Taiwan Tati Cultural and Educational Foundation

Chinese dissident Chen Guangcheng laughs during a news conference in Taipei yesterday.
Photo: Pichi Chuang, Reuters

Taiwan’s leaders appear to have a lack of understanding of “the essence of Beijing’s authoritarian regime,” despite Taiwan serving as a role model for democratic development in China, Chinese activist Chen Guangcheng (陳光誠) said in Taipei yesterday.

Chen, who has been living in the US after fleeing China in May last year, told an international press conference on the first full day of his 18-day visit to Taiwan, that President Ma Ying-jeou’s (馬英九) refusal to meet him “reflected the fierce competition between a democracy and an authoritarian regime.”

Taiwan’s fishermen have been awash in a sea of trouble recently, amid their involvement in territorial disputes to the north and south of the nation.

First there was the spat with Japan over fishing rights and sovereignty vis-a-vis the Diaoyutais (釣魚台), which Tokyo calls the Senkakus. That conflict had barely been settled when the shooting of a Taiwanese fisherman occurred near the Philippines, where Taiwan’s claimed exclusive economic zone overlaps with that claimed by Manila.