Taiwan Tati Cultural and Educational Foundation

Briefing the press corps prior to a visit by Chinese President Hu Jintao (胡錦濤) to Washington this week, US National Security Adviser Tom Donilon made extra efforts to avoid mentioning Taiwan, leading some media to conclude that Taiwan perhaps would not be on the agenda.

At a time when Beijing’s political weight is in the ascendancy and that of the US is increasingly in question, the last thing Washington should do is send signals of weakness — and avoiding a topic, in the hope that somehow Beijing would forget, is just that.

In today's world, I know of no investment fund, insurance policies, trust funds or investment brokers that will guarantee their clients a guaranteed 18.5 percent interest income for a year, let alone for life. Yet this is what Taiwan is saddled with from the KMT's one-party state days. It is time for everyone to face up to not only this burden on all the tax-payers of Taiwan, but also to examine carefully how many of the injustices and privileges of the KMT one-party state days still exist in the country.