Taiwan Tati Cultural and Educational Foundation

KMT's policy leaves it flat-footed

Chih-yu Shih

The director of China’s Taiwan Affairs Office (TAO), Wang Yi, has given Taiwan the jitters by suggesting the opening up of the Taiwan Strait median line. Such discussions had always been held behind closed doors and bringing it out into the open challenges the Chinese Nationalist Party’s (KMT) policy of avoiding discussion of unification, independence or armed conflict.

The KMT has only itself to blame because it has taken satisfaction in its ability to maintain cross-strait peace since it returned to power last year and it feels it should receive full credit for the international acclaim over the detente across the Taiwan Strait.

Hard to tell friends from enemies

Taipei Times

News that a close relative of a senior military intelligence official is living in a hostile country would be enough to set alarm bells ringing in most countries. Such a revelation would probably lead to the official in question being forced to recall his relative or being disciplined in some way.

Not so in Taiwan.

Lee’s gesture puts spotlight on Ma

Taipei Times

South Korean President Lee Myung-bak’s latest gesture, which keeps one of his campaign promises, puts President Ma Ying-jeou in a bad light.

On Monday, Lee announced that he would donate 33.1 billion won (US$26 million) — more than 80 percent of his total personal wealth — to a scholarship foundation to help “those who really need it.” Prior to this latest donation, in March last year — a month after taking office — Lee donated the entire salary for his five-year presidency to help low-income households amid the global economic downturn.

Xinjiang and Taiwan’s silence

Taipei Times

The Chinese government has its admirers for being able to temper diplomatic difficulties by spreading money through the region and integrating its economic structure with the US and other major economies.

But when it comes to managing regions dominated — now or in the past — in population terms by non-Han peoples, China remains in a political Stone Age in which brutality, torture, terror, unchallenged propaganda, racism, colonialism and media blackouts are essential tools of governance.

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