Taiwan Tati Cultural and Educational Foundation

Inside Taiwan’s Political Purgatory: Lee Teng-hui, a profile in courage (Part 11 of 20)

Michael Richardson

Lee Teng-hui is Taiwan’s elder statesman having served as President of the Republic of China in-exile from 1988 to 2000. Lee bridged the chasm between the martial law period under the dictatorship of Chiang Ching-kuo to his own elected presidential term.

Lee was a reluctant member of the Kuomintang political party and parted ways after his terms in office ended when the KMT expelled him. Still, Lee’s involvement in the KMT was difficult for his pro-democracy friends. Lee is also a former Communist Party member during his college days in Taiwan.

Government policy will sow further division

Michael Danielsen

Welcome to China” — the greeting I received at the Chinese Nationalist Party’s (KMT) National Policy Foundation in January is symptomatic of current cross-strait developments in Taiwan. The government’s cross-strait package of technical agreements and the forthcoming economic cooperation framework agreement (ECFA) will drain Taiwan’s political energy and divert attention away from other key matters for years to come. This is unavoidable as the government’s policies are out of touch with reality. Indeed, they blindly inflate divisions instead of attempting to unify people in Taiwan’s divided society.

The cross-strait package also diverts attention from efforts to inform others about what Taiwan can bring to the world. Instead, an increasing amount of hard work is now being spent to correct misunderstandings about Taiwan in Europe. For example, an ECFA is believed to be an approach that fits with the EU’s “one China” policy.

Balance of power sees Ma aligned with China

James Wang 王景弘

In 1972, before then-US president Richard Nixon’s visit to China, US national security adviser Henry Kissinger was expounding his “balance of power” theory. This saw the US working with China to keep the Soviet Union in check over the next 15 years. Another 20 years on, the US president has changed tack, teaming up with Russia against China.

This rotation of the triangle of relations between the three powers took place almost 20 years later than Kissinger had predicted, but now we have US President Barack Obama’s administration concentrating once more on US-Russia relations: They recently signed the first nuclear weapons pact between the two countries in two decades. The US has clearly decided its best bet is to lean toward Russia to keep China under control.

ECFA, Another Insult from the People that Gave Taiwan 6-3-3

Jerome F. Keating Ph.D.

Only a complete dunce totally of touch with Taiwan's reality would claim ignorance of Ma Ying-jeou's infamous 6-3-3 promise in all its foolhardy glory. This campaign promise of the 2008 presidential elections came about when Ma's so-called A-Team of economic advisors told him that 6-3-3 was easily achievable and he should have no fear of promising it. It was of course a gross misread of the economic scene from the git-go. Despite all the back-tracking that it would have to wait until a nebulous transformation in 2016 when Ma could comfortably escape as well as attempts to blame it all on outside forces, the reality remains it was bad advice and a total economic misread.

More Articles...