Taiwan Tati Cultural and Educational Foundation

Investor Marc Faber said China’s economy will slow and possibly “crash” within a year as declines in stock and commodity prices signal the nation’s property bubble is set to burst.

The Shanghai Composite Index has failed to regain last year’s high while industrial commodities and shares of Australian resource exporters are acting “heavy,” Faber said. The opening of the World Expo in Shanghai last week is “not a particularly good omen,” he said, citing a property bust and depression that followed the 1873 World Exhibition in Vienna.

How to enhance the international space for Taiwan is a complex issue that needs to be addressed by the international community. Unfortunately, it is not even on the current agenda as we are preoccupied with other issues deemed more critical to international safety and security and therefore of higher priority to policymakers.

However, it is essential that we elevate this issue to a higher level of attention and that we get it right. The main problem, of course, is that after Chiang Kai-shek (蔣介石) was expelled from China in the late 1940s and occupied Taiwan, the US continued to recognize his regime as the legal government of China, and referred to it under the “Republic of China” moniker.