Taiwan Tati Cultural and Educational Foundation

Taiwan and China, Geographically Close but Miles Apart Otherwise

Jerome F. Keating Ph.D.

Taiwan and China are two countries separated by some 100 miles of the Taiwan Strait; they are close but so far apart in so many ways. Take today for example, it is ironic that as Google is leaving China because it no longer wishes to be part of its censorship of news and information, in Taiwan, Portico Media is launching WOW (Watch our World) tv. With WOW tv, Portico presents what it terms a "bouquet" of channels for Taiwan on Chunghwa Telecom's IPTV (Internet Protocol television) MOD (Multimedia on Demand).

KMT proposal reeks of censorship

Taipei Times Editorial

This nation has a long history of legislators either failing in or overstepping their duties in serving as a check on the authorities.

But when three Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) legislators — Alex Tsai (蔡正元), Luo Ming-tsai (羅明才) and Alex Fai (費鴻泰) — proposed a resolution at Monday’s legislative Finance Committee meeting requesting that the Financial Supervisory Commission (FSC) assess whether domestic financial institutions wishing to branch into China endorsed the planned economic cooperation framework agreement (ECFA) with China, they went too far.

Time has come for ‘consensus of 1996’

Jerome Keating

Although President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) regularly revels in this fabrication, the time has come for all Taiwanese to dump the hypocrisy of the “1992 consensus.” The so-called consensus of 1992 is a fraud formulated by former National Security Council secretary-general Su Chi (蘇起).

Allegedly, the purpose was to facilitate cross-strait talks, and even then the People’s Republic of China (PRC) has never publicly agreed to it. Further, the talks that were being “facilitated” at that time were not nation-to-nation talks, but rather party-to-party talks between the Chinese Communist Party and the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT). What was really happening was that both parties were trying to find a way to maintain their respective claims that there was only “one China” which they represented. That idea must be scrapped.

That’s how Su Chi ‘resurfaces’?

Taipei Times Editorial

When National Security Council (NSC) secretary-general Su Chi (蘇起) stepped down last month, he did so because he had become a disgrace. Despite his claim that family and health reasons were behind his decision, we all know that he made it, or was told to do so, because the chorus clamoring for his resignation was getting too loud to ignore.

True, his ham-fisted handling of the US beef issue was the straw that broke the camel’s back, but the reasons he had to go were far more numerous. He had lost the trust of US officials and alienated Ministry of Foreign Affairs staff and Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) members. His murky involvement in the delaying of foreign humanitarian assistance during Typhoon Morakot — ostensibly over cross-strait political considerations — also left a wound that Taiwanese would not forget anytime soon. Many, from ministry officials to specialists on Taiwan used one word to describe Su at the NSC: incompetent.

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