Taiwan Tati Cultural and Educational Foundation

Ma’s puppet masters in cross-strait tug-of-war

Paul Lin 林保華

The way Taiwanese politicians have been cozying up to the US as exposed in the WikiLeaks cables is totally understandable. In the past, the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) was only able to survive thanks to US protection. The Democratic Progressive Party (DPP), whose ideals are close to those of the US, only avoided being affected by the strategies of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) by gaining US support. However, it is disappointing to see that the leaked cables seem to indicate that the US has had close interactions with the KMT, but not so much with the DPP.

This is not normal. The KMT does have longstanding historical links with the US, but the DPP’s ideals are more in line with those of the US, so why is there so little interaction between the DPP and the US? This is one of the reasons for some of the misunderstandings between Washington and the DPP during the DPP administration. However, the main reason was that after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, US president George W. Bush’s strategies changed and he had to sacrifice a little bit of Taiwan in order to please China.

‘FT’ source said to be from White House

Taipei Times

The “senior official” in Washington who tried to undermine Democratic Progressive Party Chairperson Tsai Ing-wen’s (蔡英文) presidential campaign last week was almost certainly from the White House and not the US Department of State, analysts in the US say.

The official called the Financial Times to claim that Tsai had left US President Barack Obama’s administration with “distinct concerns” about her ability to maintain stability in the Taiwan Strait.

The resulting story has been seen as particularly damaging to Tsai and a clear attempt to influence Taiwan’s Jan. 14 presidential election in favor of President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九).

No F-16C/Ds in US arms deal

Taipei Times

The administration of US President Barack Obama began the long process of briefing the US Congress on Friday about a new arms sales package for Taiwan that does not include desperately needed F-16C/Ds, sources said.

It is not clear exactly what is included — one source said it amounted to US$4.2 billion worth of materiel — but almost certainly does contain upgrades for the existing fleet of aging F-16A/Bs.

No official announcement has been made, but the full arms package is likely to become public next week when the White House formally sends it to Capitol Hill.

A Taiwanese democracy

Jerome Keating

I enjoyed Gary Rawnsley’s recent piece saying that the Taiwan Academies are a poor strategy and agree with him on most of his points such as the need for soft power, the need to make culture more of a holistic strategy and the ambiguity of competing with China’s Confucius Institutes (“Taiwan Academies a poor solution,” Sept. 14, page 8). However, there is one point that he and most of the world have not yet gotten past to achieve the appropriate paradigm shift and perspective. That is his statement that Taiwan is the first Chinese democracy.

Taiwan was not the first Chinese democracy, Taiwan is the first Taiwanese democracy. This may seem like word play, but behind it lies the continuing misunderstanding and misinterpretation of Taiwanese history in which the island or parts of the island have been ruled by various colonial powers, including the Dutch, Spanish, fleeing Ming diaspora, Manchu Qing, etc. Japan of course it must be noted was the first colonial power to rule and control the whole island of Taiwan.

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