Taiwan Tati Cultural and Educational Foundation

Bill to restructure US’ Taiwan policy

Taipei Times

U.S. Senator Robert Menendez, a Democrat from New Jersey and chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, speaks during a hearing in Washington, April 26, 2022.
Photo: Reuters

A bill described by its sponsors as “the most comprehensive restructuring of US policy toward Taiwan since the Taiwan Relations Act of 1979,” was expected to receive bipartisan support at a committee hearing yesterday, one of its initiators said on Tuesday.

“I think we will have a strong bipartisan vote tomorrow that we’re working on,” US Senator Bob Menendez said a day before the US Senate Foreign Relations Committee, which Menendez chairs, was to mark up the draft Taiwan policy act (TPA).

Realizing a ‘Taiwanese standpoint’

Lee Min-yung 李敏勇

The end of World War II in 1945 marked the end of Japan’s colonial rule over Taiwan. Instead of becoming independent as the Koreas did, Taiwan was occupied by the Republic of China (ROC).

At first, it was ruled in a quasi-colonial fashion by the Taiwan provincial administration of then-chief executive Chen Yi (陳儀). The Taiwan Provincial Government was established in 1947, following the 228 Incident. In 1949, the ROC was ousted from China by the People’s Republic of China (PRC), creating a situation in which the rival Chinas of the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) and the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) faced each other across the Taiwan Strait. The two parties maintained a “Chinese standpoint” with regard to Taiwan. In historical terms, this was a tragic beginning to a complex situation that has dragged on for more than 70 years.

Speech hypocrisy in CTiTV lawsuit

Taipei Times Editorials

CTiTV last week once again injected itself into the news cycle by suing United Microelectronics Corp founder Robert Tsao (曹興誠) for defamation.

The suit references a tussle between Tsao and one of the network’s reporters during the mogul’s news conference on Sept. 1. Formerly sympathetic to China, Tsao has emerged as Beijing’s No. 1 critic, holding flashy media events sporting bulletproof vests and helmets to speak his unfiltered thoughts about the Chinese threat. The latest news conference was held to announce his NT$1 billion (US$32.39 million) donation to train a 3.3 million-strong militia, as well as the resumption of his Taiwanese citizenship, which he had forfeited in 2011 for Singaporean nationality.

China’s phony war against Taiwan and its real intention

Miles Yu

Since the founding of the People’s Republic of China, the Chinese Communist Party has been waging something of a holy war against the people and government of Taiwan. But the CCP’s holy war is also a phony war, because it’s waged against an imaginary opponent with illusionary justifications, much like Don Quixote and his assault on windmills.

This phony war has several phony premises. Contrary to the Party’s claims, Taiwan has never been a part of the People’s Republic of China. Since 1949, not an inch of today’s Taiwanese territory has ever been under the administrative or sovereign control of the CCP regime.

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