ambition to annex Taiwan has more to do with realpolitik and geopolitical advantage.
Shimonoseki is well known; Aigun less so. After President William Lai (賴清德) mentioned it during an interview on The View with Catherine Chang (雅琴看世界), asking why the CCP claims Taiwan as its territory, but is willing to leave a large part of what used to be Manchuria in northeast China to Russia, articles began appearing in the Chinese-language media explaining what the Treaty of Aigun was, with some lambasting Lai for what they called a false comparison.
Lai mentioned Aigun to illustrate his point that the CCP’s ambition to annex Taiwan was less about territorial claims than it was about changing the international world order. He did not come up with the comparison on the spur of the moment. It was intentional, to call for more scrutiny on the details and the logic of the CCP’s claims to Taiwan.
This is an indication of how Lai intends to address the CCP’s agenda-driven distortions of history, by more aggressively challenging its narrative and the lies that support it.
Former president Lee Teng-hui (李登輝) sought a reasonable solution to cross-strait relations with his concept of state-to-state relations, but was soundly rebuffed by the CCP. His successor, Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁), was more explicitly pro-independence and branded a “troublemaker” by the administration of then-US president George W. Bush. Former president Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) sought a “diplomatic truce” with the CCP, while former president Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) opted for the improvement of Taiwan’s relations with like-minded countries, and closer affiliation with the US to increase Taiwan’s profile and highlight its value to the international community.
It appears Lai is now saying “you have seen Taiwan’s value, now look more closely and critically at the CCP’s narrative.” That the only figures branding Lai a troublemaker are the CCP and the pan-blue camp is a measure of how things have progressed.
The first distortion to be identified for scrutiny is the CCP’s assertion that UN Resolution 2758 does anything to “settle the issue” of the CCP’s jurisdiction over Taiwan.
US officials have made it clear on several occasions that the resolution does no such thing, and on Aug. 21 the Australian Senate unanimously passed a motion rejecting the misinterpretation of Resolution 2758. It is now Taiwan’s turn.
On Tuesday, Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs Tien Chung-kwang (田中光) said that Taiwan would appeal to the international community to stop China from misrepresenting Resolution 2758 when the UN General Assembly meets later this month. Hopefully, Lai will continue to push for scrutiny to unravel the CCP’s lies.
In an article published in Newsweek on Monday last week, President William Lai (賴清德) challenged China to retake territories it lost to Russia in the 19th century rather than invade Taiwan. “If it is really for the sake of territorial integrity, why doesn’t China take back Russia?” Lai asked, referring to territories lost in 1858 and 1860. The territories once made up the two flanks of northern Manchuria. Once ceded to Russia, they became part of the Russian far east. Claims since then have been made that China and Russia settled the disputes in the 1990s through the 2000s and that “China
Trips to the Kenting Peninsula in Pingtung County have dredged up a lot of public debate and furor, with many complaints about how expensive and unreasonable lodging is. Some people even call it a tourist “butchering ground.” Many local business owners stake claims to beach areas by setting up parasols and driving away people who do not rent them. The managing authority for the area — Kenting National Park — has long ignored the issue. Ultimately, this has affected the willingness of domestic travelers to go there, causing tourist numbers to plummet. In 2008, Taiwan opened the door to Chinese tourists and in
On Tuesday, President William Lai (賴清德) met with a delegation from the Hoover Institution, a think tank based at Stanford University in California, to discuss strengthening US-Taiwan relations and enhancing peace and stability in the region. The delegation was led by James Ellis Jr, co-chair of the institution’s Taiwan in the Indo-Pacific Region project and former commander of the US Strategic Command. It also included former Australian minister for foreign affairs Marise Payne, influential US academics and other former policymakers. Think tank diplomacy is an important component of Taiwan’s efforts to maintain high-level dialogue with other nations with which it does
The arrest in France of Telegram founder and CEO Pavel Durov has brought into sharp focus one of the major conflicts of our age. On one hand, we want privacy in our digital lives, which is why we like the kind of end-to-end encryption Telegram promises. On the other, we want the government to be able to stamp out repugnant online activities — such as child pornography or terrorist plotting. The reality is that we cannot have our cake and eat it, too. Durov last month was charged with complicity in crimes taking place on the app, including distributing child pornography,
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