Taiwan Tati Cultural and Educational Foundation

Chen warns DPP on Taipei election

Taipei Times

Former president Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁) yesterday warned the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) not to be too optimistic about its prospects in the Taipei mayoral election in November, saying the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) had yet to launch what he expects to be a “mudslinging campaign.”

In comments published in Neo Formosa Weekly, which resumed publication in electronic format in September last year, Chen said it was unfair to say that the DPP’s candidate for Taipei City mayor, Su Tseng-chang (蘇貞昌), and its candidate for the soon-to-be-renamed Sinbei City, DPP Chairperson Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文), were not committed to their campaigns and had set their sights on the next presidential election in 2012.

Diaoyotais incident a litmus test

Paul Lin 林保華

During the Cultural Revolution, the Chinese took pride in standing alone against the evils of imperialism, revisionism and anti-revolutionary behavior. Caught up in the moment, I fear they let it go to their heads. There was a song, very popular back then, that went something like this: “The wind is blowing from the east, the war drums are starting to beat, who shall cower should we meet? We do not fear the American imperialists, it is they who fear us!” As to who fears whom now, the current dispute over the Diaoyutai Islands (釣魚台) is a useful litmus test.

There are three actors in this drama: The Japanese government, the Chinese government and the Chinese people.

Six decades of made-up politics

J. Michael Cole 寇謐將

Aside from the business and geopolitical imperatives that stem from the international community’s desire to interact with the People’s Republic of China (PRC), another reason why Taiwan remains in political isolation is that its history and domestic conditions are misunderstood, not only globally, but also in China and by many of the foreign correspondents who cover Taiwan.

Routine references to Taiwan and China “splitting” after the Chinese civil war, for example, or the mention that Taiwan and China have been ruled separately for “more than six decades,” are not only misleading — they are wrong. Beyond failing to get the facts right (disunited entities cannot split, and Taiwan was ruled separately for at least 11 decades, counting Japanese rule), these facile insertions tend to reinforce the view that Taiwan and China are one and the same — or rather, that one ought to be subsumed into the other.

MND censured over munitions sales

Taipei Times

The Ministry of National Defense (MND) was reprimanded by the Control Yuan yesterday amid an investigation into whether expired munitions were illegally sold to militant groups in the Middle East and Africa.

Speculation about such sales emerged in January after a report by the Chinese-language Next Magazine that there was evidence more than 1,800 tonnes of ammunition, which had supposedly been destroyed, was re-sold by a government contractor to Romanian officials last year.

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