Taiwan Tati Cultural and Educational Foundation

KMT’s past crippling the nation’s free future

Lee Min-yung 李敏勇

What is stopping Taiwan and China from establishing friendly state-to-state relations? Only if Taiwanese keep this question in mind can they avoid being ensnared in the Chinese Nationalist Party’s (KMT) idea of China.

Taiwanese must think about it, as must the Chinese. Relations between Taiwan and China cannot be based solely on the political calculations of the KMT and the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). The issue calls for a global historical perspective and progressive thinking.

Eslite under fire in HK censorship row

Taipei Times

Chinese author Yuan Hongbing poses at the launch of his latest book, Fleeing China, in Taipei in a file photo taken on Nov. 24, 2013.
Photo: CNA

Eslite Bookstore (誠品) in Hong Kong is said to have pulled Tibet-related books off its shelves out of political concerns, an allegation that has touched raw nerves in the territory, which has been venting its fury at Beijing.

Meanwhile, it was revealed yesterday that Taiwan’s Eslite issued an in-company document prohibiting its workers to make comments about the company on social media without approval.

Taiwanese must show China their tenacity

Huang Tzu-wei 黃子維

During the recent visit by China’s Taiwan Affairs Office (TAO) Minister Zhang Zhijun (張志軍) to Taiwan, there were many calls, from both sides of the local political divide, for Zhang to listen carefully to what the public has to say.

Although this was one of those very rare occasions where people with political differences — pan-blue camp and pan-green camp — agreed, it is, frankly, rather naive to place any hopes that the normalization of cross-strait relations will lead to the public’s voice being heard in the heady heights occupied by the powers that be in Beijing, or that this will make any difference.

Japan loosens bonds on its military

Taipei Times

Japan yesterday loosened the bonds on its powerful military, proclaiming the right to go into battle in the defense of its allies, in a highly controversial shift in the nation’s pacifist stance.

After months of political horsetrading and browbeating of opponents, Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe said his Cabinet had formally endorsed a reinterpretation of rules that have banned the use of armed force except in very narrowly defined circumstances.

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